Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL) chair­man Yash­mid Kara­math has de­fend­ed the in­de­pen­dence and ac­count­abil­i­ty of the re­gion­al bank­ing group’s board, de­clar­ing that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for gov­er­nance rests with di­rec­tors, while the run­ning of the busi­ness must re­main with ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment.

In an ad­ver­tise­ment pub­lished in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Guardian yes­ter­day, Kara­math sought to ad­dress pub­lic scruti­ny sur­round­ing re­cent changes to RFHL’s lead­er­ship and board com­po­si­tion, reaf­firm­ing the group’s com­mit­ment to in­sti­tu­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty, in­de­pen­dent over­sight and con­ti­nu­ity.

His in­ter­ven­tion comes af­ter RFHL re­versed its pub­licly an­nounced suc­ces­sion plan, re­plac­ing Richard Sam­my with Karen Yip Chuck as the next group pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, less than nine months af­ter nam­ing Sam­my to suc­ceed Nigel Bap­tiste.

Sam­my, who was des­ig­nat­ed to the po­si­tion on Jan­u­ary 30, 2026, was sched­uled to as­sume the lead­er­ship role on Jan­u­ary 1, 2027. How­ev­er, he left the in­sti­tu­tion on Oc­to­ber 14, more than two months be­fore the planned tran­si­tion.

The board, chaired by Kara­math, sub­se­quent­ly ap­point­ed Yip Chuck, but the group has not pub­licly ex­plained the cir­cum­stances be­hind its de­ci­sion to aban­don the orig­i­nal suc­ces­sion arrange­ment.

The change al­so at­tract­ed po­lit­i­cal at­ten­tion amid re­ports that fi­nanciers of the rul­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) had lob­bied for Yip Chuck’s ap­point­ment. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo dis­missed sug­ges­tions of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, de­scrib­ing claims that UNC fi­nanciers had favoured her over Sam­my as “ab­solute and com­plete rub­bish”.

Al­though Kara­math did not re­fer to ei­ther ex­ec­u­tive by name in the ad­ver­tise­ment, he ac­knowl­edged that the re­cent lead­er­ship and board changes had at­tract­ed pub­lic com­men­tary and scruti­ny.

He recog­nised the le­git­i­mate in­ter­est of share­hold­ers, cus­tomers, em­ploy­ees, reg­u­la­tors and oth­er stake­hold­ers in the gov­er­nance and fu­ture di­rec­tion of an in­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic’s sig­nif­i­cance.

“It is there­fore im­por­tant to pro­vide clar­i­ty and reaf­firm the Board’s com­mit­ment to the sta­bil­i­ty, in­de­pen­dence and con­tin­ued suc­cess of the Group,” he wrote.

Kara­math used the ad­ver­tise­ment to em­pha­sise RFHL’s fi­nan­cial per­for­mance, re­port­ing that the group record­ed prof­it at­trib­ut­able to eq­ui­ty hold­ers of $2.3 bil­lion for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2026, an in­crease of 5.8 per cent over the pre­vi­ous year.

To­tal as­sets rose to $135.5 bil­lion, sup­port­ed by what he de­scribed as healthy cap­i­tal and liq­uid­i­ty po­si­tions, while div­i­dends to share­hold­ers in­creased by five per cent.

He main­tained that the re­sults demon­strat­ed the re­silience of the group’s busi­ness mod­el, the strength of its re­gion­al op­er­a­tions and the ex­e­cu­tion of its strat­e­gy.

Kara­math placed par­tic­u­lar em­pha­sis on the board’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to act in the best in­ter­ests of RFHL and its share­hold­ers.

He out­lined the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing con­ti­nu­ity, ex­pe­ri­ence and an ap­pro­pri­ate bal­ance of com­pe­ten­cies to gov­ern a com­plex re­gion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion.

The board, he added, was com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that its col­lec­tive skills, in­de­pen­dent judge­ment and over­sight ca­pa­bil­i­ties re­mained ap­pro­pri­ate to the group’s size, com­plex­i­ty and strate­gic am­bi­tions.

Kara­math al­so ad­dressed the dis­tinc­tion be­tween the board’s gov­er­nance re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment’s op­er­a­tional re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

“The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for gov­er­nance rests with the Board,” he wrote, adding that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for lead­ing the busi­ness and de­liv­er­ing strate­gic ob­jec­tives rests with ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment.

He main­tained that the dis­tinc­tion was im­por­tant and would be pre­served.

Kara­math al­so pledged that gov­er­nance mat­ters would be ad­dressed through the ap­pro­pri­ate share­hold­er and reg­u­la­to­ry chan­nels, stress­ing the im­por­tance of trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

He out­lined RFHL’s strate­gic pri­or­i­ties as sus­tain­able growth, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence, op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence and the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of its re­gion­al busi­ness­es.

“We re­main com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing its in­de­pen­dence, strength­en­ing its per­for­mance and cre­at­ing en­dur­ing val­ue for all stake­hold­ers,” he wrote.

He closed with a de­c­la­ra­tion of con­fi­dence in the group’s lead­er­ship, strat­e­gy and fu­ture, as scruti­ny con­tin­ues over the board’s han­dling of the suc­ces­sion process.