Se­nior coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj yes­ter­day charged that the Gov­ern­ment had de­cid­ed to sell all the as­sets of CL Fi­nan­cial and its sub­sidiaries, in­clud­ing Cli­co, with the ex­cep­tion of two com­pa­nies. In a let­ter yes­ter­day to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Ma­haraj said a val­u­a­tion of the as­sets for the pur­pose of the sale was done by a well-known firm of ac­coun­tants. Some 70 com­pa­nies are tar­get­ed for sale, ac­cord­ing to Ma­haraj's let­ter to the Prime Min­is­ter, which stat­ed that this in­for­ma­tion had come from his firm's clients. "Our clients have pro­vid­ed to us in­for­ma­tion that a de­ci­sion was tak­en to sell all the as­sets of CL Fi­nan­cial and its sub­sidiaries in­clud­ing Cli­co with the ex­cep­tion of two com­pa­nies," he wrote.

A val­u­a­tion of the as­sets for the pur­pose of the sale was done by a well-known firm of ac­coun­tants. Over 70 com­pa­nies are tar­get­ed for sale. Notwith­stand­ing this the Gov­ern­ment, through the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, is al­leged to have made a pub­lic state­ment in which he de­nies the as­sets of the CL Fi­nan­cial Group are tar­get­ed for sale. He brand­ed re­cent state­ments made to that ef­fect as ru­mours. Ma­haraj wrote: "We are in­struct­ed that when the MOU was signed be­tween CL Fi­nan­cial and the Gov­ern­ment the es­ti­mat­ed val­ue of the as­sets of CL Fi­nan­cial Group was ap­prox­i­mate­ly $100 bil­lion.

"This would sup­port the con­tention of the pol­i­cy­hold­ers that there is enough val­ue in the as­sets or po­ten­tial val­ue of the as­sets to pay the sum due on their poli­cies. "Madam Prime Min­is­ter, hav­ing re­gard to the im­pact such a sale of as­sets would have on the econ­o­my of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the le­gal rights of the pol­i­cy­hold­ers and the prin­ci­ples of clean gov­ern­ment we call up­on you to give to us and to the coun­try as a mat­ter of ur­gency the fol­low­ing:

• "Was a val­u­a­tion of the as­sets of CL Fi­nan­cial re­cent­ly com­mis­sioned to be done by a firm of ac­coun­tants and has that ex­er­cise been com­plet­ed?

• "Is the Gov­ern­ment aware of the con­tents of that val­u­a­tion?

• "Is the Gov­ern­ment aware that with the ex­cep­tion of two of the com­pa­nies, all the oth­er com­pa­nies owned by the CL Fi­nan­cial Group have been tar­get­ed for sale?

• "Is the Gov­ern­ment aware that steps have been tak­en for the sale of those as­sets and that some of the pur­chasers have al­ready been tar­get­ed and/or iden­ti­fied?

• "Could the Gov­ern­ment give the process which is be­ing em­ployed or which it in­tends to em­ploy to iden­ti­fy the pur­chasers of these as­sets and to en­sure that the as­sets are not sold at a gross un­der­val­ue?"

Ac­cord­ing to Ma­haraj, the an­swers to these ques­tions by the Prime Min­is­ter and the Gov­ern­ment are very im­por­tant "for the Gov­ern­ment to com­ply with the re­quire­ments for any such sale of as­sets to be open and trans­par­ent and not sub­ver­sive to the pub­lic in­ter­est." Ma­haraj stat­ed that it was his view that the law al­so re­quired the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide to the pub­lic the list of as­sets of the CL Fi­nan­cial Group and the val­u­a­tion which was be­ing re­lied up­on by the Gov­ern­ment for the dis­po­si­tion of the said as­sets. Ma­haraj ac­cused the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion of "ar­bi­trar­i­ly" de­cid­ing not to ho­n­our the pay­ment of that debt owed to Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers un­til af­ter 20 years elapsed from Sep­tem­ber 2010.

In the in­ter­im, ac­cord­ing to Ma­haraj, the Gov­ern­ment con­trols the as­sets and can sell the as­sets. In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the con­tents of Ma­haraj let­ter, Cli­co chair­man Ger­ald Yet­ming told the T&T Guardian that no new de­ci­sion has been tak­en to sell any CL Fi­nan­cial as­sets. He said the on­ly CL Fi­nan­cial as­sets that are be­ing sold are the three com­pa­nies that for­mer Cli­co chair­man, Lawrence Duprey agreed to sell in June 2009. Those three com­pa­nies are Ch­aguara­mas ship­yard CL Ma­rine, oil com­pa­ny Primera and ethanol trad­er Bulk Traders.