Yvonne Ba­boolal

For­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Co-op­er­a­tives Beemal Ram­roop re­ceived a let­ter from the Hin­du Cred­it Union (HCU) that a mala (a flower gar­land) of a burn­ing tyre will be put around him and he will be tied to a tree and burned at the stake. Ram­roop re­port­ed the mat­ter to then act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice James Philbert and was is­sued a li­censed firearm be­cause of the threat.

And any time he had to meet with the HCU he had po­lice pro­tec­tion, he said. That was re­vealed yes­ter­day at the Cli­co/HCU Com­mis­sion of In­quiry at the Win­sure Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, by an­oth­er for­mer com­mis­sion­er of co-op­er­a­tives, Charles Mitchell.

Mitchell, giv­ing ev­i­dence, brand­ed for­mer HCU pres­i­dent Har­ry Harnar­ine "a com­pul­sive liar, a stranger to the truth and a con­coc­ter of ter­mi­nal log­i­cal in­ex­ac­ti­tude." With Harnar­ine lis­ten­ing in the room, Mitchell said he al­so re­ceived what was tan­ta­mout to a death threat from the for­mer HCU pres­i­dent.

"I had a meet­ing with Harnar­ine at my of­fice and he told me he will see me dead and at­tend my fu­ner­al," Mitchell said, dur­ing cross-ex­am­i­na­tion by his at­tor­ney, Regi­nald Ar­mour. Mitchell al­so told how a meet­ing he called with the HCU mem­ber­ship be­came volatile be­cause a group of Harnar­ine mem­bers shout­ed so loud­ly they drowned out the loud­speak­ers.

He said he arranged the meet­ing at the HCU's Con­ven­tion Cen­tre in Freeport to in­form mem­bers of the re­sults of the Ernst & Young au­dit. Mitchell was ac­com­pa­nied by liq­uida­tor Dave Ram­per­sad and Maria Daniel, of Ernst & Young, and as he reached the podi­um about 50 mem­bers start­ed to shout: "No meet­ing! We want Har­ry!"

"They were shout­ing so loud they drowned out the PA sys­tem I was speak­ing on," Mitchell said. He asked an as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dent of po­lice from the Ri­ot Squad, who was present, to take the loud­mouths out­side and he said."he can­not do that. It was a volatile sit­u­a­tion that they will wear out and qui­et down."

Mem­bers of the group tore up the Ernst & Young re­port and threw it in the air, Mitchell said. He fur­ther re­called be­ing "cussed up­side down" by Harnar­ine on one oc­ca­sion. "There wasn't any ob­scene lan­guage this poor lit­tle ears didn't hear that day. He cussed me up­side down," he told the in­quiry.

Mitchell brand­ed Harnar­ine "a com­pul­sive liar who be­lieves in his lies" af­ter then for­mer HCU boss, in his wit­ness state­ment which was sub­mit­ted yes­ter­day, claimed Mitchell used ex­ple­tives and vi­tu­per­a­tive lan­guage against him. Mitchell, who held the post of com­mis­sion­er of co-op­er­a­tives from Au­gust 2007 to Jan­u­ary 2009, said the threats were against him be­cause he arranged the au­dit by Ernst & Young in­to the HCU af­ter the cred­it union went in­to liq­ui­da­tion.

Ram­roop was his im­me­di­ate pre­de­ces­sor. Liq­uida­tor Dave Ram­per­sad, dur­ing cross-ex­am­i­na­tion by com­mis­sion coun­sel Ed­win Glas­gow, re­called when his at­tor­ney's ve­hi­cle in which he was trav­el­ling was van­dalised and the tyres slashed by a mob of HCU sup­port­ers.

"The po­lice ad­vised me to dri­ve away rather than face what­ev­er threat," Ram­per­sad said. Glas­gow de­scribed Harnar­ine to­day as a "re­formed paci­fist" who now has cor­dial re­la­tions with every­body. Ram­per­sad agreed, say­ing he, too, has cor­dial re­la­tions with Harnar­ine.

Mitchell said his role as com­mis­sion­er of co-op­er­a­tives was like that of a qua­si-judge and Harnar­ine used to get an­gry when­ev­er he act­ed im­par­tial­ly in the HCU is­sue. He said HCU mem­bers tried to in­ter­fere with the Ernst & Young in­quiry and, at one point, he and his staff were told they would not be giv­en fur­ther ac­cess to the cred­it union's head­quar­ters to ex­am­ine their files.

Even­tu­al­ly, Ernst & Young pro­duced a re­port which Mitchell said he re­ferred to the Fraud Squad for in­ves­ti­ga­tion in Sep­tem­ber 2008. Then act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Philbert paid a vis­it to his of­fice and took in­for­ma­tion but noth­ing fur­ther came out of the mat­ter, the in­quiry heard.

He fur­ther al­leged that an­oth­er for­mer com­mis­sion­er of co-op­er­a­tives, Kei­th Ma­haraj, who held the po­si­tion from April 1995 to Jan­u­ary 2006, was a child­hood friend of Harnar­ine from Rio Claro and sought to over­turn the de­ci­sion to do an in­quiry in­to the HCU and oth­er de­ci­sions made with re­spect to the the cred­it union.

Ap­proval was grant­ed by the com­mis­sion­er of co-op­er­a­tives for the HCU to in­vest in nine sub­sidiaries but the cred­it union end­ed up with 28, Mitchell said. He said the for­ma­tion of the sub­sidiaries was a ve­hi­cle to siphon mon­ey from the cred­it union.