For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter, Karen Nunez-Tesheira, promised a $71 mil­lion bailout of the Hin­du Cred­it Union (HCU) and to ful­ly as­sist the in­sti­tu­tion but the plan fell through, the Cli­co/HCU com­mis­sion of en­quiry heard yes­ter­day.

The bailout would have come in the form of the gov­ern­ment's pur­chase of two of the HCU's Ch­agua­nas prop­er­ties. Mak­ing the dis­clo­sure was Vish­nu Dhan­paul, al­ter­nate ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the World Bank and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Fi­nance. Dhan­paul was al­so per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the min­istry of fi­nance in 1987. Tes­ti­fy­ing in the en­quiry at the Win­sure Build­ing on Rich­mond Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Dhan­paul said HCU pres­i­dent, Har­ry Harnar­ine, re­quest­ed the $71 mil­lion from the fi­nance min­istry when the cred­it union col­lapsed.\

On April 17, 2008, the min­is­ter held a meet­ing with Harnar­ine and oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the HCU, Dhan­paul said. He was present at the meet­ing, he said. Dhan­paul said there was no agree­ment by the gov­ern­ment to pur­chase the prop­er­ties be­cause every piece of HCU re­al es­tate was un­debt­ed. He said the find­ings were made af­ter a le­gal team was ap­point­ed by the min­istry to con­duct search­es of two of the HCU's prop­er­ties at Ch­agua­nas which were of­fered for sale to the Gov­ern­ment. "The min­is­ter told me that Har­ry was be­ing less than truth­ful," he said. Harnar­ine's at­tor­ney, Fa­reed Schoon, asked: "The min­is­ter promised to help and re­neged on the promise?" Dhan­paul dis­agreed.

He said it was the HCU that came to the min­istry ask­ing that a line of cred­it be ex­tend­ed to the cred­it union. "The min­istry does not ex­tend lines of cred­it to pri­vate en­ti­ties. It makes no sense," he said. Asked if the min­istry had ex­tend­ed help to the HCU it would have halt­ed its fi­nan­cial run and pro­vid­ed the im­pe­tus it need­ed to re­vive, Dhan­paul said he had no idea. He agreed, how­ev­er, that the min­istry had en­tered in­to ne­go­ti­a­tions with the HCU to find out how it could as­sist. The min­is­ter had cer­tain con­di­tions the HCU must ful­fil in or­der to get help, Dhan­paul said. Con­di­tions in­clud­ed car­ry­ing out an in­de­pen­dent au­dit and send­ing all in­debt­ed prop­er­ties to the min­istry, he said. Dhan­paul agreed with Scoon it was the min­istry of labour and not the min­istry of fi­nance that had over­sight of the op­er­a­tions of cred­it unions. How­ev­er, any­thing that had a con­ta­gion ef­fect on the econ­o­my was of con­cern to the fi­nance min­istry, he rea­soned. Af­ter the Ernst & Young au­dit, the min­istry con­clud­ed that the HCU was in­sol­vent and dis­cus­sions with the cred­it union were ter­mi­nat­ed, Dhan­paul said.