PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Chair­man of the Cli­co Pol­i­cy­hold­ers Group (CPG) Pe­ter Per­me­ll says while the rev­e­la­tion of the re­port of the Col­man Com­mis­sion of En­quiry to the pub­lic is wel­come, it un­der­lines the in­jus­tice done to Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers.

The re­port was laid in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, al­most a decade af­ter the com­mis­sion sub­mit­ted it in June 2016.

“Why on­ly to­day, al­most ten years af­ter, we are now learn­ing what was con­tained in that re­port? So what jumps out of me, apart from the fact that this was not on­ly a trav­es­ty of jus­tice, but a scan­dal of epic pro­por­tions, is the fact that the re­al sto­ry, or one of the sto­ries that clear­ly will be com­ing out of this now, is why did it take so long for the DPP to do any­thing? Be­cause as far as I’m aware, it did. No one has been charged,” said Per­me­ll.

This trav­es­ty of jus­tice Per­me­ll said is com­pound­ed by the lack of prop­er com­pen­sa­tion for Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers who lost sig­nif­i­cant­ly as a re­sult.

“I don’t un­der­stand why every­body else is on­ly talk­ing about pay­ing at­tor­neys, be­cause the peo­ple who made mon­ey off of this whole fi­as­co is re­al­ly the lawyers. They made a tonne load of mon­ey. The ac­coun­tants, the foren­sic ac­coun­tants, all the con­sul­tants that they had work­ing on this is­sue, they made a tonne load of mon­ey. The peo­ple who are suf­fer­ing, who didn’t make any mon­ey, who are still owed mon­ey, are the pol­i­cy­hold­ers,” said Per­me­ll, who not­ed that it was stat­ed on record in the Hansard that Cli­co had re­paid the state for its part in the bailout.

He said,”That is the trav­es­ty in this whole thing. You are in a sit­u­a­tion now where no­body has been charged with any­thing at all. So they are walk­ing around scot-free, look­ing you in your face and say­ing hi and hel­lo and how are you go­ing. And the pol­i­cy­hold­ers’ mon­ey is jump­ing up in steel band, you see? It’s not be­ing paid to them.”

Per­me­ll is hope­ful this will spur ac­tion to­wards the re­pay­ment of pol­i­cy­hold­ers.