In de­liv­er­ing the 2025 bud­get, on Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024, for­mer min­is­ter of fi­nance, Colm Im­bert, iden­ti­fied five spe­cial projects which he said have the abil­i­ty “to gen­er­ate much-need­ed rev­enue and cre­ate new jobs, to di­vest state as­sets that are bet­ter man­aged by the pri­vate sec­tor, to en­cour­age di­rect for­eign in­vest­ment and lo­cal in­vest­ment, es­pe­cial­ly in the tourism sec­tor.”

The five projects iden­ti­fied by Mr Im­bert were:

* The sale or lease of the Magde­le­na ho­tel in To­ba­go;

* A re­quest for pro­pos­als to de­vel­op a new five-star in­ter­na­tion­al­ly brand­ed ho­tel on the state-owned Buc­coo Es­tate in To­ba­go;

* A re­quest for pro­pos­als to de­vel­op a yacht­ing ma­ri­na at Low­lands in To­ba­go, just south­west of the Pe­tit Trou La­goon, on lands cur­rent­ly be­ing ac­quired by the Gov­ern­ment from the Plan­ta­tions Es­tate;

* The sale of the Gov­ern­ment’s 49 per cent share­hold­ing in Cli­co; and

* The sale or lease the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

Of Mr. Im­bert’s five pro­pos­als, the on­ly one that has gained trac­tion with the ad­min­is­tra­tion head­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is the re­fin­ery, as a com­mit­tee was es­tab­lished in Ju­ly to de­ter­mine the fea­si­bil­i­ty of re­open­ing it. The com­mit­tee, head­ed by for­mer Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Kevin Ram­nar­ine, be­gan work on Au­gust 1 and is man­dat­ed to de­liv­er its re­port with­in four months.

Hope­ful­ly, Mon­day’s bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance will ad­dress the three is­sues di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to To­ba­go, which are the fu­ture of the Magde­le­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort, the prospect of a new ho­tel in Buc­coo, and the new ma­ri­na at Low­lands. If the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion pro­ceeds with these three projects, To­ba­go could be­come a new fo­cus of con­struc­tion jobs, which could en­able a fu­ture spike in tourist ar­rivals in align­ment with the soon-to-be-com­mis­sioned in­ter­na­tion­al air­port in To­ba­go.

The two To­ba­go MPs should be press­ing the Gov­ern­ment for ac­tion on these and oth­er projects on the is­land.

And, in any event, the 2026 bud­get should out­line the ar­eas in which the ad­min­is­tra­tion in­tends to fo­cus its cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture re­sources, the projects for which it will seek for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment, or lo­cal in­vest­ment, and its pro­pos­als for Pub­lic Pri­vate Part­ner­ships, which should in­clude the Port of Port-of-Spain and the dry dock in Ch­aguara­mas, which was ac­quired from CL Fi­nan­cial (in liq­ui­da­tion) in 2020.

CL Fi­nan­cial’s fu­ture

Mr Dav­e­dranath Tan­coo needs to make a state­ment, ei­ther dur­ing his bud­get speech or in his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate, on the ex­tent to which the Gov­ern­ment is pur­su­ing CL Fi­nan­cial (in liq­ui­da­tion) for the bal­ance of monies owed to tax­pay­ers.

In his pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2025 bud­get, Mr Im­bert spoke about a false nar­ra­tive that had been cir­cu­lat­ing that the Gov­ern­ment has been re­paid all that it is due for the 2009/2010 Cli­co bailout.

“This is en­tire­ly un­true, since the Cli­co bailout in­volved not on­ly the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny, but it al­so in­volved the bailout of CL Fi­nan­cial and its sub­sidiaries, as well as com­pa­nies like Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank, British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance, and so on. Far from be­ing ful­ly re­paid, the Gov­ern­ment is still owed at least a fur­ther $13 bil­lion in tax­pay­ers’ funds in­ject­ed in­to CL Fi­nan­cial and the oth­er re­lat­ed com­pa­nies,” said the pre­vi­ous min­is­ter of fi­nance. (Just to clar­i­fy Mr Im­bert’s com­ments, there is no doubt that Cli­co re­paid ALL of the $18.1 bil­lion in State funds that were used to bail out the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny, in­clud­ing the pref­er­ence shares).

It be­hoves Mr Tan­coo to out­line the steps his ad­min­is­tra­tion in­tends to take, first of all, to val­i­date that CL Fi­nan­cial still owes the tax­pay­ers of T&T $13 bil­lion.

Sec­ond­ly, the steps the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to take to re­cov­er monies owed.

It is in­ter­est­ing to note that Cli­co’s con­sol­i­dat­ed state­ment of fi­nan­cial po­si­tion for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2024, in­di­cates that the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny’s to­tal as­sets at the end of 2024 amount­ed to $10.78 bil­lion, which is a de­cline of 10.2 per cent from the $12.01 bil­lion in its 2023 fi­nan­cial year.

It is al­so note­wor­thy that the largest con­trib­u­tor to Cli­co’s bal­ance sheet is Gov­ern­ment bonds val­ued at $9.21 bil­lion, which con­sti­tute 85.4 per cent of the in­sur­er’s to­tal as­sets.

Cli­co’s two re­main­ing eq­ui­ty as­sets are its share­hold­ing in CL World Brands, which in­di­rect­ly owns shares in An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Ltd, and LJ Williams. The to­tal val­ue of the in­sur­er’s in­vest­ment in as­so­ciates as at De­cem­ber 31, 2024 was $448.99 mil­lion.

Cli­co’s 2024 au­dit­ed fi­nan­cials were signed by its chair, Jen­nifer Fred­er­ick, and di­rec­tor Janet Richards.

Privy Coun­cil ap­peal?

An­oth­er in­ter­est­ing el­e­ment of Cli­co’s 2024 au­dit­ed fi­nan­cials is its ref­er­ence to the lit­i­ga­tion brought by the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny and its ma­jor­i­ty share­hold­er, CL Fi­nan­cial, against Cli­co En­er­gy (now known as Process En­er­gy (Trinidad) Ltd. PETL is a com­pa­ny owned by Pro­man AG, the Switzer­land-head­quar­tered com­pa­ny that is the sin­gle largest op­er­a­tor on the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

In the lit­i­ga­tion, which start­ed in 2012, CL Fi­nan­cial and Cli­co sought to set aside a pur­chase and sale agree­ment by which the late Lawrence Duprey arranged the sale of 51 per cent of Cli­co En­er­gy to Pro­man for the sum of US$46.5 mil­lion on Feb­ru­ary 3, 2009.

The pur­port­ed sale of the ma­jor­i­ty stake in Cli­co En­er­gy to Pro­man came two busi­ness days af­ter the Jan­u­ary 30 2009, Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (M0U) be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and CL Fi­nan­cial for the bailout of the group.

Clause 20 of the MoU states that “CL Fi­nan­cial will in­struct the board of Cli­co and British Amer­i­can to cease any new in­ter-com­pa­ny trans­ac­tions...and any dis­pos­al of as­sets with­out a sched­ule pro­vid­ed to GORTT for its pri­or ap­proval.”

De­spite sign­ing the MoU agree­ing not to sell as­sets with­out the pri­or ap­proval of the Gov­ern­ment, Mr Duprey went ahead and sold 51 per cent of Cli­co En­er­gy to Pro­man.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cli­co fi­nan­cials, in Sep­tem­ber 2021, High Court judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad de­clared the sale of the 51 per cent stake in Cli­co En­er­gy to be void and or­dered, in­ter alia, that:

* The pur­chas­er (Pro­man) im­me­di­ate­ly re­store or cause the restora­tion of the said 51 per cent of the PETL shares

* The pur­chas­er pro­vides an ac­count of all div­i­dends and/or dis­tri­b­u­tions made by PETL...

* The claimants (Cli­co and CL Fi­nan­cial) re­pay to the pur­chas­er the pro­ceeds of the pur­port­ed sale in the pur­chase price with­in­ter­est by De­cem­ber 2021.

Pro­man ap­pealed the Ram­per­sad judg­ment. On Ju­ly 31, 2023, T&T’s Court of Ap­peal up­held the judg­ment.

In de­liv­er­ing the Court of Ap­peal’s judg­ment, Jus­tice of Ap­peal Gre­go­ry Smith com­mend­ed Jus­tice Ram­per­sad “for his metic­u­lous and thor­ough ex­am­i­na­tion of the facts and le­gal is­sues.”

Mr Smith quot­ed Mr Ram­per­sad’s judg­ment as fol­lows, “the trans­ac­tion is left reek­ing of im­pro­pri­ety on his (Duprey’s) part with the ob­vi­ous com­plic­i­ty of Pro­man as it, through Joseph Cas­sidy, steam­rolled its way in­to own­er­ship with­out any ob­struc­tion.” But Jus­tice Ram­per­sad felt that this “im­pro­pri­ety did not cross the bound­aries of fraud.”

While Jus­tice of Ap­peal Smith agreed with much of Jus­tice Ram­per­sad, there was no con­cur­rence on the is­sue of fraud.

“I am of the view that the find­ings of the tri­al judge, on an ob­jec­tive stan­dard, are con­sis­tent on­ly with dis­hon­esty amount­ing to fraud­u­lent as­sis­tance on the part of Pro­man” said Mr Smith, adding, “In those cir­cum­stances, I am of the view that the find­ings of the tri­al judge at para­graph 358 that the im­pro­pri­ety of Pro­man’s agents in the sale of the PETL shares did not cross the bound­aries of fraud ought to be over­turned.”

On Jan­u­ary 24, 2024, the Court of Ap­peal grant­ed fi­nal leave to Pro­man to ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil, and on March 19, 2024, Cli­co was served with Pro­man’s no­tice of ap­peal filed in the Privy Coun­cil.

Ac­cord­ing to Cli­co’s 2024 fi­nan­cial state­ment, one of the is­sues for the Privy Coun­cil to de­ter­mine is whether the Court of Ap­peal erred in over­turn­ing the tri­al judges’ find­ing that Pro­man’s acts “did not cross the bound­aries of fraud.”

Checks of the Privy Coun­cil web­site yes­ter­day morn­ing re­veal that al­most 22 months af­ter re­ceiv­ing fi­nal leave to ap­peal to T&T’s apex court, Pro­man has failed to do so.

At stake is an or­der of the High Court judge that Pro­man pay Cli­co and CL Fi­nan­cial the div­i­dends of US$185.9 mil­lion plus in­ter­est Pro­man re­ceived from PETL for the pe­ri­od Feb­ru­ary 2009 to Sep­tem­ber 2021.

Why hasn’t Pro­man filed its ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil to at­tempt to re­move the stain of the Court of Ap­peal’s find­ing of “dis­hon­esty amount­ing to fraud­u­lent as­sis­tance on the part of Pro­man?”

Asked for an up­date on the ap­peal, Pro­man T&T’s deputy man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Giselle Thomp­son said, “As this is still an on­go­ing le­gal mat­ter, we are un­able to pro­vide a com­ment.”