Witch Doctor Politics...

In an act bordering on magnamity, The Honorable Mr. Winston Dookeran, Minister of Finance used the opportunity of his maiden budget to agree to compensate depositor losses in the failed Hindu Credit Union. While he was at it, he also agreed to continue the sleight of hand inherited from the last regime that was/is required to slowly let the people in on a little secret; that the CL Financial/CLICO bailout was nothing of the sort, and despite the fact that a few cunning and devious men enriched themselves while exposing the depositors, policy holders and investors of the Companies to grave financial risk, Government was somehow left holding the bag.

First off, Clico/CL Financial; Borrowing heavily on the concept of an organization being 'to big to fail,' the risks to the financial sector and the national economy by extension were deemed too great to let the thing simply collapse, so the then Administration was left with little choice but to step in. That should in no way mean that the Governments (both then and now) should let the guilty parties off the responsibility hook, and we the people need to demand in exchange for our tax dollars serious criminal enquiries into the operations of all interlocking Companies in the group and in any other dealings of Mr. Duprey and his forty thieves. As they say in the movies, follow the money.

A muck up of these proportions requires that there be an allocation of responsibility for the failure if the people of the country are to bear its burdens, and someone must be made to answer before the courts for what can only be viewed as the crime of the century.

From the top down there must be questions asked, of Mr. Duprey and his entire Board of Directors of ALL the Companies involved, Inspector of Financial Institutions Carl Hiralal, Central Bank Governor Ewart WIlliams, and ex Minister of Finance Karen Tixiera. If possible, we should convene a commission of enquiry with a view toward prosecuting the guilty if there is to be any justification at all for this bailout, and be seriously prepared to let the chips fall where they may.

The Government's involvement in the HCU is another matter entirely, and reeks of Ganges and Nile politics all over again. On the face of it the move appears almost forced on the Minister by what could only be racist justifications, as the Government has no real responsibility or business in HCU at all. If the comparison to the CL/CLICO debacle and 'bailout' is to be used as the underlying (unsaid) principle for the Government's involvement, then I believe Mr. Dookeran is putting himself in something that could cost him to choose between his job and his ethics by playing to the cheap seats and the crowd. 

In layman terms, if the Government is going to move to protect depositors and investors in this scheme, then every single person who was ever robbed at gunpoint should similarly expect to have their valuables returned. 

The future generations who are being robbed to pay the proverbial 'Pauls' in these sceanarios are being poorly done by, and this mass bailout of failed Companies for no moral or legal justification begs many more questions than the Minister was prepared to answer. Will there be investigations into wrongdoing, financial malfeasance and misapropriation with a view to having charges laid?

Either way you turn this thing the people lose, and this should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. The Government simply cannot expect to have it both ways, nor should they be allowed to.