Leroy Parris’ bringing forward of his departure timelines, not only from the local Clico subsidiaries, but now, it seems, from his post as executive chairman of their parent company, Clico Barbados Holding, is the only bit of good news emanating from the increasingly murky waters of the abyss known as Clico.

Perhaps now, with him out of the way, some rational thinking can take hold on how to avert this massive looming disaster.

But my question remains: What did the prime minister know, and when did he know it, in respect of Clico International Life being barred from selling insurance?

In mid-March, the PM disclosed for the first time that CIL had been barred from selling policies, but he did not say from what date. Three weeks later, Mr. Parris, as part of his master plan to show that CIL was on the financial mend, boasted of its selling prowess through 2009 and even up to the end of February this year, why did this not trigger any further public reaction from Mr. Thompson, say, by April 9?

We heard nothing on the matter until the finance ministry’s permanent secretary reported last Sunday that CIL had been thus barred from as long ago as last August. And, in the same edition, Mr. Parris’ response was that his company had responded to the letter from the Supervisor of Insurance by sending one to the Minister of Finance himself, with the expectation that it would be sent over to the Supervisor.

It seems that Mr. Parris’ master plan to rescue Clico from the bureaucrats who had called its selling machine to a halt was to first admit that it had indeed continued selling policies up to the end of February this year, and when it became clear that if this were indeed the case it would have broken the law, to place the matter right into the lap of the minister of finance. Pure genius.

And at the same time that he was asking the public to have confidence in the Clico group, he also wrote to the manager of the subsidiary Clico Mortgage and Finance Co. Ltd., asking if he could get out his $267,000 in deposits which had matured. So, while as a “citizen of Barbados” he was certainly entitled to redeem his deposits, other citizens were being asked to hold strain and “roll over” theirs, and the central bank had put $10 million into CMFC with no strings attached regarding who should get their money out first.

So under the master plan, Citizen Parris gets into the lifeboat with his $267,000 while Executive Chairman Parris assures the other citizens who have been waiting to fret not, all will be well.
In mid-March, the minister of finance stated in Parliament that, according to the Nation of March 16, “the Oversight Committee…was experiencing difficulty in selling Clico Life, because of the large number of Executive Flexible Premium Annuities, which carried high interest rates and were short term deposits. He stated that potential bidders had expressed concern about this liability which was in excess of B$300 million – most of which matured in 2012.” Mr. Layne in his statement last Sunday said, “At the end of November 2009 the unpaid liability for EFPAs was estimated at BDS$108 million.”

It does seem as if Clico had been finally made to stop selling policies at least by the end of February, since at his press conference in early April, Mr. Parris “said the decision of the current Supervisor of Insurance to prohibit the company from writing new business was adversely affecting CLICO's efforts at restructuring,” according to the Nation.

But by that time, some 800 life insurance policies had been sold in the first two months of the year alone, and who knows how many of the 2,900 claimed by Mr. Parries to have been sold last year were sold after the ban was issued? Did Mr. Thompson not have a responsibility to those policyholders too? Or was his first duty to keep as many people employed at CIL?

Did he knowingly turn a blind eye to the fact that CIL was still “writing new business” for a full six months after it had been prohibited from doing so by the Supervisor of Insurance in accordance with Section 55(1) of Cap 310 of the Insurance Act?

As for Mr. Parris, perhaps in the fullness of time the long curve of his career accomplishments will yield a picture that is more appealing than the image he has drawn of himself over the past few months.

In my mind’s eye, that image is of an executive who seems incapable of accepting blame for anything that happened under his watch, even as the companies over which he has presided for so many years are sold out from under him, bringing financial worry to the thousands of people who trusted the Clico family of companies to do right by them in their time of sickness or old age, and who now are wondering if they will get back their investments or insurance benefits.

If, as promised by the Thompson administration, they are given 100% protection, I wonder what final cost this will be to the country’s national debt and the taxpayers, who will have to bear the increased burden of interest and amortization costs inherent in any such bailout.

(A version of this article appeared in the barbados Business Authority of May 3, 2010)