PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – The Trinidad and Tobago authorities says it intends to promote its 49 p.c shareholding within the Colonial Life Insurance coverage Firm (CLICO) and can use the funds to ease the monetary difficulties anticipated over the following few years
Finance Minister Colm Imbert, delivering the TT$59.7 billion (One TT greenback=US$0.16 cents) nationwide price range to Parliament on Monday, stated that the regional insurance coverage firm just isn’t thought-about to be of “strategic significance to the federal government.
“Its divestment will earn a number of billion {dollars} in income for the federal government to see us by the monetary difficulties of the following few years,” Imbert stated, telling legislators that the federal government had not been absolutely repaid for the bailout to CLICO.
“I’ve observed a false narrative circulating that the federal government has been repaid all that it’s due for the 2009 and 2010 CLICO bailout. That is totally unfaithful “.
Imbert stated that the CLICO bailout concerned not solely the insurance coverage firm but additionally the bailout of CL Monetary (the mum or dad firm) and its subsidiaries, together with CLICO Funding Financial institution, British American Insurance coverage (BAICO), and Republic Financial institution, amongst others.
“Removed from being absolutely repaid, the federal government remains to be owed over at the least an additional TT$13 billion. I need to make clear that we’re nonetheless owed TT$13 billion,” Imbert stated.
In 2017, the federal government was granted permission to nominate provisional liquidators to protect CL Monetary’s property because it sought to recuperate a TT$15 billion debt left from the 2009 bailout of the conglomerate’s insurance coverage subsidiaries, CLICO and BAICO.
In September 2020, Imbert stated that, after a decade and a number of assessments, the federal government’s bailout of CL Monetary and CLICO had price taxpayers TT$30 billion.
Imbert indicated that the debt was initially considered roughly TT$15 billion. Nonetheless, when the Ministry of Finance went to courtroom with the liquidation, “it was TT$23 billion-plus, and having carried out, the ultimate account is $30 billion.
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