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Opposition Leader Mia Mottley is standing by her words.

The Barbados Labour Party political leader has filed a no-confidence motion in Prime Minister and Minister of Finance David Thompson, a promise she made on February 22, at a political meeting in Oistins.

The motion which rests on two grounds was filed on Friday in the House of Parliament.

In a statement released yesterday, Mottley, the Member of Parliament for St Michael North-East, said the first ground was that the Prime Minister misled more than 38 000 policyholders of CLICO, when he indicated that CLICO Barbados was, as Thompson said, "sound, prudently managed and well regulated, and that Barbadian depositors, investors and holders of insurance policies could be considered safe, while he knew or ought to have known that the Statutory Fund deficit of the company was $93 million at the end of 2007".

The second ground of Mottley's motion is that the Prime Minister failed to indicate to the public what action he had taken, or would take to protect these thousands of policy holders, depositors and their families given the extraordinary risks they face as a result of the deficit of the Statutory Fund in the context of the highly unstable regional and international financial sector.

Fund details

Mottley told the SUNDAY SUN yesterday that even though the Barbados Labour Party would have been in power at the end of 2007, the Government of the day would not have been privy to such figures.

"Under law, companies do not have to have statutory fund details until four months after the close of the year. That would have been available in April 2008, and we were not in Government then," the Opposition Leader stated.

The motion recited the facts that have taken place since the Trinidad Government and Central Bank took action against CL Financial and four of its subsidiaries on January 30 to protect 100 000 policyholders in Trinidad as a result of the large Statutory Fund Deficit of CLICO Trinidad, among other things.

It also reflected that the Prime Minister endorsed the Trinidad Government's action as being correct and appropriate.

The motion referred to the events last week where the High Court of Bahamas ordered the liquidation of CLICO Bahamas after an application was made by the Registrar of Insurance in the Bahamas (affecting 29 000 policyholders) and also, where in Guyana the Commissioner of Insurance applied to the High Court for the judicial management of CLICO Guyana to be vested in her.

It is expected that once the Speaker of the House of Assembly approves the resolution, the motion of no confidence will then be laid in the House by the Opposition Leader. (BA/PR)

Source: Sunday Sun, March 1, 2009.
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