Opposition Spokesman on Finance Julian Robinson is questioning whether the US$1 million (J$155 million) insurance payout to Stocks & Securities Limited (SSL) will be used to, among other things, refund payments to the receiver/manager and costs incurred by the state agencies conducting a fraud probe.
Finance and the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke announced yesterday that it would no longer be necessary for the Government to pay the salaries of SSL staff as an insurance claim by the temporary manager of the company in April this year has now been settled.
In a release, Clarke said that SSL received the insurance payout on September 7, enabling the beleaguered financial entity to settle the remainder of its August staff salary bill on September 11.
He indicated that approximately two-thirds of SSL’s net salary bill for August was paid last Monday, without any financial support from the Government. The other one-third had been paid earlier by SSL.
“As such, with this new development, no taxpayer money, no Government of Jamaica resources, no public funds have, or will be, used to support SSL in the payment of any of its employees or any other of its expenses,” Clarke said.
However, Robinson is calling on Clarke to provide more details.
FULL ACCOUNTING
“Obviously, it is a relief for taxpayers. I think we still need to know what has been spent of public funds and I still would include what the FID (Financial Investigations Division) and the FSC (Financial Services Commission) are spending on the investigation for full accounting,” Robinson said.
He also said it was “curious that the staff complement is now going to be reduced. Based on what is in the release, these were questions that were being asked as to why there was a need to maintain the level of staff at the SSL”.
Clarke noted that given the progress in the investigation recently announced by the FID and the expected winding down of SSL’s off-balance sheet book of business, SSL’s staff complement is projected to decline from the current 22 to no more than eight persons by the end of November.
However, he said that the complete removal of SSL as a contingent liability of the Government requires a final determination by the court on the issues surrounding who has proper authority over SSL, whether it is the FSC-appointed temporary manager or the SSL board-appointed trustee.
The FSC, which regulates investment houses, took charge of SSL on January 17, days after the company reported the discovery of a multibillion-dollar fraud. In March, the FSC declared that SSL was insolvent.
In a recent interview, FID head Selvin Hay told The Gleaner that the investigation revealed “an entrenched culture of gross mismanagement dating back well over a decade” at the 50-year-old SSL, which, for a time, included dozens of Jamaican business and political elites among its clientele.
Before the next court date, the agency said it anticipates the arrest and charge of “other actors involved in the multiple fraudulent schemes recently discovered”.
The former client relationship manager at SSL Jean-Ann Panton is the only person charged in the case so far. She is due back in court on December 6.
The FID reported that about 70 accounts have been affected by the fraud.
