Jamaicans may get peek into FINSAC enquiry findings
Published:Tuesday | July 12, 2022 | 8:17 PM
A "mechanism" is being worked on to give Jamaicans a peek into the findings of an enquiry over a decade ago into the financial meltdown of the 1990s, Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke has indicated.
He said the information collected at the hearings is still at his ministry.
"We're working on mechanisms through which the assessment of that data can be made available to the public in a way that we are confident that taxpayer dollars will be well-spent," the minister said at a press briefing Tuesday afternoon.
He gave no timeline or details on how the information will be assessed.
A Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC) Commission of Enquiry was established in 2008 and conducted hearings up to 2011. In 2019, costs were estimated at more than $150 million.
The commission was mandated to consider the cause of the financial sector meltdown in the 1990s and examine the appropriateness of the actions taken by FINSAC in dealing with delinquent borrowers.
High interests rates, and the removal of exchange rate controls in 1991 have been blamed, along with the poor management of financial institutions including banks and insurance companies.
The financial crash occurred under the government of former Prime Minister PJ Patterson of the now Opposition People's National Party.
The enquiry was one of the rally cries of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), when it campaigned for power in 2007
Following the party's victory at the polls, then Finance Minister Audley Shaw oversaw the establishment of the commission.
The JLP lost the 2011 general election, and new finance minister in the then Portia Simpson Miller administration, Dr Peter Phillips, made it clear that the Government would not allocate any additional money for the commission, and instead requested that commissioners present what they had for examination in 2012.
No report was submitted.
With the JLP returned to power in 2016, Shaw, who was back as finance minister, approved a revised budget of $58.3 million for the completion of the report. He gave a seven-month deadline but the commissioners requested an additional three months to complete their work.
Clarke became finance minister in March 2018.
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