EDITORIAL - Disquiet over FINSAC enquiry

Early in the sittings of the commission of enquiry into the 1990s collapse of Jamaica's financial sector, this newspaper warned the commissioners that their posture and seemingly free-for-all approach to the proceedings gave the impression that the hearings were more a public lynching than a search for fact and truth.

Eventually, a group of persons with interest in the proceedings, including the former finance minister, Dr Omar Davies, challenged the presence on the commission of its then chairman, retired judge Mr Boyd Carey.

The courts held that Justice Carey had apparent bias, having had a debt at a bank that was taken over by the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC), the vehicle that was used by the Government to intervene in troubled institutions, and whose ex-boss, Mr Patrick Hylton, was one of Justice Carey's challengers.

Since then, the FINSAC enquiry has gone on in the shadow of the probe into the Christopher Coke extradition affair. We, however, believe that there is new cause for disquiet.

Claims of bias

It emerged recently that FINSAC has no lawyer watching its interests at these proceedings. But FINSAC administered and poured billions of taxpayers' money into institutions in which it intervened. It sold large swathes of those assets.

We, unlike the political Opposition, do not draw the conclusion that the absence from the enquiry of lawyers representing FINSAC is a "deliberate attempt to distort the conduct of the hearings and, ultimately, for a biased report to be presented".

Taking that position would suggest a cynicism that is counter to the high-minded reasons for which the current finance minister, Mr Audley Shaw, said he established the commission and gave it such wide and involved terms of reference.

Nonetheless, it would be prudent that Mr Shaw and the FINSAC directors explain the institution's current posture towards the enquiry, in which it should obviously have an interest, given its pivotal role in the events being enquired into.

Focus on substantive matters

There are a number of other issues which we wish to commend to the commission's current chairman, Mr Worrick Bogle, if the society is to understand the period and learn worthy lessons from it.

There is no doubt that the hearings have been cathartic for many people who lost assets when they could not service their debts. They have been able to vent about the high interest rates that led to default.

Mr Elon Beckford, the principal and CEO of one of the failed institutions, Horizon Group, has offered his perspective on how the Government's monetary policy, inexpertly applied, collided with the conduct of business in a real economy. Other contemporaries of Mr Beckford are, according to Mr Bogle, to give evidence, and will, perhaps, offer similar perspectives.

What has not been addressed and analysed, however, is the other side of the coin, including full reimbursement of principal and interest to savers in failed institutions.

Perhaps, too, we might hear from academics and independent analysts, other than Mr Beckford, what role, if any, poor management and weak project analyses played in the problems of the period. It might be useful, too, to remind of some of the findings of the courts in the cases that flowed therefrom.

The aim ought to be the full truth and deeper perspectives.

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