THEY ILL-TREATED MY HUSBAND

“All the complaints about Clico and the way they conducted their business, guess when they started?” Nunez-Tesheira said at the Clico Commission of Inquiry yesterday. “The year 2004. When did my husband die? April 2004. That says a lot.”

“They ill-treated my husband, they ill-treated members of staff who gave their whole life to the company and I did not agree with the way in which Mr Duprey was conducting the business,” an emotional Nunez-Tesheira said. “It took very little for me to decide to take my money out.”

The former finance minister’s testimony came one day after she told the inquiry that she had taken her money out of CIB for “personal reasons” but failed to elaborate. It also came after attorney for Lawrence Duprey, her husband’s former boss, pushed Nunez-Tesheira to give the reasons for the withdrawal of two US$ fixed deposits – with a reported value of TT$305,864 – on the eve of the State’s January 2009 CL Financial/CIB bailout.

At the start of what turned out to be a heated sitting of the inquiry at the Winsure Building, Richmond Street, Port-of-Spain, lawyer for Duprey, Andrew Mitchell QC, began his cross-examination of Nunez-Tesheira. He sought to depict the witness as being – literally – part of the Clico family, saying her late father, Waldo Nunez Snr, was a consultant for Clico. He also suggested that one of her brothers had helped to invent the controversial Executive Flexible Premium Annuity (EFPA) product and that an uncle had also been involved with the company. Nunez-Tesheira denied that her brother invented the EFPA, stating that product was formulated with the input of Claude Mussab-Ali.

Mitchell then turned the question of Nunez-Tesheira withdrawing her CIB funds, which she had inherited from her husband. He asked why she took her money out in December 2008.

“Are you speaking about my personal business?” an apparently indignant Nunez-Tesheira replied.

“I am trying to get a picture of Karen Nunez-Tesheira, not just the politician, the Minister of Finance, but also mixing some of those personal issues with the events as they unwound in January and February 2009,” Mitchell said.

Nunez-Tesheira then replied,“Well if I have to answer you in terms of your inquiry here it is: My concern about Clico went back to about 2003. And the reason for that is that I knew that Mr Duprey wanted to terminate my husband’s services.”

She said her husband had, up to that point in 2003, not been happy with the direction Clico was taking with its focus on getting as many new customers as possible in order to fund the company’s risky ventures.

“He was very unhappy with the way in which Clico was going,” Nunez-Tesheira said. “He was very unhappy with the fact that all the persons who had worked all their life in the entity were being terminated or dismissed. He was unhappy with the way Mr Duprey was conducting the business in particular by pushing the agents to get cash for him to invest it into those private affairs.”

The pressure lingered and when Russell Tesheira, a former Clico vice president of sales and agency administration, was about to undergo surgery at the Gulf View Medical Centre at San Fernando in 2004, his troubles at Clico were still on his mind.

“On the weekend before my husband died he was going to have an operation and he said to me if they want me to leave he will be very happy to leave because of what was going on inside of Clico,” she told Mitchell. After her husband died, she wanted to have nothing to do with Clico.

“So that on the death of my husband I had nothing to do with Clico and Clico had nothing to do with me,” she said. The only interaction she had was when she – reluctantly – agreed to attend a launch of a Clico Credit Union product in her husband’s name. She refused to deposit any money into CIB. The money she had at CIB was inherited from her husband.

As an uncomfortable-looking Mitchell moved to interrupt Nunez-Tesheira, she pressed ahead with her story, saying other key factors were crucial to the timing of her withdrawals.

“Secondly, since you are inquiring into my personal affairs,” she said, before Mitchell interrupted the witness.

“No you asked me and I have to answer you,” Nunez-Tesheira insisted.

Inquiry chairman Sir Anthony Colman intervened, saying, “Mr Mitchell, let the witness answer the question.”

“Forgive me I insist on making this point,” Mitchell responded. “Of course you must answer but remember that came against the backdrop of me asking you very simply why it was you took the money out in December 2008?”

“And I am giving you the answer,” Nunez-Tesheira said before continuing.

In relation to reports that her family members also withdrew funds at CIB Nunez-Tesheira said her mother’s death, in September 2008, enabled her family to address its long-standing concerns over the investment of her father’s estate in CIB. Her late mother, Una Magdelena Nunez, she said, had been reluctant to take the funds out of CIB.

“When my mother passed away, my older sister — who is the banker — had a power of attorney over my father’s assets,” Nunez-Tesheira said. “My father was not in the best of health and my sister was the one dealing with my father’s assets...About the end of September/October my sister wrote all the members of the family, saying she wanted to put all my father’s assets in safe treasury bonds.”

Nunez-Tesheira said this was the context for the withdrawal of the funds.

“And that is the reason and now you have heard the story!”

In Parliament, on February 2, 2009, Nunez-Tesheira, Nunez-Tesheira.then Finance Minister and D’Abadie/O’meara MP, made a statement on allegations of using insider information to protect her assets, allegations which had been levied against her by the then Opposition.

Nunez-Tesheira said then that well before she had learnt of CIB’s troubles in mid-January from Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams, she had taken her funds from CIB. She also revealed that she made withdrawals from other accounts she held elsewhere, including Caribbean Money Market Brokers (CMMB), in mid-December 2008, in order to buy an apartment, plus a car for her daughter. She did not give the personal reasons she gave at the inquiry yesterday.

Mitchell, after Nunez-Tesheira’s statement to the inquiry yesterday, replied, “First of all you appreciate that I won’t therefore take an hour because that ten minutes has to be added on to the hour that I had asked for.”

“I regarded that comment, Mr Mitchell, as completely unnecessary,” Sir Anthony said.

Mitchell pressed ahead, “Well, secondly, help me Mrs Tesheira: when your husband died, did the car that was owned by Clico become the car of the Nunez-Tesheira family?”

NUNEZ-TESHEIRA: Mr Mitchell it is on record in the newspapers that I admitted and every other—

MITCHELL QC: No!

NUNEZ-TESHEIRA: You asked me the question and I understand where you are coming from I want to put on the record that–

MITCHELL QC: Just answer yes or no.

NUNEZ-TESHEIRA: No, I think I am entitled to answer the question.

MITCHELL QC: Did the car become a part of the Nunez-Tesheira family, yes or no?

NUNEZ-TESHEIRA: Yes it did among others. I had my own car. And I want to answer that. There was not anyone who–when their employment with Clico was terminated whether summarily or otherwise -who did not get their car. What I did not get is this: they terminated my health insurance, they terminated that. My husband was near to retirement, he was 53 years of age. They did not give me the benefit of that. I heard they said in the paper that I was given my house. Not only did they not give me my house, when my husband died they reverted the interest rates to the market rates. If you want to say a car and covering my husband’s funeral was something they gave me they yes. But other than that I think they gave me nothing.

MITCHELL QC: I think they gave you pension.

NUNEZ-TESHEIRA: What? Excuse me? There you are mistaken. I got nothing. You are mistaken. My husband was 53 years of age and he did not qualify for pension. Even if the company had the discretion to give him pension, they did not do that.

While she had personal tensions with Clico, the Finance Minister said in January 2009, when the State announced its bailout, it was imperative that those tensions did not show. She said the bailout was essential to stop runs on key financial institutions in the country and there could be no room for doubt for members of the public concerned about their money.

“Our backs were against the wall,” she said. “I was very focused on not getting into a confrontation with them.” Noting CLF officials involved in the talks leading up to the January 30, 2009 Memorandum of Understanding had–in her view–deliberately withheld key information, she said, “We were playing poker. I had to maintain a calm demeanor. And I was even smiling at the press conference to announce the MoU. I knew if anybody saw any sort of negative relationship between me and Mr Duprey they would pick up on it.”

“I regarded that comment, Mr Mitchell, as completely unnecessary,” Sir Anthony said.

Mitchell pressed ahead, “Well, secondly, help me Mrs Tesheira: when your husband died, did the car that was owned by Clico become the car of the Nunez-Tesheira family?”

NUNEZ-TESHEIRA: Mr Mitchell it is on record in the newspapers that I admitted and every other—

MITCHELL QC: No!

NUNEZ-TESHEIRA: You asked me the question and I understand where you are coming from I want to put on the record that–

MITCHELL QC: Just answer yes or no.

NUNEZ-TESHEIRA: No, I think I am entitled to answer the question.

MITCHELL QC: Did the car become a part of the Nunez-Tesheira family, yes or no?

NUNEZ-TESHEIRA: Yes it did among others. I had my own car. And I want to answer that. There was not anyone who — when their employment with Clico was terminated whether summarily or otherwise — who did not get their car. What I did not get is this: they terminated my health insurance, they terminated that. My husband was near to retirement, he was 53 years of age. They did not give me the benefit of that. I heard they said in the paper that I was given my house. Not only did they not give me my house, when my husband died they reverted the interest rates to the market rates. If you want to say a car and covering my husband’s funeral was something they gave me, then yes. But other than that I think they gave me nothing.

MITCHELL QC: I think they gave you pension.

NUNEZ-TESHEIRA: What? Excuse me? There you are mistaken. I got nothing. You are mistaken. My husband was 53 years of age and he did not qualify for pension. Even if the company had the discretion to give him pension, they did not do that.

While she had personal tensions with Clico, the Finance Minister said in January 2009, when the

State announced its bailout, it was imperative that those tensions did not show.

She said the bailout was essential to stop runs on key financial institutions in the country and there could be no room for doubt for members of the public concerned about their money.

“Our backs were against the wall,” she said. “I was very focussed on not getting into a confrontation with them.” Noting CLF officials involved in the talks leading up to the January 30, 2009 Memorandum of Understanding had–in her view–deliberately withheld key information, she said, “We were playing poker. I had to maintain a calm demeanour. And I was even smiling at the press conference to announce the MoU. I knew if anybody saw any sort of negative relationship between me and Mr Duprey they would pick up

on it.”