Effect of Manning’s merger on UTC funds

THE EDITOR: Prime Minister Manning dips into his collection of public service retirees and calls out 70-year-old Ainsworth Harewood to chair the UTC; but just days before he had decided to send home a healthy and vibrant Clarry Benn, solely because Benn was 61 years.  Since however, the UTC board appointed Benn, the announcement surely should have come from the UTC Chair. Why did Manning find it necessary to usurps the role of UTC’s PR person?  For all his posturing, Manning’s antics really tell us that he wants to control the UTC by appointing a CEO who is beholden to him, and who endorses his vision of a merged FCB/UTC. While Manning imposes the public service 60-year age limit as his rationale for sending off Ben, he does not tell us if this will apply to all state enterprise CEOs as well; Larry Howai for example!  It is a flawed rationale to impose a public service criteria on non-public service institutions, when government has actively sought to privatise such enterprises as telecommunications, water, port services, the postal services, prison transport, and electricity.

Ainsley Harewood succeeds a long line of successful private sector executives — John Hunt, Ralston Nelson, Judy Chang, and Hubert Alleyne — under whose guidance UTC has flourished. Harewood’s appointment, and moreso the break with tradition from a private sector chair, may just confirm the suspicion of many that Manning’s real intention is to call the shots at UTC, remembering his $240 million Exxon gift, contrary to the Petrotrin board’s decision.  A chairman steeped in the public service milieu is more likely to take instructions from the politicians, as was his wont for most of his life. FCB chairman Ken Gordon cannot be faulted for attempting to embrace UTC if he deems this to be in FCB’s interest.  But while government owns FCB, the 400,000 unitholders “own” UTC.  Manning tells us that Government can legislate to merge UTC with FCB.  But he did not tell us that no legislation will keep UTC’s $10 billion intact? Only public confidence can do that.  Having listened to both UTC and FCB people, I am open to persuasion of the merits of a FCB/UTC merger and appreciate particularly the comments of Dr Ralph Henry, which I commend to readers.

My fear however is that if a merger is seen to be driven by Manning, as it now appears, that much of UTC’s fund will evaporate. The UTC furore started when Manning casually mentioned the possible merger of FCB with the UTC. Someone should have cautioned him that mere talk of such a sensitive matter from the PM would cause a tidal wave in the financial community, and his best effort at damage control was his statement that “Government has no such intention, but he merely floated the idea to get the public reaction.”  This was a silly explanation — but the comments of Nickie, and Hubert Alleyne, and Peter July, and newspaper comments both for and against a merger, was the public reaction which Manning said he wanted. No matter how loyal the supporters, whether PNM or UNC, nobody in TT will trust politicians with their money.  That Manning needed to sound out the public on that says little for his political astuteness, those with a modicum of a historical perspective will recall that a former PNM administration (of which Manning was part) ventured into commercial banking when the government acquired BOLAM, (the Bank of London and Montreal) in the ’70s.  Government also got involved in the Workers’ Bank and the Cooperative Bank, then known as the “Penny Bank.”

Under government control, all these banks crashed as ministries and party hacks, their families and friends, raided the savings of depositors and left the poor poorer.  By hiving off the uncollectable debts of these banks in “Taurus,” the FCB emerged as a new beginning, totally owned by government, and mostly as a face saving expedient.  Government banking adventure must not be seen as a total failure. To the credit of the new FCB board, chaired by the late Mr Lennard Williams, who was also its first CEO, FCB prospered.  Mr Lennard Williams had retired as MD of Republic, and was well past his 65th year.  Today under Larry Howai FCB is no peewat, and its success in great measure came about because the new FCB administration was not subject to the indecent meddling by the politicians.

Government could not afford to fail a second time, but Manning is tempting fate!  The moral of this PNM episode should be: Government must keep its sticky fingers off people’s savings, entrust those savings to competent professional managers, who can in time earn the respect and confidence of the public. Politicians should accept that the pensioner and the retired citizen do not trust politicians to handle their savings.  And this was so well before TT fell ten points to 43rd in the Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International. State enterprise chairmen (as well as government senators) kowtow to Manning to keep their positions. Hubert Alleyne stands out as a national of TT who possesses the vital attributes of manhood.  For this I salute him and I invite the nation to do so also.

MICHAEL J WILLIAMS
Port-of-Spain