The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

FNM chairman Darron Cash called yesterday for a complete overhaul of the board of directors at the Bank of the Bahamas and criticised Central Bank governor Wendy Craig for agreeing with the government's decision to establish a company that will absorb $100 million of BOB's toxic commercial loan debts.

Mr Cash, who has long raised concerns about the bank, said there remains a striking lack of accountability over how BOB operates.

His statements came after BOB's latest quarterly report for the year to end June 30 noted a $68.747 million net loss for the bank's shareholders, wiping out its retained earnings prior to the government $100 million rescue plan announced on Friday.

“At a time when we have clinics that cannot be finished and opened, schools that cannot be repaired and roads that cannot be fixed, shortage of medicines and hospital rooms,” said Mr Cash, “it is a national disgrace that when it comes to Bank of the Bahamas, Prime Minister Christie's dollars have no end.

“Starting with Paul J McWeeney the entire board should be changed. Nothing they can do will have any integrity to correct the crooked course that the bank is on and set it straight. For the past two and a half years they have been a part of the problem. They are to blame. The decent thing for them to do is to resign. This board lacks the moral authority to govern BOB. It is nothing short of Perry Christie's complete failure of leadership that Paul McWeeney and this Board should be permitted to be in BOB for one more day.”

Mr Cash asserted that out of fear, regulatory agencies have not taken appropriate action against the government in relation to BOB.

Calling this a disgrace, he said: “They have been scared, intimidated powerless and in the final analysis and by their behaviours they have been complicit in BOB's failure. The question that the Bahamian people should be asking is who is going to jail? And if not, why not? The governor of the Central Bank has done her institution a disservice by standing with this bank and validating this travesty.

“She is in essence giving cover to the people at BOB, whose actions have brought that bank to the brink of collapse. She too has an ethical and moral obligation to the shareholders of Bank of the Bahamas and to the Bahamian people to give them comfort that her agency was not part of the cover-up. The Governor must tell the Bahamian people what she knew and when she knew it.”

Bahamas Resolve has been established to go after $100 million of BOB's toxic commercial loans, with officials last week saying the company will have the wherewithal to use mechanisms not available to BOB in pursuit of the overdue payments.

Mr Cash, however, blasted this idea. “The lack of accountability is striking,” he said. “Any reader saw a demonstration of first rate cover-up and distortion when the newspaper reported that in answer to the question of why BOB felt the government could collect payments when BOB could not, McWeeney said, 'the Bank was limited by certain policies of the commercial banking sector'.

“What utter nonsense. In the first instance, this is the same government that cannot collect more than a half billion in outstanding real property taxes. What will a feckless Christie government do differently? Nothing!

He continued: “Secondly, BOB and all the other banks have no problem kicking struggling Bahamian families out of their homes in order to collect their money when mortgages go bad. No policies' seem to prevent them from doing that to poor and struggling middle class people. And I reiterate, what is the mastermind behind the bank's failure still doing on the stage?

“Clearly the shame associated with bringing BOB to its knees has not been enough to compel him to put his pretty, well-groomed tail between his legs and bow out gracefully. I delude myself in that regard because Ishmael Lightbourne did not have the good taste to bow out, so why should anyone else? They are after all first class FOCs (Friends of Christie).”