Tony HendriksTHAT WAS a bit of a surprise wasn't it? All those FINSAC documents going missing like the object of a David Copperfield magic trick. Then maybe just like a conjuring trick, you expected it to happen anyway.
It still was a bit of an oversight by the people who had the files in their possession, but perhaps we shouldn't be surprised considering they were already called the Oversight Committee.
To be honest with you, I never expected the files to go missing. My money was on a fire. Or as they call it in the insurance trade, a bit of a CARIB or Catastrophically Accidental Raging Inferno Business.
You often see CARIB occur when a business is in need of so much rebuilding, refurbishing and refinancing, it simply cannot handle the heat and pressure and spontaneously combusts when no one is looking.
Fortunately, the blaze usually happens in the wee hours. (They are known as the wee hours because of the sound sirens make as fire engines sloth their way to a raze.) Usually, no one gets hurt in a CARIB as there is seldom anyone in or near the inferno. Though there have been unfortunate cases where an arsoni- I mean owner of a business in need Pyro-Refinancing is nearby or happens upon the scene of the cr- accident but this is purely coincidental.
An EL of a flood (Emergency Liquidation) to soak up the reclaiming of funds and destroy all records of delinquent debtors was much more likely to have happened in this case.
With all the rain we get in Jamaica this happens to several businesses that start by floating on the stock exchange and end up needing a timely injection of Hydro-Refinancing resulting in immediate liquidity, insurance willing, even though floods are difficult to plan and dangerous to execute.
The worst thing about all this is that the disappearance of these documents is consistent with the bad attitude and poor repayment record of some of the debtors on the list. The non-performance of their loans and their denial of culpability is so brazen, Shaggy would be proud of it.
Caught me spending all this money.
It wasn't me!
Borrowing without a guarantee.
It wasn't me!
Said I owed them billions.
It wasn't me!
Now there's been a disappearance.
It wasn't me!
"It wasn't me!" is such a 'Jamaican' thing to say when it is obvious it was. Or "Wrong and Strong!" in the Jamaican way. We know too often that we can get away with stuff because no one is going to do anything about it. Even though it is as transparent as going to school having done no homework and when teacher asks for it saying: "The dog ate it!"
This new strategy is far more defensible than when a person is asked what happened to unaccounted for millions that have become a non-performing loan, saying "Oh, I forgot" or a Seag-ument as it is better known.
How is it possible to lose so much paper without it being noticed? How could I forget, trading paper and then losing it is exactly how Jamaica's financial sector got into trouble in the first place.
So where does one begin to look for these documents? Perhaps they've been buried. Maybe we should check all recent funerals where coffins appeared heavier than usual and needed extra pall bearers. Hmm? Maybe not.
Tony Hendriks can be re-read at www.JamaicanPaleface.com or e-mailed and roundly chastised via JamaicanPaleface@aol.com Copyright 2001.TonyHendriks.
