Weston Calls for FSRC

This is an interesting article from the Caribarena. Note the highlighted sections where the minister is asking about the report into the FSRC!

Antigua St John's - Opposition Senator Lennox Weston spoke at length on Monday against the need for additional board members to be added to the Financial Regulatory Services Commission (FSRC), and called for the release of the controversial report into the Commission ordered following the R Allen Stanford debacle.

Weston told the Upper House, "The government is our government. It is our money that the government is spending, and the prime minister gave an undertaking to Parliament and to the nation that he would review the sector, and he would table the results, and let the chips fall where they may."

He said it now seemed that the UPP administration intends to keep the contents of the review away from the public.

"Now it seems as if, what is before us is indicating that the government intends to keep its review a secret. Whatever the review says... that we hear that is very bad, it intends to keep it a secret from the people of Antigua & Barbuda, although we are faced with all these pending charges, and all kinds of lawsuits against us ..."


Weston noted, however, that with Stanford investors intent on suing Antigua & Barbuda for its perceived role in the financier's workings, the government was leaving the door open for these investors to reveal information "piece by piece" in the American press, with Antigua & Barbuda lacking the means to defend its reputation.

"The Americans always say, get ahead of the news," Weston noted. "Get it out early, and move on. ... This is not a time when we can hide information. ... We can't control information by tabooing it. And this has been going on for way too long."

Weston, along with other opposition senators, cried down the government's proposal to increase the FSRC board from four members to seven, saying the bill did not adequately explain the need for this.

Subsequent government senators, including Joanne Massiah and Dr Edmond Mansoor, posited that this was a necessary move to allow the FSRC to handle its additional responsibility to regulate non-banking financial institutions including the credit unions.