Government has approached the T&T Manufacturers Association (TMA) and T&T Chamber of Commerce to suggest one name each for the FCB Board, Finance Minister Larry Howai said yesterday. After the Cabinet meeting yesterday, Howai commented on the recent changes on FCB’s board, arising from the IPO issue. He said a special annual general meeting would be held around June 12 and Government was still in the process of identifying replacements for directors who demitted office or were not returned to office this week. Howai said Cabinet had not yet met on how it would deal with the remaining FCB directors. No decision would be taken next week, he added.
He said 21 days’ notice had to be given to those replacing those who demitted office. That would be communicated early next week and after the issue of the remainder of the board would be dealt with, he noted. Howai said Government took its recent decisions on the FCB board before the recent AGM and they were communicated to the outgoing chairman beforehand. He added that the ministry acted on the basis of its evaluation of the situation and concluded it should take “particular action as a consequence of all information at hand, including the PricewaterhouseCoopers report.”
On possible flaws in the system, he said the bank had used the same model as that for the National Enterprises Ltd, which did not have limits on how many shares staff could purchase.
He said the ministry needed to determine how to deal with that. He said they had been advised that limiting purchase could trigger action such as judicial review. Howai said, however, they had come up with a solution which he thought could work.