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BLA

Eight years after now Minister of Health, Senator Luke Browne, then an economist in the Ministry of Finance, wrote a newspaper commentary that triggered a run on the St. Vincent Building & Loan Association (BLA), the cooperative is still financially distressed.

And one of the persons who is suffering as a result of the development is an 82-year-old woman who gave her name as Ms. Haywood, who, although ill and must buy expensive medication, cannot access her retirement investment from the BLA.

The senior citizen cannot access her BLA investments almost five years after the government took EC$6 million from the cash-strapped institution.

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, who was then minister of finance, had defended that decision, saying that his government had written off the remainder of the EC$17 million that BLA owed his government.

Gonsalves had further noted that the BLA — which has been under the oversight of a state agency since 2012 — had made EC$12 million in operational profit over the two years ending October 2015.

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Last year, the BLA’s profit was EC$1.7 million.

Haywood has been presenting her case on WE FM’s “Issue at Hand” over the past few weeks.

In a call to the programme on June 21, she complained that it had been two weeks since she had been interacting with the chief executive officer, Elroy R. John regarding how she might access her assets deposited at the 79-year-old building society.

Haywood was impacted by a decision by members of the BLA, which remains under the supervision of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) — the state regulator for non-bank financial institutions — to convert certain types of members’ assets to permanent shares.

“I repeat myself. I never bought shares from Building & Loan. I am sick person. I am on expensive medication. I have to continue. Should I die for want of care for money that I put aside to take care of myself when I get sick? Do you think that is fair?” Haywood said on the programme, after speaking about the challenges she has been having accessing her funds,” Haywood said in her June 21 call.  

“How you want me to walk up and down town with a bell ringing, an old woman like me, asking people to buy shares that I didn’t buy?” she said, referring to a suggestion by one of the host of the show, that she tries to get someone to purchase her shares, so that she could redeem the cash,” she said.  

“Whose fault it was that her money was converted to permanent shares,” Haywood further reasoned.

In a call to the same programme that day, June 21, John detailed the history of the current challenges the BLA faces. 

“I empathise with Ms Haywood’s situation but let us try and deal with this thing in an equitable manner,” he said.

Cecil Ryan, a host of the show, suggested that John meet with Haywood and find a way for her to redeem her shares.

“Mrs Haywood’s situation is not confined to her only. There are other members,” John said, however.

‘82 years old, chronically sick’

But Haywood again telephone the radio show this Sunday, saying that she was “not good” as John had called the programme on June 21, saying he empathised with her, but her situation remained the same.

“But if he was in sympathy to me, he would try to assist me with my problem that I have with Building & Loan. I have noticed that he has in the paper here for the weekend talking about people can get access to building house and you can get access to scholarship and those things,” Haywood said in apparent reference to a BLA advertisement in a local newspaper.

“I am not in that category. I am 82 years old, chronically sick. I am not looking to build a property, neither am I looking for scholarship because I don’t have anybody to give scholarships to. What I am looking for and want him, if he sympathise with me, is to help me to get my cash money that I put in Building & Loan and he take it and buy shares for me that I didn’t agree to.”

The moderator noted that it was a procedure and not John himself who had converted the money into permanent shares.

Haywood, however, continued:

“I have to go to the drug store; I have medication that is over $200; I have to eat; I have light bill, water bill, have to buy gas and all like that.

“If he says he sympathise with me, I don’t see where his sympathy goes because as far as what I know, I am dying for want of care — something that I made preparations for. I am sure that Mr. John, if he says he sympathise, he could find some way to issue his sympathy.”

‘the whole nation should march’

The host of the show suggested that Haywood write to the board of directors of the BLA outlining her case.

“I have done that all. I have gone through that process. I have gone from A to Z and I get no kind of help at all.  Nobody wants to have anything to do — in the meantime, I am the one who’s suffering.”

Haywood received sympathy for her situation from a caller who gave his name as Ras-I.

Ras-I contrasted the BLA situation with the collapse of British American and CLICO, adding that Gonsalves had intervened then.  

“… it ain’t we thing but he make it he business to make sure that Trinidad ain’t get all ah our money…”

He said that Vincentians feel it for Haywood who had lived and worked in the United States.

“Now she come home, she can’t get her money in this type of sickness?” he said in an apparent reference to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“And the prime minister giving people money for the same type a sickness — they can’t work? And she done work? Come on man, the whole nation should march. We don’t want them kinda system here, you know…

“Ah old lady wah [want] back she money. Please, please. Just like the virus changed the world, alyo call a board meeting and make sure that all poor people in St. Vincent way get they money in them institutions, please gi’ them they money before they pass. Please!  Because the younger generation dey to put money dey.  Dey doh need old people money, because yo’ done strong on it,” Ras-I said.

BLA ‘still a distressed financial institution’

Ralph Gonsalves 2
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. (iWN file photo)

Meanwhile, in a call to the programme last Sunday, the prime minister said that “perhaps it has been forgotten by some that the Building & Loan Association is still a distressed financial institution.”

He said that the BLA was still trying “to get itself out of the difficulties”.

Gonsalves said that the building society has been making re-arrangements to help it “hold its head above water while at the same time continue to function so it doesn’t disintegrate and in the process, a number of individuals, like, for instance, our dear lady who is obviously very pained and we all have to be pained listening to her that she would like to have her money.

“The challenge is this: if everyone who is in a similar situation draws out the money, then the organisation will collapse because I am talking about the distressed state – or likely to, or to be severely undermined,” Gonsalves said.

“But, having said that, there need to be some recognition by the management at the Building & Loan to particular cases like this one.”

He said he has heard both Haywood and John on the situation.

“… and there has to be something which could be done more,” he said, adding that he does not know if the line of credit that the government had backed with the Central Bank in the early stages of the fiasco, which the BLA did not accept, “may still be needed to buttress and supplement”.

“… but it is a real difficult matter if you have put your savings in, you didn’t have anything to do with some of the decisions which were taken hitherto and resources — bad mortgages and all the rest of it, and which put the organisation under distress and instances of not proper management and so on and so forth and for persons now, like her, who have to  have this troubled situation in which she finds herself, or in which she is found,” Gonsalves said, adding that he was choosing his words carefully. 

“I am choosing my words carefully.”

Ryan said he had suggested that the CEO meets with the woman and see if someone may buy her shares.

Gonsalves said:

“It may well be that there has to be other interventions which may well be possible. And there are cases in which I have — have come to me and I have written and I have called the Building & Loan leadership to speak to them on the matter. So that’s all I would say. It is not as straight forward as my brother Ras-I who called, because of the distress in which the organisation has found itself.”

In 2015, Browne, who was making his second attempt to win East Kingstown for Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party defended his decision in 2012 to write the newspaper article that triggered the run on BLA, saying that in doing so, he showed he has “the courage, and strength of character to deal with the tough issues”.

8 replies on “‘Chronically sick’ woman, 82, can’t get her BLA money”

  1. Atiba Richards says:

    Smh distress the company in… what about the distress the people in especially the elderly lady… it ain’t her fault of bad business done by the company… this is totally wrong… why did we made you PM ? smh…. something need to be done. BLA. CLICO who next? All ah dem are schemes. Then banks too.. bout you can’t change a cheque or IS money unless you are a member…smdh

  2. 82 years old and at the same time being very ill is most certainly not a good situation to be in, worst, having no access to the funds that you were relying on in your old age has to be extremely sad indeed. One would have assumed that after eight long years in trouble our Government would have instituted a mechanism to resolve that institution’s problems. However should we be at all surprise that they haven’t.

    The plain fact for us here in SVG is that this government of ours has no money at all but begs and borrow its way around the world for financial support of vanity projects rather than see about securing the wellbeing of its citizens. It mouths the word socialism but nothing could be further from its actual actions.

    Socialism indeed! What we are witnessing there today in Venezuela is true Socialism at its best when “Venezuela’s poverty levels rise to the highest in Latin America as hyperinflation undermines the economy”. We are told for good measure that;

    “There is no wealth to distribute, as Venezuela poverty rate surges. Indeed “this once-prosperous oil producing nation’s hyperinflationary economic collapse continued for a sixth-straight year, its people suffers.” Money to this Gonsalves family run government would sure not be coming our way to help B.L.A as Venezuelans are legging it to where ever they could go in the world.

    Quote; “The rise in poverty in Venezuela does not have to do with inequality. The problem has been the abrupt fall in economic output.” Perhaps we should remind all Vincentians that this indeed is socialism at its best. https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/wealth-distribute-venezuela-poverty-rate-surges-200708025905621.html Venezuelans’ average income is just 72 US cents per day.

    “The 2019-20 National Survey of Living Conditions found that 64.8 percent of Venezuelan households experienced ‘multidimensional poverty’ in 2019, a measure that takes into account income as well as access to education and public services”.

    A healthy economy is indeed buoyed up and supported by several things, two of which are a healthy and industrious workforce, together with ample corporate and personal savings. None of which are being encouraged here in SVG by the policies of this one-man self-obsessed government that are apt to shout socialism and socialist whenever they speak.

    Moreover, is it not a serious indictment against this regime for the salient fact that “The senior citizen cannot access her BLA investments almost five years after the government took EC$6 million from the cash-strapped institution”?

  3. All the shareholders of Building and Loan Association should file a class action suit to recover their hard-earned money that was illegally converted to permanent shares.
    It is highly unethical and disgraceful that an old, sick octogenarian is made to suffer while the management is collecting monthly salaries in excess of $ 10,000.00.
    What is the end game for Building and Loan? Why has the government allowed them to keep the investors’ monies and then hold them hostage?
    Where in the free world are persons forced to remain shareholders in a company against their will? Why does Building and Loan tell the people to sell their shares when there is no Stock Exchange in SVG?
    Why is Jomo not challenging Building and Loan on this issue? I am sure he will win this one big if he brings a legal challenge.
    Why are poor people paying for the mismanagement of the Board, directors and the management of Building and Loan?
    Mr. Manager and your Board, I implore you. Please do the right thing. Give back the poor old lady her money. She needs the medication. It is not her fault for trusting an inefficient organization. Have a heart, Mr. Prime Minister! Tell them to help the poor woman. Show some humanity. Stop stealing from the poor. Use some of the $ 1.7 million profit to pay the destitute and desperate shareholders.

  4. Did I hear someone talking about investing in SVG? These are the issues investors will encounter dealing with a corrupt government. So what has BLA been doing since 2015? Are folks still working there ad are being paid? This is the same scenario that happened to those lands that Ralph took to build AIA. Folks are dying and no money is there for their descendants.
    There is a problem when there is no real honest legal system, so folks can have the court defend their rights. Why would anyone buy the shares from the lady, unless they want to make a donation? They would be in the same situation and experience the rip-off she’s encountered.
    Someone has to be held accountable for any fraud committed by a bank or individual. There were many lawyers involved in the rip-off scheme in BLA. I am sure Luke would be able to point those individuals out.

  5. Did I hear someone talking about investing in SVG? These are the issues investors will encounter dealing with a corrupt government. So what has BLA been doing since 2015? Are folks still working there and are being paid? This is the same scenario that happened to those lands that Ralph took to build AIA. Folks are dying and no money is there for their descendants.
    There is a problem when there is no real honest legal system, so folks can have the court defend their rights. Why would anyone buy the shares from the lady, unless they want to make a donation? They would be in the same situation and experience the rip-off she’s encountered.
    Someone has to be held accountable for any fraud committed by a bank or individual. There were many lawyers involved in the rip-off scheme in BLA. I am sure Luke would be able to point those individuals out.

  6. The Financial Statements shows that profits for the Association has be on a reduction EVERY year since 2015 under the management and leadership of this new CEO. In order words the Association performance is getting worse and worse – internally and externally. More than a distressed Organisation I would

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