Clarke promises public access to FINSAC Commission archives this week
Published:Wednesday | October 16, 2024 | 12:12 AM
Outgoing Minister of Finance and the Public Service Dr Nigel Clarke says Jamaicans will “later this week” have access to a FINSAC Commission Archives covering the more than decade-old enquiry into the collapse of the domestic financial sector in the 1990s.
The archives comprise all the evidence provided and the submissions made to the FINSAC Commission into the financial meltdown which brought families and businesses to their knees.
The update came during yesterday’s sitting of the House of Representatives in what was expected to be Clarke’s final presentation to Parliament ahead of his departure to the International Monetary Fund where he will take up the post of deputy managing director.
“[This] will make available to the public documents submitted to the FINSAC commission. This symbolically comes at a time when Jamaica has reached a stage where our debt is lower than it was prior to the FINSAC years,” said Clarke.
The finance minister added that it was only “right and just” that Jamaica draw a line under this period by providing the documents.
He said the release is to help the country close this chapter, learn the lessons from it, and ensure that the country never traverses a similar course.
YEARS OF DEBT
“FINSAC levied on this country debt that represented 40 per cent of GDP that took more than a generation, approximately 30 years, to resolve,” he said.
Clarke said that, in releasing the information, it was important that provisions for research are provided that can help Jamaicans learn from the period.
He said the first supplementary estimates tabled yesterday also included amounts of $10 million for the University of Technology and The University of the West Indies to invite people to compete for research funds and to do research on the FINSAC archives.
He said the allocation of the money is to “stimulate” research activities.
Clarke initially made the announcement while opening the 2024-2025 Budget Debate in the House of Representatives on March 12.
“All of this archived data will be put out in volumes, in chapters, in folders, and made available to the public in perpetuity,” he indicated then.
The FINSAC Commission was established on January 12, 2009, and tasked to, among other things, examine the circumstances leading to the collapse of several financial institutions during the 1990s.
The commission was to examine the extent to which these circumstances were directly influenced by domestic or external factors; government’s fiscal and monetary policies; the management practices and role of the board of directors of the failed institutions; and the performance of government’s regulatory functions.