On board with Bhoe

Academics are usually said to have more book sense than common sense. By his own admission Bhoe Tewarie left both outside the CL Financial boardroom for 15 years. In that time he served on other boards, headed the UWI's local graduate school of business, headed the UWI local campus and then inaugurated the UWI's Centre for Critical Thinking.

Bhoe's ambiguity in dealing with CL Financial may end up as a footnote in the CL Financial's meltdown, but he is now Minister of Planning and the Economy. And having overlooked, ignored or not ever known corporate governance fundamentals while on the board of CL Financial, our expectations are now much higher. Regardless of the way Sir Anthony Colman treats his evidence in the CLICO inquiry, Minister Tewarie's book sense and common sense is our business.

When you talk about boards and high-level committees, the Minister has a long list of credentials. He was on Republic Bank Limited's board for 12 years from 1997 to 2009 and on the board of Trinidad Publishing Co., from 2001 to 2008. These two companies are publicly listed, have significant corporate governance responsibilities generally, and both would have been educating directors on an ongoing basis on their duties, responsibilities and liabilities.

At the cornerstone of that education would have been the first and ultimate power of directors to manage the company's affairs. A reasonable person would expect that with these board and high-level appointments, most running simultaneously with his CL Financial tenure, Bhoe would have understood some corporate governance fundamentals. But before Sir Anthony Colman that was not obvious and this where the problems lie.