A revitalized D.F.C. will reemerge to provide loans

But while the economy is doing relatively poorly at present, the PM said small farmers, entrepreneurs, home owners and students who seek funding should be able to do so from a revitalized Development Finance Corporation that went belly up last year. Senator Godwin Hulse told News Five that amendments will have to be made to loopholes the old legislation allowed.

Godwin Hulse, Senator
“I had some significant concerns with respect to regulations and penalties in the Act, which would prevent the recurrence of what we know happened before. Therefore, I raised those very strongly indeed I requested that the Bills stay in Committee so that we could revise and institute in the Act itself these provisions to prevent recurrence, penalties particularly.”

There are four amendments under consideration. Those include a requirement for proper collateral; appointment by the board of the General Manager; limiting the Secrecy Clause in the D.F.C. Act to penalize senior managers only if information is disclosed with respect to particular clients’ business and not for suspicious transactions; and lastly, incorporation of serious financial and or custodial penalties. A meeting of stakeholders next Monday will finalize the amendments to the Bill. Meanwhile, the Caribbean Development Bank has committed to provide twenty million dollars to start-up the operations at D.F.C., but Barrow’s goal is to increase that amount to fifty million dollars soon after the inception of the corporation.