The unfolding debacle at Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL) has brought into sharp focus how people are willing to suspend their moral judgements, place their lives in jeopardy in the pursuit of a greed agenda, and significantly hurt or even destroy the lives of other people in the process.

What is unfolding at SSL is a clear lesson of greed on steroids. When you go on a greed binge as we have seen in the financial failures of the past, you get to a point at which you are inure to human suffering. You convince yourself that there is nothing wrong with what you are doing; that somehow you deserve the proceeds of your theft. This mentality dominates the scamming industry.

It is no comfort to those who have lost money in the most recent debacle at SSL that what is happening is not new to the Jamaican experience. It is true we have been here before. Over the past 30 years there have been three major debacles in the financial sector: the meltdown of the financial sector in the 1990s; Ponzi schemes — Olint and Cash Plus — of more recent vintage; and now “SS-Hell”.

Rather than giving comfort to those who have lost money at SSL, it has infuriated people that after all we have gone through in the past, we have not been able to establish strong regulatory and punishment regimes for those who receive people’s money, finagle with it, and live lavish lifestyles off the backs of an often vulnerable and unsuspecting public.

Even today we are yet to see the report on the collapse of the financial sector in the 1990s and the sad attempt to clear up the mess by the largely ill-fated Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac). If a report was tendered after millions of taxpayers dollars were spent, are there lessons we could have learnt from that experience which could have made us more alert to the predators in the Ponzi scheme and now SSL? Maybe not, but we will never know since the report has not been published and it is too late in the day for it to be of any use.

Frankly, I do not believe the public has any appetite for it, but in that it was not published, successive governments have done the public a great disservice. For a financial event to liquidate 40 per cent of a country’s gross domestic product and put it in a state of chronic debt, not to have been given the weight it deserved and the public to be availed of what happened is a scandal and a shame of monumental proportions on our political governors.

But now we have a new problem on our hands and the monster of greed has once again raised its hoary head. It is clear that the internal accounting controls at SSL left a lot to be desired. Although they were called from time to time to account by the Financial Services Commission (FSC), it seems clear that despite the scrutiny, at least one individual, who has purportedly written a statement accepting culpability for crimes committed, and perhaps other individuals, was able to operate with impunity in stealing people’s money. I believe it is now well settled in the minds of any well-thinking Jamaican that this is not only about Usain Bolt and the multimillion dollars that he is supposed to have lost. Other Jamaicans, including an understandably distressed 87-year-old woman, have had their lives upended by the greedy at this entity.

It also seems clear from what has unfurled so far that the regulatory authorities were largely asleep at the wheel when the SSL car careened off the road. Sanctions that are within its remit were not robustly applied by the FSC. SSL was apparently allowed to behave like a child in a candy shop. Where were the internal accounting auditors who should have discovered that this long-running fraud was taking place at this institution? For the better part of a decade, clients funds were being pilfered from their accounts and this went undetected.

It is true that as minister of finance there are limitations on Dr Nigel Clarke’s involvement in any agency under his ministry, especially the FSC and now the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), that is considered an independent entity. But the Government is not without blame in this sad episode. Whether the minister likes it or not, as the ministry responsible for the financial sector and for fiduciary and prudential conduct of the institutions it regulates, the buck stops with Ministry of Finance when things of this nature happen.

The minister has averred that he did not know of the financial shenanigans at SSL. In fact, he has categorically rejected any suggestion that he knew. It is possible that in 2020, in light of the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the economy, he was preoccupied with other grave matters and might not have seen such a report. Was it, in fact, brought to his attention, or did some person or entity at his ministry sit on it with the view that he already had too much on his plate?

We may never know and will have to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t. But what if he did? I have a great deal of respect for Dr Clarke and have sung his praises in these columns, especially his and the Government’s astute management of the economy in the worst months of the pandemic. But if he was apprised of the SSL debacle, took no action, and went on to lie to the people of Jamaica, however much I would hate to see him go, one hopes that he would do the decent thing and resign. Blatantly lying to the people of a country, especially in matters so grave, should be met with the gravest penalties available, especially when we know that we are living in a post-truth world and lying is becoming an acceptable social principle.

In the meantime, behind every tragedy of financial failure of this magnitude are human beings, many of whom are left to pick up the pieces of their lives. Those who traffic in unrestrained greed that results in suffering to so many must be made to feel the full brunt of the law.

By the way, why is it so difficult to get information about what is happening to people’s accounts at SSL? Is it the FSC, BOJ, or Ministry of Finance that one can go to for answers. The ministry needs to set up a desk, a central place, where people can call in and have their questions answered. It would not hurt if periodically a public statement of assurance to clients at SSL be given as to how their accounts are being dealt with, if anything of substance is indeed taking place.

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest, social commentator, and author of the books Finding Peace in the Midst of Life’s Storm; Your Self-esteem Guide to a Better Life and Beyond Petulance: Republican Politics; and the Future of America. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or stead6655@aol.com.