Edmond Campbell, News Coordinator

FORMER FINANCIAL secretary and chairperson of the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC), Shirley Tyndall, says she is ready to "speak the truth" if summoned to a commission of enquiry into the disposal of assets by FINSAC.

Speaking with The Gleaner yesterday, Tyndall said the operation of the entity was above board and the assets sold were done through public tenders.

FINSAC was set up by the then government of the People's National Party to manage the assets of banks and other institutions, which collapsed during the financial sector debacle of the 1990s.

Tyndall, who now chairs the Financial Institution Services (FIS), the company now completing the winding-up exercise flowing from the FINSAC intervention, said she had no apprehension about testifying at the commission of enquiry because "there is nothing to hide".

She argued that, under the chairmanship of former World Bank official and deputy Bank of Jamaica Governor, Dr Gladstone Bonnick and the late former solicitor general, Dr Ken Rattray, FINSAC's operation, was never called into question.

No government interference

Tyndall stressed that while these persons presided over the company, there was never a complaint about government interference into the decision-making process of FINSAC.

Attempts were made to get a comment from former managing director of FINSAC, Patrick Hylton, but The Gleaner was informed he was in a meeting.

Audley Shaw, minister of finance and the public service, said on Wednesday that the Government would soon be naming people to preside over a commission of enquiry into FINSAC.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com