C.B. Peter Morgan, Contributor
Bishop C.B. Peter Morgan. - file
On Monday, July 14, the residence and office of David Smith, principal of Olint Corporation Ltd, was raided by members of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force. They seized computers and documents to probe for what they called "suspected financial irregularities".
This came as a major blow to the widespread foreign-exchange investment industry. Many of its traders and club leaders have felt pursued by the local Financial Services Commission with the threat of cease-and-desist orders and possible litigation for avoiding regulatory licensing.
Having weathered the storm of initial accusation of being 'Ponzi' or 'pyramid' schemes, the industry is now being investigated for possible money laundering. No wonder the traders have accused major banking institutions and other business interests of collusion and joint conspiracy in trying to frustrate the industry, both locally and overseas, for fear of competitive challenges.
In the meantime, it is estimated that thousands of investors, both local and abroad, investing millions of dollars (US), in what has become a billion-dollar (US) enterprise, remain in fearful limbo as to the future of their funds and of their businesses.
publicly ridiculed
In the midst of this speculation, with charges and countercharges, the Church has been thrown into the mix, as it is estimated that as much as 60-70 per cent of the investors in these programmes are members of the Christian community, and for the most part were 'recruited' within the Church. For this, they have been publicly ridiculed in the press and elsewhere, and decried as "naïve and foolish".
According to Peter Espeut, a regular columnist in The Gleaner and himself an active churchman, "They were victims of their own prosperity-gospel rhetoric" (Gleaner Wednesday, July 23). Dr Henley Morgan was equally critical claiming, "They (investment brokers) foisted themselves on a captive audience of believers." (Gleaner, Thursday, July 17).
However the Church and the Christian community are judged for their participation in this financial initiative, their involve-ment and response may, in fact, provide the key to take the nation through what is setting up to be a major financial, social and psychological fallout. Rather than being condemned by the past, it is time to examine how we can invest in our future.
As a leader within the Christian community, I embrace this crisis as an opportunity to re-examine the age-old foreign-exchange investment enterprise, to study its local operation along with its counterpart in other capital markets in order to come up with a unique product that is operationally more efficient, more transparent, more accountable, more realistic and better regulated than what currently exists.
We need to invest in the future. We need to display the wisdom, integrity, courage and faith to champion a cause, which is more than economic. It is rooted in the need for our people to be liberated from the systems and practices which cripple them and which demean them, and which confine them to the ghettoes of institutional poverty and social oppression and hopelessness.
need for reformation
I see this crisis as bringing to the fore the need for a reformation in the entire banking and investment industry to serve the critical socio-economic needs of the nation. How else can we dispel the common perception that the present financial and business institutions are controlled by a private cartel which hides behind laws and statutes which are prejudicially applied against the interest of the people?
If the major players in this saga would commit themselves to sit at the round table of collaborative reason, we could achieve some results, which would serve the common good of all concerned. To this end, I make the following recommendations:
1. The Church and the Christian community must enter a season of honest self-examination, self-scrutiny, and self-analysis to determine the fullest extent of their involvement in the current investments business, as corporate units or as individuals. What are the legal and moral implications of their involvement? Can they quantify the level of frozen assets which cannot be encashed? They must compassionately address the condition of its members who may be facing real emergency needs. This experience should be guided through the process of repentance and emerge with a new and workable alignment to best-practice operations.
2. The Financial Services Commission (FSC), which is the regulatory agency established to monitor and license the banking and financial-investment market, must create the environment of trust and true professionalism to encourage investment prospects to consult with them and ultimately, to seek regulatory approval for their operations.
In addition, the FSC must take the initiative in shaping policy and framing appropriate laws to guide the Government in establishing a new emerging industry, which can fit into the Jamaican capital context.
It requires a collaborative approach with other players in the field, including some of the traders and investment brokers who have themselves studied different models currently working successfully within the United States of America and other nations.
3. It is time for the banking sector together with other business houses to examine the need for reform in the conduct and role of banking in our developing economy, and given our acute social needs. We could contribute to a new paradigm in the banking industry, which the internal and global markets are demanding.
Many of our bankers and noted economists and leaders in the business sector who are members of the Church should note that the development of Western capitalism is indebted to the "Protestant ethic," which applied biblical principles of wealth creation and financial stewardship in shaping the Western culture's ethic of work, entrepreneurship, investment and social benevolence.
4. Traders and investment-club leaders must jointly come public without fear of recrimination and public exposure to promote a high level of professional transparency and accountability, both in the way they operate, and in how they discharge their fiduciary responsibilities. It must be acknowledged that foreign-exchange trading, as is practised in Jamaica, is still in its experimental stages and requires some degree of collaborative counsel from the FSC and the Government.
divine favour
The members of the Christian community continue to exercise tremendous patience and restraint precisely because they have been convinced from the very outset that this foreign-exchange trading enterprise is in fact an act of divine favour. We ought not to apologise for this conviction. Equally, we ought not become ensnared by the spirit of 'Mammon', self-serving aggrandisement, opulence and selfish greed.
The Christian community to which I am exposed has never been more ardently in prayer for the major players in this critical situation. I commit myself, together with my constituents, to pray for the traders, and the investment brokers, for the FSC and its officers, for the Government and all the banking institutions, and of course for everyone who made an investment in good faith for the benefit of their children, their business and for the Kingdom of God.
This is my investment into the future.
Bishop C.B. Peter Morgan is chairman of Kingston City Church. He may be reached at bishop.petermorgan@yahoo.com
