Government has initiated action for the development of at least one portion of land formerly owned by CLICO.
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley announced that preliminary work has been done by New Life Investment Company (NLICO) the holding company and its insurance operating subsidiary Res Life, formed following the demise of CLICO, the development of that area of land at Worthing, the corner of Rendezvous Hill and Highway 7, which formerly housed a supermarket and gas station and which abounds the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary.
CLICO owned large properties across Barbados, inclusive of plantation houses and surrounding property at Todd’s Land, Henley, Pool and Wakefield in St John, as well as the land Graeme Hall, Christ Church, a section of the 82-acre Graeme Hall Swamp of which the reopened Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary occupies 35 acres.
Making the disclosure at the recent unveiling of a plaque to mark the reopening of the privately-owned Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary, the Prime Minister said: “It is intention of the Government to go very shortly to a public process of tendering for requests for persons interested in helping the Government through NLICO and Res Life, the two companies, to develop that property for commercial and residential use…”
She reminded that Government became the recipient of many CLICO properties, after taking “the hard decision to bail out those persons who were negatively affected” by the collapse of the insurance company.
Last week, Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn criticised the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration’s handling of the CLICO Insurance Company collapse, charging that several plantations in Barbados were “given away” to settle claims against the company.
Responding to Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne’s reference to the level of debt incurred by the current Barbados Labour Party administration in his presentation during debate in the House of Assembly on the Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2025, which was later passed, Straughn said the DLP administration committed the said government to a $600 million settlement for a private company that offered only $60 million in assets and pledged to the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) as partial resolution, plantations owned by CLICO in St John and St Philip.
“In the last gasp attempt to try to bail out a few people, they committed this country to $600 million of taxpayers’ money to bail out an insurance company, with only $60 million in assets being placed at the disposal of Barbadians to use. . . . I find it extraordinary, sir, because who would not take $600 million in exchange for $60 million?”
Straughn said the current Government restructured the $600 million commitment down to $414 million, which “included $163 million in Series B bonds, $149.74 million in Series A and another $93.2 million in bonds related to the British American Insurance settlement . . . We had to end up issuing $18.5 million in bonds in exchange for the OECS giving up [the plantations]. Imagine that—the OECS effectively owned land in Barbados because the last Government, the last Democratic Labour Party government [gave away the land] in exchange for the policyholders’ claims in the OECS.”
The Worthing Corporate Centre, Worthing, Christ Church, a building complex formerly owned by CLICO, is located in the vicinity of that section of lands which the Prime Minister said was earmarked for further development. It is part of the prime real estate in that area formerly owned by the failed insurer, that was put on sale as CLICO successor Resolution Life Assurance Company Ltd (ResLife) sought to raise millions of dollars to help pay liabilities.
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