Tuesday, June 16, 2009

In defence of Mr. David Cannan MHK

In the Tynwald on 16 June Mr. Allen Bell (Treasury Minister) set out to put down the courageous Mr.David Cannan.

Mr. Cannan should not be made some sort of scapegoat & discredited in this matter. At the outset he & fellow MHK's were given 'best advice' from professionals and that advice favoured the proposed SoA. At that point it was understandable that he should support the SoA in the light of the way it was sold to the Tynwald.

If Mr. Cannan had known at the time what the outcome was to be, and had he known the enormous cost of engineering the SoA, I am sure he would not have supported what the professionals were so strongly advocating as being in the depositors' best interests and those of the IoM.

With hindsight Mr.Cannan can see that the SoA was in fact a scheme that put depositors' interests second to those of the IoM, & he has the guts to stand up for what he feels is an injustice being done to depositors.

The IoM needs more politicians like him -- politicians who have integrity & recognise injustice when they see it. I believe that he knows the FSC & directors failed in their duty to protect the trust depositors put in them, and I admire his willingness to speak up to see that a terrible wrong is put right.

A credible solution would be for the Treasury to borrow the money 'in house' from the banks and pay it back as the assets of KSFIOM are recovered. If the Tynwald had the moral courage & integrity to sort the Kaupthing debacle by restoring all deposits 100% through such an arrangement,then it would be giving a clear signal to the world that the IoM is assuredly the safest & securest place to deposit one's life savings.

2 comments:

  1. Jim,


    Nice idea for the IOMG to borrow money "in house" from the banks to sort out this KSFIOM debacle, but that would set a very dangerous prededent...and to quote Yes Minister, would be a "courageous decision." In other words, it ain't gonna happen. Hope I'm wrong, though...

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  2. The banks 'invest' money on deposit away from the IoM so it sounds a brilliant idea for them to lend within the Isle of Man to get this festering Kaupthing thorn out of the flesh of the Manx economy. I think they should go for it quick so that confidence in the Island can be restored. It's enough the Island having to cope with the global financial down turn without having this festering mess to help drag things down further for the Manx economy.

    RH (Ramsey IoM)

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