LASCELLES Poyser tried hard yesterday to put on a brave face as he related how a $9.8-million loan from Horizon Merchant Bank in 1993 not only caused him to lose acres of property across the island, but resulted in him still owing $113 million.

Poyser, a once powerful real estate dealer, appeared before yesterday’s sitting of the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac) enquiry into the 1990s financial sector meltdown.

According to Poyser, the debt has ballooned to a current $113 million despite him repaying approximately $100 million and losing acres of property across the island to debt collectors Jamaica Redevelopment Foundation (JRF). Finsac sold what it termed non-performing assets to overseas-based company JRF for cents in the dollar.

Poyser yesterday admitted that repayment on his loan went into default after Finsac took over Horizon’s assets, but he alleged that the JRF breached subsequent arrangements for a settlement of the debt. “If they had kept their agreement I would not be here giving evidence,” Poyser told the enquiry.

Poyser, in his witness statement, said among the lands lost was a 12-acre property at Discovery Bay, St Ann, which was put on the market for US$1.5 million in 2004, despite him having an agreement for a subdivision of the property and 60/40 split from the sale of the lots. He said the JRF would have received 60 per cent of the estimated $228 million proceeds from sale of the lots.

Yesterday, Poyser suggested that in order to make the enquiry meaningful for entrepreneurs affected by the meltdown, Government should give up its portion of the balance expected from the sale of JRF properties. “They should give that money back to the debtors as write-off,” he said.

Government receives a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of properties by the JRF.

Witnesses at the ongoing Finsac enquiry have repeatedly testified that in the early 1990s the Government’s high interest rate policy in many instances pushed repayment on bank loans above 90 per cent per annum.

Borrowers, as a consequence, found loan repayments onerous, if not impossible, leading to the collapse of banks, insurance companies and the shutdown of more than 100,000 small business enterprises islandwide.

However, the effect of the fallout, it appears, has not resonated with Jamaicans at large.

At yesterday’s sitting of the enquiry an empty room at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel greeted commissioners Worrick Bogle, Charles Ross and retired judge Justice Henderson Downer.

Former chairman, retired justice Boyd Carey was booted last year by the Courts after lawyers representing JRF and former finance minister Omar Davies — who has taken a lot of flak for the meltdown — accused him of having a Finsac debt which made him unfit to lead the enquiry.

Davies, ex-financial secretary Shirley Tyndall, former Finsac chairman Patrick Hylton and the JRF, in addition asked the Court to declare the enquiry null and void but were unsuccessful.

The lack of support for the Finsac enquiry is in stark contrast to the soap opera atmosphere of the current Dudus/Manatt Commission of Enquiry being held at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston.

At the end of yesterday’s sitting of the Finsac enquiry close to 4:00 pm, the Talk-of the-Town on the 17th floor of the Jamaica Pegasus remained as empty of observers as when the sitting commenced two hours before.

The enquiry continues today.