ATTORNEY Anthony Levy, who is representing members of the Association of Finsac’d Entrepreneurs (AFE), on Friday called on Finsac Enquiry commissioners to subpoena former Prime Minister P J Patterson to give evidence at the ongoing enquiry.

According to Levy, the former prime minister was involved in the sale of at least one company — Thermo Plastics — during the tumultuous 1990s financial meltdown.

“There are documents, which were submitted into evidence, showing that he was actively involved in the Thermo Plastics receivership,” Levy said at a press conference called by the entrepreneurs at the Medallion Hall hotel in St Andrew.

Levy, who represents Thermo Plastics in an ongoing Supreme Court case against NCB, charged that Finsac sold the company to the National Investment Bank of Jamaica (NIBJ) in an “incestuous affair” where both government institutions had common directors.

NCB and Recon Trust Ltd, a subsidiary of Finsac, placed Thermo Plastics in receivership before it was sold.

Levy added that Thermo Plastics, the Caribbean’s leading plastic company at the time, was sold way below valuation.

“There is evidence before the commission to support it all,” he declared.

Levy’s call comes in the wake of Patterson’s declaration last week that commercial banks were responsible for the collapse in the island’s financial sector during the 1990s.

Patterson was prime minister during the crash of indigenous banks and the subsequent establishment of the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac).

However entrepreneurs, blaming the Patterson administration’s high interest rate policy for the collapse, have knocked the treatment meted out to them by Finsac and debt-collection agency Jamaica Redevelopment Foundation (JRF).

Finsac sold the loans to the US-based JRF in an arrangement where a percentage from the sale of assets, or collections, would be paid over to Government.

“Borrowers have testified from the moment their accounts were taken from the banking institutions, through to the donation to JRF, they were never able to receive statements of accounts,” AFE president Yola Gray-Baker said Friday.

She added that a letter written on the letterhead of Myers, Fletcher & Gordon and signed by attorney-at-law Sandra Minott Phillips, submitted in evidence at the enquiry reprimanded Finsac head Errol Campbell for divulging information on seized assets.

“I quote in part — please ensure that you do not give any report of any kind to any debtor. You may instead refer them to our client JRF for any information they need in relation to their account,” said Gray-Baker, who insisted that the JRF would not respond to requests from business people for information.

She said that former finance minister Dr Omar Davies as well as Campbell admitted in their testimonies to the enquiry that they knew banks were engaging in illegal activities but notwithstanding, they neglected to do due diligence in checking borrowers’ portfolio.

“So we ask, was it the intention from the get-go that we were never to have been given repossession of our titles and our properties?” Gray-Baker questioned at the press conference.