The separation package between the National Commercial Bank Financial Group (NCBFG) and Patrick Hylton, former CEO, and Dennis Cohen, his deputy, has now been determined.

Both men were sent on leave in July. This column, in an earlier commentary on the matter, averred that there had to be something substantial taking place at NCB for these two eminent personalities, who had given commendable service to building the fledgling NCB brand, to have been so summarily dismissed from their posts. Nothing further has come to the public from this publicly traded company on this matter.

One would be well advised then to “make sleeping dogs lie”. But there was a statement regarding the settlement from the now managing chairman and CEO of the company, Michael Lee-Chin, that caught my attention. Understandably, he did not want to say much in public about it, but when pressed, he said that the cost of the agreement will have a material impact on the performance of the company, primarily in the fourth quarter of the 2023 financial year, which ended in September 2023. To the best of my knowledge, he did not say what the “material impact” would be, but it is not hard to see this as a euphemism for a difficult financial patch that the company will have to weather.

How grave an impact will this be for the short- or long-term health of the company? Is this something of which shareholders should be apprised? Has the dividend payment of 50 cents that was later agreed a casualty of this agreement, thus preventing a larger payout to shareholders?

These are questions that any shareholder of NCB should be asking Lee-Chin and his board. The most that he would say is that the shares and cash payment given to Hylton and Cohen will be in the notes that come out with the financial statements of the group. Even then, he made it clear that it will not be a separate line item.

People will be left to infer what the settlement was from the notes, but it will not be separately disclosed. Why not, Lee-Chin? How many of your shareholders are conversant with reading financial statements from a large conglomerate such as NCB? I know I would find it difficult to do so. Why can it not be simply stated in plain English what the settlement was? Why include it in the complexity of a financial statement?

I have said in this space repeatedly that openness and transparency are the hallmarks of accountability for any public-traded entity, or any entity that serves the public for that matter. This is the mother’s milk that gives life and longevity to these institutions. When such transparency is not forthcoming, the public is left to speculate and draw myriad and diverse conclusions.

Lee-Chin and others who run publicly traded companies would be well advised that there are certain protocols that govern the operations of these entities. They are answerable to shareholders, even to the person who has 100 shares in the company. They are never the private fiefdom of the richest shareholders or of a board which behaves as if it knows best and without their learned contribution the company could only but falter.

I would like to give Lee-Chin the benefit of the doubt that he understands these things quite well, but I am nonetheless flabbergasted, perhaps because I know he knows better, at his apparent unwillingness to state clearly the specifics of the settlement agreement. He will have another chance to do so at an investor briefing to be held later. One hopes that he will use the opportunity to speak openly with the shareholders.

With all this being said, it is good to see that NCBFG will restart dividend payments this December, the settlement issue notwithstanding.

The Speaker’s Ruling

It is early days yet to assess the work of the new Speaker of the House Juliet Holness. But I believe a lot of unnecessary noise is being made about her decision to subject reports that come to the Parliament to respective committees of Parliament before they are made available to the wider body.

Some, especially in the Opposition People’s National Party, believe that such reports should be made available to the full Parliament as soon as they are sent there. They believe that these reports run the risk of being “sanitised” if they have to go through the perceived “scalpels” of these committees.

I can see the merit of these reports being deliberated by the committees before they reach the full Parliament. It can allow for additional scrutiny to be done and perhaps recommendations made. This could assist the wider Parliament in its deliberations and may save some time.

The matter of the reports being tampered with or watered down by a committee is a real one, but interested Members of Parliament would, or should, still have access to the original reports. If the original reports are not forthcoming, then we have a problem.

My real concern about these committees is that parliamentary committees on a whole do not seem to function too well. Some hardly meet or can hardly get a quorum for their meetings. The Integrity Commission, for example, in its last yearly report to Parliament, lamented the lack of meetings of the oversight committee to which it is answerable.

This state of affairs does not give any real hope that reports will be expeditiously and judiciously acted on, and there could be inordinate delays in them reaching the parliamentarians, which could affect the efficacy of what is being reported.

I can see no justification for the Speaker being unable to reveal the response of the Attorney General to a letter sent by the former Speaker, Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert, seeking clarification on how these matters are handled. Anything that is done in the Parliament is the people’s business.

Politicians should realise that they are the servants or hirelings of the people who sent them there, and they have a right to know what is being done in their name. It boggles the mind that the Government is wasting precious political capital on this. Share the deliberations of the attorney general and get over it!

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest, social commentator, and author of the books Finding Peace in the Midst of Life’s Storms; The Self-esteem Guide to a Better Life; and Beyond Petulance: Republican Politics and the Future of America. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or stead6655@aol.com.