HAULAGE contractor Michael Henriques told Wednesday’s sitting of the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC) enquiry into the 1990s financial meltdown that after depositing $850,000 at the National Commercial Bank in 1996 to pay off a loan, he was told some years later by Dennis Joslin Limited that he owed $1.7 million.

US-based Dennis Joslin bought the bad debt portfolio from FINSAC, which had acquired the assets of failed financial institutions.

Henriques, outlining his woes, told the enquiry that he also lost $2 million deposited with Corporate Merchant Bank in the 1990s after the financial institution was taken over by FINSAC during the meltdown.

Attorney-at-law Judith Clarke, representing Henriques, produced documents which she argued verified that the $850,000 was actually paid over to NCB.

Henriques told commissioners Worrick Bogle, Charles Ross and retired Justice Henderson Downer that in 1995 he borrowed $361,000 to purchase a truck.

He was to repay $794,200 over five years.

However, about six months later he sold the vehicle and its haulage contracts for $850,000 and deposited cheque with NCB with instructions to pay off the loan and the credit balance to his savings account.

“I never had any other outstanding loan with the bank,” Henriques insisted during questioning from the commissioners.

Henriques said upon checking his account some time after the sale of the truck Henriques he realised that the balance was never deposited.

But according to Henriques, he was never able to get redress as the NCB branch manager who authorised the loan had resigned and bank officials insisted that records showed that his loan was in arrears.

He said that after pleading his case to a representative of Dennis Joslin he was told to return to NCB as that institution, in fact, owed him money. Jamaica Redevelopment Foundation subsequently took over the debt, which was in turn sold to International Asset Services, another collection agency.

Clarke on Wednesday pointed out that there were discrepancies in the dates and amounts outlined in a document obtained from IAS seeking to collect on the NCB debt.

In the meantime, Yola Grey, president of the Association of Finsac’d Entrepreneurs, alleged that at least three other entrepreneurs could produce documentary evidence that their titles were forged and loans taken out in their names. The JRF, she alleged, had refused to give borrowers statement of accounts.

“We knew nothing about what was happening and some people are now able to see their titles,” she said.