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At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie yes­ter­day laid in Par­lia­ment the long-de­layed Re­port of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the col­lapse of the CL Fi­nan­cial group and the Hin­du Cred­it Union, re­veal­ing that the State spent ap­prox­i­mate­ly $28 bil­lion res­cu­ing CL Fi­nan­cial and its sub­sidiaries, with a fur­ther $3 bil­lion to $4 bil­lion spent in sub­se­quent years on le­gal, ac­count­ing and ad­min­is­tra­tive mat­ters linked to the col­lapse.

Je­re­mie said the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­ven­tion to sta­bilise the fi­nan­cial sys­tem im­posed a sig­nif­i­cant and long-term bur­den on pub­lic fi­nances.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, State in­ter­ven­tion was nec­es­sary to pre­vent a wider fi­nan­cial cri­sis fol­low­ing the col­lapse of CL Fi­nan­cial in 2009. The res­cue rep­re­sent­ed one of the largest fi­nan­cial in­ter­ven­tions in T&T’s his­to­ry, with the ul­ti­mate cost borne by tax­pay­ers.