Government Owned Bank Makes Millions In Profit

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The Caribbean Union Bank (CUB) has registered a profit of $2.9 million dollars before tax during the past fiscal year 2018, the government has said.

CUB is owned 80% by the Government of Antigua and Barbuda as a result of a purchase of equity made nearly three years ago.

At the time of the investment, the opposition UPP asserted that the decision was being made to bailout friends.

“However, the new administration remained steadfast in its determination to invest in enterprises with potential for profitability,” the government said.

CUB has been turned-around, the Cabinet was told.

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11 COMMENTS

  1. Alright, very well. Why is it that the public can never see a timely balance sheet of all statutory bodies in this country. We reserve the right to know how they are doing. I recently saw a detailed statement of income/expenditure from the National Insurance of Grenada (Same like our Social Security) for January 2019. What does it takes for the public to see similar figures for all Statutory Corporations here in Antigua. We need to become less political and begin to hold our public officials accountable. For years we been walking the streets blindfolded with politicians leading the way. It’s time to wake up and live.

    • Its a bank, its financial statements will be published in the newspaper. As far as stat corps, they are tabled in parliament, so visit the clerk of parliament to get your copy. Agree with you that social sec financials and related stats should be be shown at least on their website and also published similar to banks. Here is the url for the their 2018 financials https://www.socialsecurity.gov.ag/_content/publications/statistics/abssb-performance-highlights-2018.pdf . Kudos to the management, staff and board of SS for transparency

      • You do notice these are just some un-audited highlights. Why you think we cannot see the audited financial statements. tenman I have said more than enough when it comes to social security. The PM had promised to have Lennox Weston have a closer and tighter look at the operation. But to date nothing has been done. There is a lot wrong with our money being spend frivolously. Without care for the contributors. Don’t you think that if the Social Security has difficulties in paying benefits and pensions the staff should not be getting all kind of increases and perks and travel all over the world to go to workshops and seminars with large perdiems. And the board should not be getting new IPads. They are out of control and no one is taking steps to curb their spending.

        • Brethen you will never hear me argue the audited ones should not be made public. It must be on their website too.

  2. ANR I need that information coming from the ECCB and not from this propaganda government, that use your media space to spread it’s misinformation. Please do your facts check ANR.

  3. For two consecutive years, in releasing the condensed financial statements for Caribbean Union Bank, the external auditors commented to the effect that the statements DO NOT conform to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). It is reasonable to ask – what is the deviation? The external auditors did not elaborate, but a keen eye could deduce that the deviation is in respect of the classification of loans.

    Under IFRS and Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) guidelines, loans should be classified non-performing once payments to principal and/or interest are in arrears for 90 days and over. Once a loan is classed non-performing, interest generated by that loan SHOULD NOT be taken into earnings. By failing to classify the loans as non-performing, the bank accrues the interest, declares it as income, and in the process over states the actual interest income generated by the bank. This is FALSE REPORTING of income and therefore profits.

    Also, once a loan is classified non-performing, the bank is required to make provision for loan losses, which could be as low as 10% or as much as 100% of the balance due on the principal debt, depending on whether the payments are in arrears for 90 days or more than 360 days. By failing to classify the loans as non-performing, AS REQUIRED, the bank is not recognising the true extent of its provision for loan losses. In other words, they are UNDERSTATING EXPENSES.

    When you combine the overstatement of income and the under reporting of expenses, the net result is a false representation of the profitability of the bank. If IFRS and ECCB guidelines are followed, CUB would reflect losses in both fiscal 2017 and 2018.

    It is a stretch (patently false) to claim that CUB has been turned around and is now a profitable bank. The authorities could prove naysayers wrong by publishing the FULL audited financial report on the websites for the bank and Government of Antigua, so that the public could examine the statements. Both ACB and ECAB publish their full financial reports on their websites, so why not CUB?

  5. I just hope they do not burden the bank with too many bad none-performing government loans like what happened in the old days of Bank of Antigua before Stanford took it over.

  6. Our PM getting his big dividends from his shares in it, and countless other polician investors. Nice.

    Rich until you die. Poor people keep depositing your peanuts in these locally shared polician banks, yet still cannot get paid on time.

    Let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer???

Comments are closed.