WILLEMSTAD - According to former President of the Central Bank Emsley Tromp, there was a suitable buyer for the Giro Bank in mid-2016, who was prepared to adequately capitalize the bank and thereby safeguard customers' bank balances and deposits.

The Central Bank of Curaçao and St. Maarten (CBCS), which is responsible for the management of Giro in the context of the emergency arrangement, acted at the bank at the end of 2013.

As a former Central Bank top executive, Tromp cannot explain too much about this because he is bound by confidentiality, but he knows to say that it should not have come to the point that depositors at Giro in December 2019 would have their assets above 10,000 guilders frozen.

After two and a half years of emergency regulation and after fourteen potential takeover candidates had been reviewed, according to Tromp the CBCS had the right buyer in 2016. According to him, the court had already appointed an "intended bankruptcy trustee" and Giro Bank would become a second example of a so-called "pre-pack", as had happened with the Curaçao Dock Company (CDM).

“The question then is: if there was a solution in July 2016, what went wrong? And, secondly, how can a solution be converted into the near-collapse of the same institution in 2019?” Tromp repeated that he is bound by confidentiality. “But this agreement is well documented in the CBCS archives and the intention was to make it public to the public in August 2016.”

What happened next was in the sphere of influence of his successors (Jerrald Hasselmeyer, Alberto Romero, Leila Matroos-Lasten, Bob Traa and currently José Jardim and the interim or acting president).

He can only say that the CBCS filed a complaint in 2015 against former banker Eric Garcia of Giro Bank. This was supported by an extensive forensic investigation. "The reason for the Public Prosecution not taking action is still a mystery to me today."