FORMER Caroni (1975) Limited workers, who invested their Voluntary Separation of Employment Package (VSEP) money into a fund administered by the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) and the Unit Trust Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UTC) fund, protested outside the ADB’s San Fernando branch yesterday, demanding payment of money they believe is owed to them.

The former sugar workers called for the interest they were allegedly promised on their deposits made with the bank six years ago.

The ADB’s Chief Executive Officer, Jacqueline Rawlins, in a signed letter to some 3200 former workers several months ago, stated that the international financial crisis had impacted on the growth of the funds invested in the Individual Retirement Unit Account (IRUA). The investments did not grow enough to pay out the promised interest, she noted.

In 2003, when the deal was announced by then Chairman of the ADB and UTC, Hubert Alleyne, he said the intention was to deposit the VSEP earnings into UTC’s lndividual Retirement Unit Account (IRUA).

’You can then borrow up to the amount deposited, with your original deposit acting as security for your loan,’ he said then.

Loans, he noted then, would be repaid in approximately six years on an interest rate of eight per cent per annum, net gains were projected for transactions.

Allan Praimdass, spokesperson for the former workers, said yesterday that they are planning to seek legal advice.

’We met with an official at the ADB and she is saying the same thing that the letters said - we won’t be able to get the interest, but what we are saying is that we are entitled to the $49,000 on every $100,000 invested as promised because they have made the interest. We were supposed to be receiving that all now,’ he said.

He said they had received statements from the ADB until last March that showed their money had accumulated interest.