clarified that the BMA earned a profit of $2,779,000 for the year ended December 31, 1989.

Mrs. Marcia Woolridge-Allwood made the statement in response to an article in The Royal Gazette which quoted from the latest Government Auditor's report that pointed out that during that year, the Authority "experienced a $1,300,000 net loss on the sale of investments primarily as a result of six short-sell transactions of treasury bonds.'' The near $2.8 million profit for the BMA allowed it to use $717,000 to increase its general reserve, with the remainder being transferred to the Consolidated Fund.

With regard to the $1.3 million investment loss, Mrs. Woolridge-Allwood said: "This is investment losses, based on dealing with the investment portfolio.

What your article did not emphasise as well as it should have, is that despite the trading loss experience, there was still an overall profit in that investment portfolio for the year.

"The profit during that year, despite the $1.3 million in trading losses, was $4.4 million. The overall income of the Authority for 1989 was in fact $2.7 million.

"Everybody dealing with the portfolio has paper losses and real losses, but what needs to be emphasised is that at the end of the day, in dealing with that investment portfolio, there was an overall profit position.'' But the auditor's report took the position that: "Had the Authority's investment policy at the time adequately defined investment parameters, it is unlikely that the Authority would have been exposed to risk of this magnitude and experienced these ($1.3 million) losses.'' Mrs. Woolridge-Allwood responded: "That's not necessarily so. I mean in dealing with any portfolio, you are at the risk of the market. There is no safe investment out there, although one does manage one's portfolio in a conservative manner so as to limit any losses or prevent losses altogether.'' The Auditor's report said: "The Authority was receptive to our comments and corrective action was taken immediately. No similar losses or circumstances have since been recorded.''