Preparing triggers

Hello, Am I going mad ??? I'm running Informix SE/4GL 7.20.UD7 on SuSE Linux 2.2.10. When I do WHENEVER ERROR STOP LET l_stmt = "CREATE TRIGGER . .. . WITH syntax error in FOR EACH ROW" PREPARE stmt_prep FROM l_stmt the program falls over and a check of SQLCA.SQLCODE reveals -201, which is correct But when I do WHENEVER ERROR CALL my_error LET l_stmt = "CREATE TRIGGER . .. . WITH syntax error in FOR EACH ROW" PREPARE stmt_prep FROM l_stmt the program writes to the error file (correct) but SQLCA.SQLCODE = 0, and I can't catch the error and exit gracefully. I've tried preparing a simple SELECT with a syntax error and this puts -201 in SQLCA.SQLCODE for both WHENEVERs. Any ideas?? TIA