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Republic Bank: Guyana’s tragedy continues
Feb 15, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Robert Simels was a feared defence attorney. He took on the New York District Attorney’s office in several mafia cases and won. Simels is in jail today because he got entangled with a Guyanese – Roger Khan.
Many diplomats from the ABC countries after their posting ended chose to live here. The Guyana tragedy struck. They are all gone. Many CEO’s stayed and invested here. The Guyana tragedy struck. They are all gone. The former CEO of Courts opened a nightclub on Quamina Street. He’s gone. The former Italian CEO of Fogarty’s established a pizza restaurant. He’s gone
If Google, Amazon, Siemens, Facebook, Boeing, Westinghouse, Sony, Toyota, Kraft, Nestles, and other multi-national corporation set up shop in Guyana, within months, you will see the death of their professionalism. The companies will frown on industrial laws, bribe judicial officials, behave with philistine perversions, and their officials will drive like mad people on the roadways.
Name me one top foreign company in Guyana whose bureaucratic culture is uncouth in the home county as in Guyana? Rusal didn’t dare treat the trade union in Moscow the way they are evil in their dismissing contempt of Guyanese workers
The Bank of Nova Scotia would not dare do in Canada the nonsense they throw at Guyanese. It is virtually impossible to get to the bank by telephone. A letter in the press was ignored. The nonsense continues? Why? This top Canadian Bank is infected with the Guyanese tragedy.
Republic Bank removed their deposit facilities from the sprawling facilities at New Market and Waterloo Streets. Go anytime into the Camp Street Branch of Republic Bank and you will never see two, yes two, deposit machines working out of the four they have there.
On Wednesday, in a casual conversation with my wife in the kitchen, she asked, “You paid internet?” I hadn’t. My daughter would murder me if we were disconnected. I left my morning jogging and drove straight to GTT on Brickdam on the border with my birthplace, Wortmanville. I barely made it. I was due to be disconnected at midnight on Wednesday because my ten-day grace period was up at that time. Now here is what is irritating about GTT. I am driving, and all the time my text-message sound rings. “Hello, win a smart phone at the Black Tie affair on the Mazaruni River.”
It is a text from GTT. Minutes after, “Hello, win a trip to see the Taj Mahal and a free smart phone at the Red Dress Ball on the Essequibo River. “ Minutes after, “Hello, win a trip to Spain to see the duel between Ronaldo and Messi and win a smart phone.“
Why is GTT sending subscribers arid, jejune text messages but not the right ones like for example, “Your current internet subscription expires in three day’s time.” Leonard Craig, before he became Chairman of the Broadcasting Authority, won a landmark judgement against Digicel from the Public Utilities Commission. Digicel was charging you for the message that says “your call party is not available” when you call someone. Subscribers didn’t know that. Would Digicel have done that in Ireland? Minister Simon Broomes read the Riot Act at a foreign owned call centre company. The alleged mistreatment of employees was horrible.
We come now to Republic Bank’s decision to withdraw advertisements from the Kaieteur News. The story goes back to a libel writ filed against the newspaper. Then last week, the bank wrote KN to ask for a withdrawal of the offending words and an acknowledgement of such. What kind of company is this? The kind that would only do such macabre things once they are in Guyana?
If you sue for libel, then ask for a withdrawal of the offending words then you are forcing the paper to concede libel. The matter is before the courts. It is for the courts to decide if the KN story was libelous. Republic Bank now becomes judge and jury in its own court case.
Enter the Guyana tragedy. The bank has now decided that it will withdraw advertisements from the newspaper. This is an unbelievable dereliction of professional obligations to its customers. The libel writ against KN and the bank’s obligation to inform the Guyanese people about its operations are two distinct spheres. What happens if certain persons who are Republic Bank’s customers only read Kaieteur News? I know hundreds of people who only buy KN.
Republic Bank is going to get away with this horrible unprofessional decision because Guyana is an enduring nihilistic hell-hole where nothing decent and logical ever happens.
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