Here are some facts to ponder on

Dec 12, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I was told that employees of Republic Bank cannot use their cell phones while at work. I find that weird. A person spends a huge part of his 24-hour existence in the workplace.
Why in that period they cannot receive calls on their mobile phones even if they are restricted from making calls though I must say that they should not be prevented from making calls.
Now here is the ticklish part. Why can’t you answer your cell or make calls from it but you are free to do so from the landlines?
Try to picture in your mind a situation in which there is a landline on the desk. It rings, you answer. Then you want to contact someone, you make a call. You can answer the landline almost every hour. Why then can’t you answer your cell?
The question that must be asked is whether this prohibition is legal. Someone should take it to court. I would like to urge the Guyana Human Rights Association to intervene. The courts have an intriguing approach to these questions. It is called locus standi.
I once took the University of Guyana to court because I got a complaint from two law applicants that they were refused entry even though their qualifications were superior to those they knew got in. The UG attorneys argued that I didn’t have locus standi because I wasn’t directly affected by the decision.
I have little regard for the principle of locus standi. It conflicts with the quintessence of human rights. Could a non-Republic Bank person take the matter up with the courts? What happens if a mother thought that she left the stove on? Her child is at home sleeping and she wants to call.
What happens if all the landlines are occupied? Why can’t she use her cell? If an employee leaves his car at his mechanic, and it is coming on to closing time at the workshop, the mechanic calls the bank’s landlines but they are all busy. He cannot contact the employee because all cell phones at the bank have to be turned off.
This is a ridiculous situation in Guyana because I am told that in Trinidad there is no such restriction at Republic Bank branches.
I made a telephone call to Trinidad for the purpose of this article here and was told quiet clearly by a journalist friend of mine that he knows of no such rule by Republic Bank.
Here is another situation that needs reflection by the public. Many times I read in all the newspaper in this country, advertisements that solicit application for “a general manager of a large company.”
Is this legal? Shouldn’t the newspapers think again about such advertisements? It appears foolish to me.
There are thousands of different companies ranging from retail outlet of fast foods to the manufacture of dangerous chemicals. Shouldn’t the population of a country know what type of companies they are applying to? Take a mining operation that is based in the interior.
If the applicant is a woman who has just given birth to a baby, she would not bother to apply because she cannot leave her Georgetown home to be weeks away.
It is downright stupid to place an ad in the newspaper and refuse to give details of your company.
The thing I want to know is if it is legal.
The only way to stop this is for all the media houses to agree that they would not carry such incomplete advertisements.
Here is yet another story. Many times, you see the following sign in a retail store; Cash not refundable.” Is this legal? If I buy an item from you, I take it home and discover that it has a structural fault, once the defect appears fundamental in which both parties agree that it is a manufacturing fault, why don’t I have the right to say: “Thanks but I change my mind about the purchase of such an item; I will use the money for another purpose?” Why must I be compelled to take something else?
Where is the Consumers’ Association? I am appalled that this organisation gets a monthly subsidy from the Ministry of Trade and does nothing.
I pay my taxes and even more is requested of me by the GRA.
Should my tax dollars go to financing an organisation that is supposed to protect consumers’ rights and have abandoned their purpose decades ago?
Finally and for the umpteen time; where are the members of the Rights of the Child Commission when school children are peremptorily expelled for possession of cell phones?

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