Banks DIH, Hand-in-Hand, my shoe repair and Guyana

Aug 23, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – Former Kaieteur News journalist, Leonard Gildarie and I do a live social media programme titled, The Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show. Two consecutive Fridays, instead of having guests, we assigned the entire process to answering questions from people who want to ventilate something that needs to be publicised.

I cannot say that I was mentally comfortable with those two nights based on what I heard. At my age, I don’t want to hear those things. I want to come home to my wife. I want to be on the seawall with my dog. I want to exercise in the National Park with my dog next to me. I want to listen to Yanni on the Fort Groyne seawall. I want to be on my veranda where I have a splendid view of the Atlantic.

I repeat, at my age, I want to have mental placidity. I don’t want to hear about the hopelessness of humans who can be helped but a society refuses to listen to them. I had enough of that in my life. I will have to make a decision after consulting Leonard as to whether we should continue to listen to people’s complaints.

So last Friday, we opened up the lines and there was the misery of life that torments your soul. And I know about the mental torture Guyana brings. I have endured it all my life. And I continue to endure it. Last week I wrote that Banks DIH, through the placement of cones, has taken up almost half a mile of stretch of public parapet.

I complained and the Traffic Chief arrived at Banks DIH. He was disregarded, so the next day I did a column on the illegality. In response to my column, permanent no parking signs cemented into the ground were added to the cones. Sounds like a banana republic. Does it not?

But the Banks DIH insanity was déjà vu for me. I confronted the same problem with Hand-in-Hand insurance company (HH) eight years ago. I emphasise “the same problem.” The insurance company’s structure takes in four roads in downtown Georgetown. The company completely covets the parapets and pavements surrounding the building.

I had parking headache going to the Post Office to my friend, Michael Carrington, to repair my shoes. I know it was wrong for HH to take up every parking space, so I moved one of the no-parking signs and the security came up. I held my ground. I called traffic headoffice. Two senior ranks came.

They instructed the manager that one of the signs must not be placed on the public part in future. Do you know the very next day that sign was right where it should not be. Do you know that for the past eight years that sign has been there each day? Sounds like a banana republic. Does it not?

On the call-in programme last Friday, a caller described a situation where a taxi driver who is severely physically challenged is being burdened financially because one of the insurance companies has disputed his side of the story in a car accident. It would take 0.1 percent of the amount that insurance company spends on the birthday celebration of the CEO to repair that man’s vehicle.

Another caller said that a single mother with two children had her car swiped on Mandela Avenue by the driver of a GuyOil owned vehicle. He said the woman is his daughter and she prefers GuyOil to do the repairs rather than the man being charged.

He explains that schools reopen in two week’s time and the woman needs her transportation to take the kids to school. He is pleading with GuyOil to do the repairs. Again we are talking about 0.1 percent of what GuyOil spends on other things.

Another caller gave us a bizarre story. He said he is a businessman that does importations. He collected three cheques from business folks in Henrietta, Essequibo. He was on his way home in Demerara when he stopped at the Georgetown branch of Demerara Bank to deposit the cheques.

He was told that he has to pay a small percentage of the total amount of the cheques. He asked the Bank of Guyana to intervene. It did and the imposition was removed. But the manager said that is the policy and there will not be a future exemption.

That cannot be right. That cheque was written by a customer of the bank. It doesn’t matter where the customer was when the cheque was written. How can there be a surcharge based on where the cheque originated from? But I guess this is Guyana, where sanity got winged impulse a hundred years ago.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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