Bank action - the question before Guyanese

Bank action – the question before Guyanese

Jul 28, 2025 Editorial, News

Kaieteur News – One of Guyana’s commercial banks has closed the accounts of several individuals. In the language of banking, they have an overdraft that is intolerable for Demerara Bank. The known relationship of these Guyanese with the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) political group and its US-sanctioned leader has caused the bank some grave concerns. In fact, the Office of Foreign Asset Control sanctions come with a bleak warning: stay away, have no dealings, with any sanctioned individual. The WIN’s political leader and elections contender, Azruddin Mohamed, lives under the impacts of such restraints. Among those that have been unleashed against him are loss of doing business with the state, loss of protections related to his business, loss of his involvement in a sporting activity, loss of banking facilities, and now the loss by several members in his political group of their own private relationship with Demerara Bank.

The bank said that their decision is based on internal policies. It must be noted that those internal policies could not be produced on request. A curious development that in this age of electronic storage, it is so difficult for Demerara Bank to present a policy manual that stands as the pillar on which its decision was based. It might be pertinent and timely to ask this question: does Demerara Bank actually have a policy that drove its decision to discontinue or interrupt these relationships? There was one of considerable duration, who is now associated with Mohamed. Whether the bank has such a policy or not, something should be noted. When it suits their interests, banks can operate like a secret society, with what they do largely obscured from public view, public questioning, though their primary business is serving the same public at large. One example should go a long way in revealing the secrecy culture of banks, because it speaks for itself.

One of the main functions of commercial banks is to handle huge sums of money for an array of customers, ranging from widows and pensioners to millionaires and billionaires. Yet, for years and decades on end, there have been few, if any, revelations of mishandling of money. It could be that bank policies on that are so robust, and the caliber of the people that they have employed are such, that they inspire perfection. Or that such developments are kept in house, and suppressed under pain of termination. To help matters along, there is always that asset that banks have found to be a most reliable crutch: there is no obligation to disclose, to comment. The Guyanese now forced to deal with their banking shock now contend with that wall.

With all that having been said, there is a question that hangs over the head of every citizen of Guyana. What is of superior standing in this country, the Guyana Constitution, or the sanctions imposed by another sovereignty? It is a question that’s testing, as well as timely and ominous, given who and what are involved. There are constitutional rights, and the involvement of a sanctioned Guyanese citizen in pivotal national elections. The Guyana Constitution guarantees freedom of movement, freedom of association, and freedom of choice. This is what is at stake with the US sanctions, this is what the Demerara Bank sanctioned customers apparently are preparing to test in the courts of Guyana. Banks and businesses usually retain a right to decide who they want to do business with. However, whatever that decision is based on, it must not deteriorate so much that it clashes with what is legitimate, with constitutional rights that are seemingly infringed upon, if not outright violated. We shall make no comment, nor take a position, about whether the bank’s actions can be sourced to ‘political authorship and influence’. That is an issue that will most likely get its share of ventilation, as this worrying bank development unfolds in the judicial arena.

But there is something that must be said, notwithstanding how volatile the reaction may be. The Guyana Constitution and the laws of Guyana must be of some unassailable and impregnable standing within the boundaries of this country. If not, there’s then that most undesired of conditions: of what value then Guyana’s constitution and laws?

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Azruddin Mohamed, Demerara Bank, Editorial, Foreign Asset Control, sanctions

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