Republic Bank (Guyana) yesterday fired the six employees, who were said to be implicated in the disappearance of $8 million from one of the bank’s ATMs, offering them severance pay and no reason for their dismissals.
Stabroek News has been reliably informed that the bank met the employees separately yesterday and issued them with dismissal letters, while informing them that they would receive severance pay. They were not told how much the severance would be but they will also receive a month’s pay in lieu of notice.
The shocked and disappointed employees, according to sources, do not feel that they have any option but to move on with their lives as legal action against the bank could see the matter being dragged out in court for years. However, they are questioning why they were dismissed as they bank found no evidence of them stealing the money.
Even more heartbreaking for two other employees is the fact that they have mortgages with the bank and were issued with separate letters informing them to pay off their loans forthwith or risk legal action being taken against them. These two employees may consider moving to the court as they consider themselves customers of the bank who have been up to date with their payments and therefore are not sure why they are being told to pay off the sums immediately. “No bank just calls in a customer and tells them to pay off their loan for no reason or legal action would be taken,” a source said.
Before contact being made yesterday, the employees were on paid leave and instead of having to report to the police every week they were told to return in another month’s time.
From indications, the trail has gone cold and neither the bank’s investigators nor the police have so far determined who removed the large sum of money.
The money disappeared from the bank’s Kitty ATM location on February 18 and the employees have been off the job since then. They were called from their homes on the Sunday when the money was discovered missing, for a meeting. They were then grilled by the bank’s investigators before being handed over to the police around 11.30 pm. They were held in the lock-ups overnight. Relatives had criticised the bank’s decision to hold the employees for so many hours.
However, Managing Director of the bank Michael Archibald later defended the decision to interrogate six employees in connection with the disappearance of $8 million from the Kitty ATM. He had said it was normal procedure of banks around the world to attempt to settle such issues internally.
Archibald was responding to allegations in the media by relatives of the five females and one male that the bank had kept the employees in its custody, making them out to be common criminals.
It was the first statement by the bank since the incident. Archibald had said that the bank’s responsibility was to protect the depositors and the integrity of the bank. He had also said that the bank would not be commenting on a letter written to the press by the relatives of the employees questioning its actions and accusing it of callous treatment of their relatives.
It is understood that the bank had brought in investigators from Trinidad who have met and interviewed the six employees and they also found nothing implicating them. According to the source, the bank may be compromised at a higher level.
This incident followed on the heels of another in December last year when US$90,000 disappeared under the same circumstances and the bank was forced to transfer everyone from that department. In that instance, some ten persons were involved and they all had the combination to the vault from which the money disappeared, Stabroek News understands. The police had been called in but none of the employees was found culpable. However, the employees were all suspended for six to eight weeks without pay even though no evidence was found against them. “Only two persons resigned after that punishment because in this country it is an issue of employment. And if they resign and they need a reference the bank could say no and their reputation would be questionable even though no evidence was found against them. So I agree with them going back to work,” a source told Stabroek News. According to reports, it was following that investigation that a gun was discovered in an employee’s locker in the bank.
After that incident, the six employees who have now been fired were cajoled into that department with some of them even being promoted and others being told that they were trustworthy.
