Plans in train to modernize supermarket next year
The Guyana Police Consumers Cooperative Society expects to offer members of the disciplined services a credit facility of “around $18M” in a broad range of consumer goods over the Christmas holiday period, according to Secretary of the society, Sgt Neville Cadogan. “Our Christmas credit facility embraces the Guyana Police Force as well as the prisons, fire and constabulary services and I doubt that what we are offering is being paralleled anywhere else in the commercial community this season,” Cadogan told Stabroek Business.
Cadogan explained that members of the disciplined services who receive credit during the holiday period will commence repayment at the end of February and will complete repayment at the end of the first quarter. “Since the credit offer started on November 15, that gives our customers quite a few months before they need to consider repayment,” Cadogan said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Edward Wills who is a member of the Committee of Management told Stabroek Business that what the society is offering “is our way of helping members of the disciplined services and their families to enjoy the festive season. We have had a tough year and the families of policemen and other categories of disciplined services need to know that we care,” Wills said.
Wills told Stabroek Business that that he expects that members of the committee which include senior officers of the force will be visiting the Robb Street premises of the supermarket to play a “hands on” role in ensuring that the facility continues to be responsive to the needs of shoppers.
Meanwhile, Manager of the Cooperative, Inspector Ramnarine Persaud told Stabroek Business that this year the society had significantly expanded the range of seasonal goods available to shoppers. Apart from our traditional focus on food we have also secured household items, the sorts of items that people tend to seek during Christmas. “This year, we intend to focus on home beautification, among other things,” Persaud added.
Persaud said that he was pleased with the response, “even though Christmas is still a month away.” He said that he was particularly satisfied with the fact that family members of the Joint Services were travelling from various parts of the country to take advantage of the credit offer, adding that in some remote areas members of the force would also benefit from a free transportation facility for their goods which would be paid for by the force.
Members of the society have access to credit facilities all year round with the difference at Christmas being that credit is accumulated and liquidated on a month-to-month basis. Cadogan told Stabroek Business that the society was seeking to offer credit to the other branches of the disciplined services on the same terms under which credit was available to members of the police force who are members.
And according to Cadogan the society is just as keen to continue to provide its customary service to ordinary citizens. “At the end of the day we are a supermarket like any other, and I believe that our prices are competitive. Certainly, the prices of some of the items that we seek to offer this Christmas are competitive,” he said.
Meanwhile Stabroek Business understands that the society is considering plans to undertake renovation and modernization work which, according to Cadogan, “seeks to bring to supermarket in line with other similar services. Providing an air-conditioned facility is one of our priorities, while we are also looking at other ways in which we can make shopping more comfortable.”
He said that while, “in a sense,” the society had a captive market in some members of the force, the staff considered it a challenge to move to the level where it further expanded its market share to take account of the general public. “In a sense the service that we offer here provides a means of reaching out to the public, which is one of the objectives of the Guyana Police Force,” Persaud said.
