Dear Editor,
It has been, and continues to be, a refreshing experience of usually urban-based businesses seizing the opportunity to serve communities developing outside traditional geographic perimeters.
That the perception of providing more immediate (and friendlier) service was almost simultaneously shared by three banks, Demerara Bank, GBTI and Republic Bank with another (Citizen’s Bank) soon to follow, is a most positive reflection of their sensitivity to, not only the demand for expeditious financial services, but more appropriately, the satisfaction of the domestic and commercial needs which generate the related transactions.
The collective provision of modernised services to the population centred in, and surrounding, the Diamond Housing Scheme (which incidentally deserves a more elegant name) should be an inspiration to other services.
In this connection, however, it appears that an opportunity may have been missed in not jointly exploring a partnership with an institution such as the Guyana Post Office Corporation to facilitate the latter’s provision of comparably upgraded services to the same constituency. One important advantage of at least sharing space would be that of security, an area in which some of the corporation’s locations have been reportedly vulnerable. (One post office is reported to have ceased selling stamps!)
A sufficiently compatible arrangement would certainly lend to the enhancement of the corporation’s image, while it moves some of its systems and practices into the future. It would indeed be a model of cooperation to be emulated in other selected locations.
From pronouncements made at the Caribbean Postal Union Conference in September 2010, one appreciates that the corporation is already aware of the need for modernisation: of its products, services, as well as infrastructure.
To quote its Chairman at the time: “The Caribbean Postal Sector needs an overhauling. We have to become modern, we have to become efficient, we have to become profitable.”
The Chairman is further reported to have observed: “We have to start focusing on the people… a high level of service is expected.”
It would be absolutely no reflection on the capacity of the corporation’s management to enter into collaborative arrangements aimed at a level of development comparable and compatible with sister institutions.
On the contrary, the fact that it may not be necessary to invent new wheels should prove a cost-effective prospect; and in the process, who knows, just set a pattern for other strategic relationships between other players in the business sector.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)
