Dear Editor,
I am writing to highlight an issue at the Banks DIH Thirst Park bar/canteen. (A letter sent to the Banks DIH email address a week ago has seen no reply, nor has anyone replied to a post I made on their Facebook page. I am hoping that this public letter in the newspapers will generate a response.)
I recently visited the Banks DIH Thirst Park location to spend some quality time with a few of my friends. As patriotic Guyanese, we are all fans and regular consumers of Banks DIH Ltd products, making a point to choose Banks products over the many other foreign goods on the local market. As such, I was perturbed to see Soldanza plantain and cassava chips (manufactured in Costa Rica) on sale at the bar. I would like to know why Guyanese-manufactured plantain and cassava chips are not sold instead. These are not scarce items and are readily available. I think it’s important for Guyanese to support local companies and products and I deliberately choose to leverage my purchasing power in support of local goods over foreign ones. Not seeing this same commitment from companies such as Banks DIH is very troubling. It seems like a double standard; we are asked to purchase their products but they are not themselves supporting local Guyanese cottage industries. I am disappointed by this and call on Banks DIH Limited to remove the Soldanza chips and begin stocking local Guyanese plantain chips at their Thirst Park location instead.
Yours faithfully,
S Nageer
