GCB, WE "SWERVE" YOU BETTER

Location:        Dzodze

Date:               Friday July 28, 2013

The fourth week of the month is usually a special month for all national service personnel as allowances start hitting the accounts fast and hard. Anytime it was time for the collection of allowances, I was filled with a certain amount of anger. Reason being the bank I was going into. I have had several experiences at the hands of “bankers” but I need to be sincere that all my life, the worst “customer” services I have received has been from Ghana Commercial Bank, our own bank.

I entered the bank with my close buddy only to be met with a “crowd” of people.  First of all, we were greeted with a pungent smell. Clearly, the air-conditioner was not working. I wondered why. For a bank which “claims” to be 60 years old. Wow. Incredible. Amazing.

As I was saying, I enter the bank with a colleague and walk straight behind the counter. I observe that the manager is absent, maybe on an assignment because he is the one who normally attends to us. Luckily, we have another person attending to all service personnel. To cut a long story short, I walk in to present my allowance sheet. That is where I meet this huge man sitting in a chair. Realizing that I have no pen on me, I ask, “Sir, may I please use your pen?” Funny enough, he opens his mouth and tells me a big “no”. I just look at him and shake my big head. Then I go out and ask for a pen from my friend. Upon my return, I realize he has a “huge” face. That’s the kind of customer service Dzodze GCB offers us. Just look at this:

-          They don’t give envelopes when people come to take their monies.

-          Their customer service is nothing to write home about.

-          The bank is ALWAYS overcrowded.

A word to the wise is enough.

CAUSING FINANCIAL LOSS TO THE STATE?

Location:        Dzodze

Date:               Tuesday, July 2, 2013

I opened the office very early today. Perhaps, the long weekend plus the holiday was making me feel bored about staying late in bed. I do my usual planning for the day and top on the list is the letter I urgently need to send to my sister in Winneba. I start thinking of ways to send it. If I send it through a vehicle, someone would have to go get it from the driver in Accra before it gets to her in the Central Region. Funny enough, Ghana Post never comes into mind. Like seriously.

After thinking through for a while, I realize that the only means to send this is through Ghana Post. So, I call up my sister and ask of her address details. Then I set off to the Post Office on a motorbike, “Okada”. Having arrived at the place at 8:15am, I knew I had some waiting to do since government offices do open at 8:30am.

Time check and it is past 8:30am. Still no sign of this post master. So I walk to the nearest house and I am told he has sent his child to school. At this moment, I begin to boil up. Why should someone who has been employed to serve the needs of the general public hold them up to ransom? Whiles waiting, I count not less than two (2) people who just come and leave upon realizing that he is not around. At that point, I begin to ask myself questions. Who is responsible for supervising this postman? If it were a private venture, would he dare report late to work?

Well, I waited till 9:20am and left since there was no sign of the post master. Leaving the premises, I even got angrier at the kind of structure which stood “waste”. I am using this word carefully. Here is a huge office which could possibly house a bank being used for a post office. In addition to it, there is an outer house in which the post man lives. I do not know if the post man is charged for staying in the apartment but I reckon it is part of Ghana Post’s structures. With this entire infrastructure lying “waste”, the post office NEVER opens on time. Is this not a huge loss to the state?