“New Repayment Process of GK Depositors” – Right of Reply
View(s):Chairman of the Board of Directors of Golden Key Credit Card Company Ltd (GK) Priyantha Fernando has sent a letter disagreeing with some of the contents of the news article published last week under the above headline.
He said:
“As reported in your newspaper, from what was told by a frontline member of a GK pressure group, Anura Gunawardena, the delaying tactics attributed to some of the Directors of GK company is incorrect and, if not corrected will reflect badly on the entire Board of Directors. The true facts are as follows:
The GK was informed on Monday 20th July 2015 by the Governor of the Central Bank of a planned function to hand-over the cheques as an interim payment to depositors of GK by inviting them to BMICH or any other appropriate selected venue. After being informed of the urgent need for repayment and the related function, a board meeting of the GK was held promptly on the following day, 21st July to convey the instruction to the CEO and the management staff to institute the required internal processes to facilitate the informed repayment process, subject to the availability of supportive approval processes from the Cabinet of Ministers, from relevant line ministries namely the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Monetary Board of the Central Bank and from the Supreme Court.
As only the directive for payment had been issued by the Central Bank but the supportive documentary evidence was not supplied, the board of directors had to raise issues to obtain clarity from the Monetary Board, to mitigate possible risks, the board viewed which could obstruct moving forward with the proposed measures for repayment to the detriment of the aggrieved depositors. We had to wait for the next meeting of the Monetary Board which was on 23rd July to get an official response for the clarification sought.
The response for the above mentioned clarifications, were received around 2 pm on 23rd from the Chairman of the Monetary Board, just in time , for the clarification to get tabled at a special Board Meeting of the directors of GK which was scheduled to start at 4 pm on the same day. As the board was satisfied that the Monetary Board has provided sufficient explanations to the clarifications sought the Board decided to carry-out the directive issued by the Chairman of the Monetary Board.
Thus the GK Board of Directors have acted promptly on the directives of the Monetary Board and in good faith have strived to maintain the transparency of the entire process while the special board meeting on 23rd July was convened to discuss the Monetary Board response to clarifications that has been sought and not under pressure of a demonstration (as stated in the news report) staged by a group of depositors in front of the GK office building.