TECHNICAL CHALLENGES IN ORGANISATIONS AND COMMUNICATION: A CASE OF THE NIB, SUNYANI BRANCH

On November 11, 2014, I visited the above bank to make some withdrawals. I had been there at 11am and was told that I couldn’t make the withdrawals because the SYSTEM/SERVER was down. So all other operations were ceased. Most of the cashiers were not behind the counter and the customers, not a large number though, were left stranded in the main banking hall calmly glued to their seats. I needed this money very urgently because I had to travel  the night of that day to attend to an important appointment.

Later I left the banking hall home because I was informed by one of the officials that the system would not be restored until four hours time. One other customer told me she had reported at the bank for some transactions as early as 8:30am and had been told the same story.

When I returned to the bank at around 3pm to verify whether operations have been restored, nothing had changed. The server was still down. This infuriated the customers, to the extend that some of them would murmur, and complain bitterly about the poor services been rendered by the bank. Authorities and officials of the bank were conspicuously silent during this process. As I sat quietly on one of the seats, I told a lady sitting on my right hand side, “authorities here must step out boldly and tell the customers or their clients something rather than sitting down mute on the matter”. I told her authorities here in this bank owe their customers some explanations as to why the system was failing down.  For the purposes of this analysis on PR, these were some of the complains and comments I captured, which came out of the customers when the bank did not resolved whatever challenges confronting them at that point in time;

1.      Today it will be Aluta(chaos, mayhem) here.

2.      Government has taken all our money away for politics and campaign because NIB is a state owned bank or government have some shares in it.

3.      After today, I will close my account

4.      It’s only the state/government owned banks who behave this way, the private banks are well organized. The state banks such as Ghana Commercial Bank(GCB) and Agricultural Development Bank(ADB) are worst culprits.

5.      Ghana Commercial Bank has beaten National Investment Bank to it today.

6.      Won’t they come and explain something to us now?

7.      I have one of Ark FM’s presenter’s mobile number I want to call and inform them about this.

8.      I have brought my money for you to keep that whenever I need it I will come for it. What business have you to tell me your system is down?

When frustration set in, one customer who was provoked stood up furiously and rushed to demand some explanation from one of the officials at his desk. The official only told him “you wait for a while things will be alright”. In all these ordeal, the Bank Manager was seen walking up and down the hall without uttering a word. I spotted him in an instant, checking whether one of the air-conditioners were working. At a point, I wanted to get out of the hall for fear of facing vandalisation that could possibly emanate from some of the customers, some of whose anger had risen to a peak.  

My mind went back to one thing. I told the sister sitting right beside me that, we must be thankful to God the bank is situated in a different environment which is not radical, violent and militant. Else, it could have been another story. Equipment and facilities in the bank's offices could have been vandalised by these seemingly angry customers who were threatening to go on rampage. I wanted to fly out of the banking hall at a point. I felt this was bad customer relations.

LESSONS and ADVISE

I realized the honorable thing was for the officials to have come out to explain issues to the understanding of  the worried and concerned customers. These could have calmed tension rather than keeping mute over very serious matters. Yes, money matters are extremely serious matters. When they thought answers were not forthcoming some of them wanted to react in a rather odd and violent manner which could have spelt disaster for the bank’s image and reputation. I hope the authorities of the bank are taking note. Customers must never be taken for granted.

THE EUSBETT HOTEL MURDER CASE

The Attorney-General's Department has advised the police to drop murder charges against the operators of Eusbett Hotel Limited in Sunyani, Mr. Samuel Owusu Bennett and Mrs. Eunice Bennett and two others, in relation to the death of a former security guard of the Hotel, Nicholas Nuoliebe, for lack of sufficient evidence.
The Proprietor of Eusbett Hotel, Mr. Samuel Owusu Bennett and his Executive Director, Mrs. Eunice Bennett, Adama Issah and Abdulai Nubenur, both security guards of the hotel, were held as suspects in an alleged murder case of a 50-year-old Nuoliebe whose corpse was found floating in the swimming pool at the hotel on Sunday morning, April19 2009.
Nuoliebe was found dead in a pool at the hotel about four months ago. The police found a drinking glass containing a whitish substance believed to be poison on a table close to the pool where Nuoliebe's corpse was found floating. However, post-mortem on the dead body revealed that the deceased was electrocuted.
The police's investigations into the issue of electrocution to ascertain whether the deceased was working on any electrical gadget at the time of his death, revealed that Nuoliebe, who was employed as a room attendant and later moved to security department, had no knowledge about electrical operation and as such was not tasked to perform duties relating to disconnection or connection of electrical gadgets at the hotel. Neither was he working with any electrical gadget at the time of his death, the investigation further revealed. After conducting relevant investigations, the police sent the docket to the A-G's office for a thorough study and advice, The Chronicle gathered.
Pieces of information gathered by The Chronicle indicate that the police, having concluded their relevant investigations, could not find sufficient evidence to sustain a murder charge against the suspects, and had consequently been advised by the A-G's Department not to only drop the murder charges but also close the docket on the case.
“The evidence available is insufficient to sustain a charge of murder against the suspects. Hence drop the charges of murder against the 1st suspect, Adama Issah, 2nd suspect Abdulai Nubenur, 3rd suspect, Samuel Owusu Bennett and 4th suspect, Eunice Bennett. Further to the above we also advice that having completed all the relevant investigations and this docket should formally be closed and treated as such”, the AG advised the police.
When reached, Mr. Bennett noted that though the news was a welcome one, he was disturbed about the damage that the incident, which was widely reported in the media, had caused his hard won reputation.
He disclosed that as part of measures to beef up security in and around the hotel premises, sixteen security cameras had been fitted, especially at very sensitive areas to monitor and record various activities being undertaken at the hotel.

SUMMARY, COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS OF THE GHANAIAN CHRONICLE NEWSPAPER REPORT ON THE EUSBETT HOTEL MURDER CASE

After carefully perusing the newspaper report, it was found out that the main actors in the murder case were Mr Sam Benette(Proprietor) and Mrs Eunice Benette(Executive Director), Adama Isssah and Abdulai Nubenur – held as suspects for the alleged murder of the former security guard. The proprietor and his wife’s name were roped into the case.

Now, lets leave the Proprietor and the wife out , and address substantive issue. We will come to that later. There are a lot of workers in the hotel performing diverse functions. We can’t assume that the two security workers were the only workers present discharging hotel functions and activities at the time the incident happened. No, Never. There must surely be other workers involved and around then when the incident happened. Or were those the only workers in the hotel on that faithful day?. If they are not, the question is why will the Police hold Adama and Abdulai as the only suspects in the case, when the other workers were there and were also culpable? Or could this be ascribed to their region of origin because they both bear names which makes one believe they are natives from Northern GHANA or Northerners to be precise. There must be something more to this. Are the two suspects simply an acquintances or were they in some form of intimate relationship with the deceased? Or is it just because the two suspects happens to find themselves in the same department as the deceased?.  There should definitely be a reason for the Police to hold those as suspects on the case. Find out from Police source for PRP

It was deduced that the victim, Nicholas Nuoliebe, was first appointed as a ROOM ATTENDANT and later sent to the SECURITY DEPARTMENT

It was realized that the deceased was found dead floating in the swimming pool on Sunday morning and the Police found a drinking glass containing a whitish substance believed to be poison on a table close to the pool. The newspaper report did not say whether or not the Police investigation confirmed the whitish substance in the drinking glass was poison. In fact, It didn’t say a word about whether or not that whitish substance was really investigated and later confirmed to be poison. But the BIG QUESTION REMAINS HOW DID THE BODY CAME FLOATING ON THE SURFACE OF THE POOL DEAD. Was the mastermind internally or externally orchestrated? Or could the deceased have electrocuted himself to death and why? All these questions and concerns are not fully explored in the report and in the investigation. The Police were quite lousy in their investigations, I believe. They only managed to say they don’t have sufficient evidence to sustain a charge against the suspects after just doing a lazy work. What else could have been done to find more sufficient evidence during investigations? Does that possibility exist at all? If they did, why wasn’t that fully explored? They could have done more to get to the bottom of the matter.  I am not inferring that the proprietor and the rest of the suspects are guilty of the offence. What I mean is a lot more could have been done about seeking hard evidence for prosecution. Murder is a first degree criminal offence and much could have been done to unravel the mystery surrounding the case, to apprehend culprits and punish them after being tried by a competent law court to serve as deterrent to others. It appears many killings including contract killings have gone on in recent past without the Police having sufficient evidence to find suspects and prosecute them accordingly as the law requires. How long must we wait to let this phenomenon develop in society. How would the families of these deceased feel?.  

A post – mortem report on the deceased indicated that he died from electrocution and the Police tried to establish whether he might have been working on an electrical gadgets, probably doing connections and disconnections but there was no such clue. It rather revealed that the deceased wasn’t an electrician to work as such, so he wasn’t appointed to be working as an electrician in the hotel. Additionally, no clear - cut connection was concretely established between the post mortem report which suggested the man was electrocuted and the whitish substance which was found in the drinking glass. Or were the murderers trying to play a smart one, on would – be – investigators on the case, to possibly drive their mind away from what could stand out later or surface as a leading evidence in the case. Peradventure, this explains why the whitish substance was placed in the glass on the table near the pool, ostensibly to cleverly outwit the investigators so they would never find any link to an evidence or to take their minds far away from what could lead them to a clue or a hard evidence.  

What of looking at it from another angle, from someone abetting to crime and acting externally with an insider(a staff within) to carry out this heinous and diabolic plot? Was that possibility also fully investigated? It appears the Police didn’t do much work on this either. This could remain a possible lead to a hard evidence. Couldn’t it? Enough of what the Police couldn’t do for a hard evidence. I can’t also pretend to know all about their investigation procedure.

PUBLIC RELATION PERSPECTIVES ON THE EUSBETT HOTEL MURDER CASE

From the analyses above, I can say without any sense of doubt that there’s such a mystery surrounding the death. If there's such a mystery surrounding the death, why would someone just point an accusing finger on officials of the hotel? And allow the appropriate authorities do their investigation to unravel that mystery? Instead of concluding that so and so is responsible and ought to be blamed? In order to find leading evidence which could help in finding answers to the question - who killed Nuoliebe?. This makes it very difficult to evolve strategies that directly defines a clear PR policy guideline on how such a criminality could be curtailed. Because one is not sure if the incident was internally, or externally orchestrated. In this regard, the right advice would be to formulate a comprehensive policy which covers and tames all possible causes of such crime in future.

It also brings to mind the need for the principle of LOYALTY and HONESTY among staff. Sharing accurate and timely information regularly among staff will play a critical role in this process. Workers will have to be truthful, honest and loyal to the course and ideals of the organization, and particularly during such trying times. They should be forth-coming with the needed information that aids investigations during such tragic and crucial moments.

You will realize that the lack of honesty and loyalty among the staff were noticed by the proprietor as missing ingredients when the story broke and that is seen in the last paragraph of the newspaper report which said “the proprietor of the three-star hotel entreated his staff to tell whoever might be concerned about anything that would happen in the hotel the truth of the matter to avoid unnecessary speculations and falsehood”. He surely suspects someone in the hotel to know something about the matter but the fellow seems to be hiding certain truth.

PR SUGGESTION AND RECOMMENDATION ON CASE

Building a team of loyal and honest staff members; answering the critical question of how the story got to the media.

Building and Repairing Damaged Reputation; Communicating through best medium( by releasing news accounts to radio outlets, newspapers/newsletters about the fenced swimming pool. This will go a long way to erase the negative perception people have about the hotel or might have been created from the sad murder story. It will ensure that the right image is redeemed for the organization, while repairing its damaged reputation. Communication should be done without initial reference to Nicholas Nuoliebe’s murder case with pictures showing the fencing on the swimming pool.

Minors or children not permitted/allowed to swim notices pasted on fencing round the pool. Swimming reserved for adults only on Specific hours/period during the day allowed for swimming. This would help minimize risk factors.

Developing a worker/staff check – in/check - out form/sheet to report every activity of worker/s who close from work, go home and then returns again to the hotel to check on any other thing on the same day. This check – in /check - out form will help monitor the movement of individual workers in and around the facility. Such sheet should have important details, the time(ie. check – in and check – out time of any one of the workers), reason/purposes of that person returning to the work place at that particular moment, and the signature of the worker in question as well as the form keeper. This is a carefully thought – out plan which attacks crime in two ways: First, it can help prevent murder as it in a way checks the movement/activities of workers, in a given time, particularly, workers who have closed from work or may be on – leave but decide to sneak into the hotel for one or two things. It may happened that in between the time the worker sneaks – in and the time he leaves, some secret evil, a scheme or a plot could be hatched to carry out a diabolic plan. Secondly, it can assist the Police to seek for hard evidence when a crime occurs or may lead to a possible clue to the murder/mysterious undertakings of criminal dimension. Now whoever, knew something about the case and yet had failed to release timely information to appropriate authorities may think afterwards, that he/she had succeeded in outwitting those investigators and authorities in the organization. For not coming out with vital information when it mattered most or there was no mechanism in place to thoroughly and painstakingly push such a fellow forward to release information which goes to help unravel/unmask the personalities surrounding the mystery murder. For such a person who could have released the information and yet had failed to do that, he/she might say he had won the battle, a free man, still walking around free because he had escaped been roped in a useless case as a suspect or a possible witness. Someone will also be made to ensure that whatever the snap check is about, will be duely followed. The philosophy behind this plan is to check situation where crime could be internally and externally orchestrated in an extreme sense.    
Back to the issue of the proprietor and his wife. How can they be held responsible or blamed for what happened when there's lack of sufficient evidence on the matter to prosecute them?. When it had also not been fully established whether the crime was internally or externally orchestrated or both. How on earth could they be linked if such clues had not been fully established. It's, however, very important to talk about this if the incident really happened in the hotel, as the media reports that it did.