WILLEMSTAD.- From today, October 1st , 50 voluntary resignation will take effect at Girobank. No mandatory withdrawal will take place at the bank. Two weeks ago, an employee who had opted for his voluntary retirement could stay at home from that moment and from today the rest who asked for and got their voluntary retirement will no longer be at work.
As is well known, Girobank has been under the supervision of the Central Bank for 5 years due to a solvency problem. However, after 5 years still the Bank has not fully recovered and is supported by a system of guardianship or negative equity.
In the past, Girobank took capital from the bank and sent it abroad, specifically to the United States, and that capital has not yet been recovered. For some years now, they have been looking to bring a third party that should recapitalize the bank with 200 to 250 million guilders.
Different plans have taken place with the incorporation of current shareholders. The Pension Fund of Curaçao together with PSB Bank have tried to rescue the bank. Although unfortunately none of these options crystallizes positively in the development of Girobank and therefore the process of voluntary retirement is to make the bank more attractive, in order to attract a strategic partner.
Unconfirmed information indicates that there may be a new partner in sight who is willing to jump into the pool. However, the fact that a considerable number of Girobank workers, that is, more than 50, are willing to be withdrawn by the Management, applying the voluntary retirement system, is an indication that the enthusiasm of the workers is not high. To compare it with the situation of difficulties that other companies are going through internally, InselAir in the last round of retirement managed to obtain only half of the number of personnel that had to retire, who were only those who opted for the voluntary retirement plan.
Meanwhile the process of the criminal case against the former director of Girobank Eric García, suspected of embezzling a high sum of money, money laundering and falsification of documents at the time he was serving as trustee of the bankruptcy of Banco de Maracaibo. Garcia is not the only suspect. The Central Bank Attorney also delivered a lawsuit against David Hu and Martin Silver as suspects in the case. Both Hu and Silver would be in the United States and the question would be whether the prosecutor of the Public Ministry will initiate a criminal investigation against them.
