Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

A blind work­er is call­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­leged dis­crim­i­na­tion at T&T's state-owned First Cit­i­zens Bank (FCB) claim­ing he was de­nied a bank card be­cause of his dis­abil­i­ty. David La Caille, of Pleas­antville, said he was amazed at the dis­cour­te­ous ser­vice met­ed out to him when he went to FCB's High Street, San Fer­nan­do Branch to open a sav­ings ac­count on Tues­day. La Caille, who is com­put­er lit­er­ate, said he re­quest­ed In­ter­net bank­ing and a bank card from the bank. The teller re­port­ed­ly con­duct­ed the trans­ac­tion, La Caille punched in his pin and ob­tained the card. How­ev­er, af­ter putting the card in his bag, La Caille said the teller told him there was a mis­take.

"I hand­ed her the card and then she told me that she was sor­ry but FCB's pol­i­cy was that blind peo­ple were not en­ti­tled to In­ter­net bank­ing or a bank card." La Caille said he got up­set and de­mand­ed to speak to the su­per­vi­sor.

How­ev­er, he said the su­per­vi­sor's at­ti­tude was worse than the teller. "I asked her why I was be­ing de­nied and she said if I got the card how will I see the ma­chine to use it?" La Caille of­fered to show the su­per­vi­sor how he could use the card but was blunt­ly re­fused. "She did not want to see. She kept say­ing that this is their pol­i­cy. I don't feel good about this be­cause it shows the back­ward­ness of some peo­ple. We have been us­ing com­put­ers and I have a bank card which I use from an­oth­er bank," La Caille said. Asked what was his next step, La Caille added: "I will not close down my ac­count. I want to fight this be­cause in this day and age such dis­crim­i­na­tion must not be tol­er­at­ed." Mean­while, Man­ag­er of the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion De­onar­ine Ra­goo said he in­tend­ed to per­son­al­ly vis­it the bank to find out its pol­i­cy. Ra­goo said La Caille's rights were vi­o­lat­ed as the Unit­ed Na­tion­al De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights as well as oth­er na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al laws en­ti­tled all blind peo­ple to have the same rights as sight­ed peo­ple. The bank's Group Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Man­ag­er Dex­ter Charles said he would en­sure La Caille got a bank card. He al­so promised to in­ves­ti­gate La Caille's claims of dis­crim­i­na­tion.