BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – RUMOURS that the City Drug Store 2005 Ltd. (CDS) would be closing some of its operations were confirmed by an official of the parent company, TDC Ltd.
Confirmation of the closure was today (July 18) given to this publication by the Manager of TDC’s Human Resources Department, Dennis ‘Freddie’ Knight.
According to Knight, the City Drug Store 2005 Ltd. encompasses a number of services that include the sale of pharmaceuticals, health and beauty supplies, business equipment, copying centre, stationery supplies and rentals – which handles the renting of tables, chairs and tents etc.
He said that operations of the pharmacy and “related activities” would be closed.
“I can confirm that a decision has been made to close the operations of the drug store. What we are closing is the operation of the drug store itself, so the pharmacy and its related activities, health and beauty care and that sort of thing.”
The staff of the City Drug Store Ltd. 2005 was informed of the decision only yesterday (July 17) and, according to Knight, “We are in the process of tying up a bit of detail, so I won’t want to say very much more to the public at this time in respect of our employees.”
Knight said – at this point – he is not in a position to give details concerning redundancy, possibilities of re-employment or redeployment. He however stated that after senior management would have had one-on-one meetings with the employees, he would be in a position to speak to such issues.
While the drug store and related activities of the CDS would be discontinued, Knight said the other services being offered under that umbrella would still be available under the name City Drug Store 2005 Ltd.
He said a date of the official closure would be given at a later time after certain details would have been sorted out.
Asked what factors influenced this decision, the Human Resource Manager stated that “the continued poor results that we’ve had over a period of time”, which was a direct result of the global financial and economic downturn, was a major determinant.
