The Alliance, in a resolution sent to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, is urging her to take immediate steps to recall Consul General Rudrawatee Nan Ramgoolam.
The groups also want the PM to “proceed with the necessary action” to have the eight former employees of the Consul General office in New York, USA, who were summarily dismissed from their jobs earlier this year, reinstated.
In a press release which accompanied the resolution, Raymond Luke, chairman of Sesame Flyers, a constituent member of the alliance, said he could not imagine being given a test that covered all departmental operations and then being told that “you failed and have ten minutes to leave the building.”
The eight workers, some with service as much as 23 years, were dismissed after they were given a “surprise” written test, the release said.
It added they had written individual letters to T&T Ambassador in Washington, USA, Neil Parsan, in which they detailed the “improper conditions” that existed under Ramgoolam’s administration.
They have also written to the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) to investigate the matter.
The resolution also states that former minister Ramgoolam had implemented and/or overseen measures, policies and practices that had negatively impacted the smooth operations of the consulate.
It also claims that Ramgoolam’s actions included the summary dismissal of eight dedicated, in some instances long-serving, employees “on specious grounds of having failed an arbitrarily devised written examination, whose objectivity was very much open to question.”
The resolution also states that intimidation of counsel staff had become routine practice for the CG, “including intemperate behavior and demeaning put-downs of staff in the presence of members of the public.”
The resolution noted that Ramgoolam was also seen to be compromising herself in the reported hiring of a relative as her chauffeur, “facilitating payment to this individual of bloated, unprecedented overtime remuneration, the necessity for which…seems dubious.”
