Alliance for Change (AFC) Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan on Friday fully endorsed the recent appointment of party member Donna Mathoo as an APNU+AFC government Member of Parliament (MP), while noting that she was cleared of allegations that were previously levelled against her.
“There was a police investigation and she was cleared. She was not charged and we have had people charged and they are in parliament… Donna has not been charged,” Ramjattan told reporters, while noting that he doesn’t understand people’s sudden rush to judgement.
Mathoo, who was reinstated as the state-owned National Communications Network’s Berbice Branch Manager last year following an investigation, was one of three new parliamentarians who were sworn on April 26th to replace those who had resigned due to their dual citizenship.
Responding to questions during a party press conference on Friday, Ramjattan noted that an administrative investigation resulted in certain findings and recommendations were made. “She continued to work there [and] it meant then that it did not apply to her. There were no charges after a police investigation. That is what happened, unless now people would want to say we covered up,” he said.
Ramjattan stressed that the presumption of regularity in our institutions has to be looked at and posited that “unless we have evidence of egregious corruption and wickedness, I am backing my parliamentarian.”
A day earlier Chairman of the Board of the NCN Enrico Woolford expressed similar views.
“As far as the board is concerned, the matter has been settled having regard to the fact that allegations in this country are not indictments and indictments are not convictions. So at the end of the day, you can make any allegation. I could make any allegation about you or anybody else but that does not mean that that is guilt. Allegations are not equivalent to guilt, its simple logic,” he told reporters shortly after President David Granger swore in the new ministers last Thursday.
He further said that Mathoo has answered the board and the investigators as well as questions with regard to the allegations made against her. “In this country, we have to be very careful with persons throwing out allegations…Allegations do not means that you are guilty of something,” he stressed.
In a statement, released by attorney Nigel Hughes in April last year, Mathoo, who was appointed NCN Branch Manager for Berbice in August, 2015, said that she proceeded on leave on March 29th, 2017, after she was asked to do so to facilitate an investigation into allegations of misconduct against a junior staff member.
She added that during the course of the investigation, the services of Omadatt Ramnarine were terminated by NCN. Ramnarine was a production coordinator who was employed at the agency for a number of years.
Mathoo said she was provided with a copy of the findings of the investigation, for which a comment was requested. “No allegation of misconduct against me was contained in the findings,” she noted, before adding that after due consideration and deliberation, she was invited to resume duty on March 5th, 2018.
The investigation was launched after some $3 million was allegedly stolen from the entity over a period of 15 months.
The manager was accused of instructing staff to issue different receipts to customers. The receipts were deemed “fake” as were invoices and log sheets.
