KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment and preda­to­ry be­hav­iour in­volv­ing young peo­ple in the On-the-Job Train­ing (OJT) Pro­gramme were left un­ad­dressed un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The is­sue first came to light in May when OJT’s for­mer di­rec­tor ap­peared be­fore the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on So­cial Ser­vices and Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and told the com­mit­tee that the pro­gramme record­ed an av­er­age of 50 work­place ha­rass­ment cas­es an­nu­al­ly be­tween 2022 and 2025.

The cas­es in­clud­ed sex­u­al ha­rass­ment and bul­ly­ing.

The pro­gramme serves ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4,000 trainees be­tween the ages of 18 and 35.

How­ev­er, for­mer Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc­Clatchie yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia that he did in fact re­ceive re­ports of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment, but said he was made aware of few­er than a hand­ful of cas­es.

Ear­li­er this month, the OJT pro­gramme was moved from the Min­istry of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties.

Padarath, who is now re­spon­si­ble for the OJT Pro­gramme, said he had been in­formed of re­ports and al­le­ga­tions span­ning the past decade and sug­gest­ed that ques­tions need­ed to be an­swered about how the mat­ters were han­dled un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He said, “It is mind-bog­gling the in­for­ma­tion that has been brought to me over the last cou­ple weeks since OJT has been shift­ed to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties… For the last ten years there have been a num­ber of re­ports and al­le­ga­tions at OJT of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment, of young peo­ple be­ing preyed on, and those things were just left to lan­guish, swept un­der the rug, not treat­ed with by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

But in­stead of point­ing blame at Mc­Clatchie, he said for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly would have ques­tions to an­swer.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, min­utes lat­er out­side the Par­lia­ment, Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the al­le­ga­tions were ig­nored un­der her watch, in­sist­ing that OJT did not fall un­der the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion dur­ing the PNM’s tenure in of­fice.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said the al­le­ga­tions had nev­er come across her desk.

She al­so point­ed out that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the pro­gramme had been placed un­der the Min­istry of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion over the past year, ar­gu­ing that Min­is­ter Prakash Per­sad would have ques­tions to an­swer.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “You see, Min­is­ter Padarath, in his zeal to keep bussing these marks to dis­tract from the fail­ure of the Gov­ern­ment, from his Min­istry, from the fact that cit­i­zens have been with­out wa­ter, in many in­stances, brown wa­ter in many in­stances, doesn’t take his time to do his home­work. In the tenure of the PNM, OJT was un­der the Min­istry of Labour, not un­der the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion. They would have re­as­signed it in that way, and for the past year, the Min­istry of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion would have been in charge of OJT. So, there­fore, if there are al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment and all of those things go­ing on, then the Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion has a lot of ques­tions to an­swer. You would have seen that min­is­ter los­ing port­fo­lio af­ter port­fo­lio. Some­times you won­der what that Min­is­ter does for his day work, be­cause he’s just been los­ing from OJT to NESC, all these things… Those claims have nev­er come to me.”

Padarath said he was await­ing a com­pre­hen­sive re­port on the al­le­ga­tions and planned to meet with OJT staff short­ly.