Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Nafeesa Mo­hammed is trau­ma­tised af­ter be­ing in­formed not to re­turn to work at the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Mo­hammed was con­tract­ed as a le­gal con­sul­tant for eight years but last Thurs­day her three-year con­tract was abrupt­ly ter­mi­nat­ed. Up­set over the is­sue which has left her with­out any fi­nan­cial en­ti­tle­ments, she said: "I know I have a po­lit­i­cal per­sona but if you have to ter­mi­nate me then give me what is due un­der the con­tract." Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, Mo­hammed said she was giv­en less than 24 hours to leave her of­fice at Ca­bil­do Cham­bers, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, af­ter re­ceiv­ing a let­ter which was signed by the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in­form­ing her her con­tract was ter­mi­nat­ed.

The let­ter, how­ev­er, was dat­ed June 30, the day be­fore, and stat­ed she was not to re­port for du­ty be­yond Ju­ly 2. Mo­hammed, an at­tor­ney, said in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view yes­ter­day: "The di­rec­tor of hu­man re­source sent up an of­fi­cer whom I know very well and she came, as though to su­per­vise my de­par­ture. I re­al­ly do not know what was her pur­pose. "She told me my pass will no longer be valid and I had to read the let­ter telling her I had un­til Fri­day. "I was treat­ed like some kind of com­mon crim­i­nal. It was in such poor taste." Mo­hammed, who has 20 years ex­pe­ri­ence as an at­tor­ney, said: "I have to start all over now." She is the niece of Ka­malud­din Mo­hammed, a for­mer Cari­com Am­bas­sador and for­mer PNM min­is­ter.

When told the T&T Guardian was in­formed she had to be "phys­i­cal­ly es­cort­ed out the build­ing," Mo­hammed paused. She was at a loss for words. Mo­hammed, the moth­er of a ten-year-old son, de­nied be­ing "man­han­dled" but said: "the man­ner and haste in which I was told to leave sur­prised me." She said: "I have to deal with it and I am in the process of deal­ing with it. It was a trau­mat­ic event." She paused again. "I don't want to say too much," she said soft­ly. "I was left trau­ma­tised by what hap­pened." she added.

She said that on Feb­ru­ary 28, she re­ceived a let­ter of ap­proval stat­ing her con­tract was re­newed for three more years and added she had no inkling that with a change of Gov­ern­ment she would have to leave. "My po­si­tion is that if you want me to leave then you should buy out my con­tract," she said. She said the norm was "to buy out" a per­son's con­tract in the event that per­son was asked to leave. Mo­hammed said she felt as though "I was put in a cor­ner." She added: "They are not telling me what I am en­ti­tled to and that has me con­cerned. Two weeks pri­or to my ter­mi­na­tion I was in dis­cus­sion with the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary. "They ex­pect­ed me to re­sign. I nev­er ex­pect­ed to be ter­mi­nat­ed with­out know­ing what was due to me."

Mo­hammed said de­spite her PNM af­fil­i­a­tion, she was not a po­lit­i­cal ap­pointee. Asked what she now in­tend­ed to do, Mo­hammed said she had been con­sult­ing her at­tor­ney and "the way in which it un­fold­ed I am ex­plor­ing my op­tions." She main­tained: "I am not a po­lit­i­cal ap­pointee. I am a pro­fes­sion­al in my own right. "Oth­ers say I should ex­pect what hap­pened but dif­fer­ent peo­ple op­er­ate in dif­fer­ent ways," she added. Now it was a ques­tion of sur­vival for her. She added: "It is un­for­tu­nate. In the eight years I spent there, there were changes in the AG. "This was my fourth con­tract at the AG's of­fice. I am will­ing to serve my time but... the man­ner and haste... Asked if she had any dis­cus­sions with AG Anand Ram­lo­gan, she said: "Since the new AG was ap­point­ed I had a dis­cus­sion and had ex­pect­ed that it would have had an am­i­ca­ble res­o­lu­tion."

Mo­hammed said: "We met very ear­ly af­ter he was ap­point­ed. "He asked to see me to find out what I in­tend­ed to do." Mo­hammed said no more. Con­tact­ed on Mon­day, an em­ploy­ee at the min­istry con­firmed Mo­hammed was no longer em­ployed there. "She used to work here but let me con­firm that," the em­ploy­ee said. When she re­sumed the con­ver­sa­tion, she said: "No, she doesn't work here."

More in­fon Mo­hammed joined the PNM as an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor from 1995-2000;

�2 served on the Fam­i­ly Court Com­mit­tee since 2002;

�2 sec­re­tary of the Mon­i­tor­ing Com­mit­tee of the Fam­i­ly Court; and,

�2 mem­ber of the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Com­mit­tee ap­point­ed by Cab­i­net