The Trinidad & To­ba­go Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NP) has pub­licly as­sured the pub­lic that NP takes very se­ri­ous­ly any al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al mis­con­duct when raised by any em­ploy­ee.

In a me­dia state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day by the cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment, the com­pa­ny stat­ed that in in­stances where such al­le­ga­tions are raised, “It is the Com­pa­ny’s pol­i­cy to prompt­ly and thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints of ha­rass­ment and take swift and ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion up­on com­ple­tion of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to ad­dress any proven trans­gres­sions, while tak­ing mea­sures to pro­tect the com­plainants.”

“In ad­di­tion to its ar­tic­u­lat­ed an­ti-ha­rass­ment pol­i­cy and pro­ce­dure, NP has pro­tec­tions and process­es in place to safe­guard em­ploy­ees from sex­u­al ha­rass­ment and that al­so re­spects the em­ploy­ee’s right to re­port mis­con­duct, with­out fear of re­tal­i­a­tion,” it added.

NP was mak­ing this re­as­sur­ance sub­se­quent to a T&T Guardian ar­ti­cle that was pub­lished on May 27 in which a Woman Es­tate Con­sta­ble (WEC) at the com­pa­ny al­leged that she was sex­u­al­ly ha­rassed while on the job by an es­tate cor­po­ral just un­der a year ago and to date she was still await­ing for her mat­ter to be ad­dressed.

The WEC has since sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to man­age­ment de­mand­ing that her sex­u­al ha­rass­ment case is dealt with im­me­di­ate­ly and for jus­tice.

How­ev­er, NP said it main­tains ze­ro tol­er­ance for any forms of ha­rass­ment, dis­crim­i­na­tion, bul­ly­ing or vi­o­lence in the work­place and we are com­mit­ted to a cul­ture that fos­ters the dig­ni­fied and re­spect­ful treat­ment of all em­ploy­ees.

In a cor­po­rate up­dat­ed no­tice sent out by the Hu­man Re­sources Di­vi­sion to NP’s em­ploy­ees hours af­ter the me­dia re­lease was sent out, it sought to ex­plain to em­ploy­ees and re­as­sure them that “the com­pa­ny does not tol­er­ate ha­rass­ment of any em­ploy­ee and takes very se­ri­ous­ly any al­le­ga­tion of sex­u­al mis­con­duct raised by any em­ploy­ee.”

“While we can­not dis­cuss the specifics of any in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­ing con­duct­ed re­gard­ing the be­hav­iour of in­di­vid­ual em­ploy­ees, where al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct are brought to our at­ten­tion, it is the Com­pa­ny’s pol­i­cy to prompt­ly and thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints of ha­rass­ment, and this in­stance is no dif­fer­ent,” it added.

The in­ter­nal no­tice stat­ed that the com­pa­ny “takes swift and ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion up­on com­ple­tion of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to ad­dress any proven trans­gres­sions, while tak­ing mea­sures to pro­tect the com­plainants.”

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, the WEC ex­pressed shock over NP’s quick re­sponse to the pub­lic over the al­leged in­ci­dent.

“They moved quick­er than when I wrote. How­ev­er, they went against their own Pol­i­cy that was hand­ed to me in April of this year, then when I told them that a lawyer is in­volved I re­ceived a call stat­ing it was han­dled wrong. Un­til this day the mat­ter is not re­solved, “ the WEC said.

“I will like them to prove their steps. It is now a year from the in­ci­dent. I have let­ters to re­fute all claims,” she added.

On May 3, 2019 the WEC’s at­tor­ney Christo­pher Ross Gid­la sent a let­ter to NP’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) Bernard Mitchell giv­ing him am­ple time to re­spond and ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion say­ing that his client is now suf­fer­ing from de­pres­sion and has giv­en him in­struc­tions “to file a claim in the Court of Law for dam­ages (de­pres­sion) but we would hold our hand in do­ing the same un­til we hear from you with­in a rea­son­able time.”

That let­ter in­di­cat­ed that the WEC made some com­plaints against her high­er of­fi­cer/Su­per­vi­sor (name men­tioned), in June 2017. The at­tor­ney said that his client told him that the su­per­vi­sor “did some acts which could pur­port to be ha­rass­ment in na­ture.”

In an email sent to Mitchell last week ask­ing him if he is aware of the al­leged sex­u­al ha­rass­ment mat­ter and how he in­tends to treat with the is­sue, Mitchell replied: “With all due re­spect, this is not a mat­ter I am at lib­er­ty to dis­cuss with you.”