Charlene Ramdhanie resigned “of her own volition.”
So said communications manager Nicole Crooks who has been given the responsibility for the portfolio of strategic communications and international relations at the Central Bank held by Ramdhanie up to yesterday.
Ramdhanie resigned with immediate effect on Monday.
She is remaining mum on her reasons for resignation which came days after former Central Bank Governor Jwala Rambaran’s appointment was terminated by the Government.
The decision to remove him was taken at last Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting when the Cabinet, on the basis of evidence before it, determined that Rambaran had breached confidentiality under the Central Bank Act and the Financial Institutions Act, when he identified the country’s largest consumers of foreign exchange at a news conference on December 4.
Ramdhanie had been appointed by Rambaran shortly after he took up office in July 2012.
Rambaran is now pursuing legal action following his dismissal.
Crooks told the GML Enterprise Desk that “Miss Ramdhanie’s resignation was “with immediate effect and there was no animosity.” She said the bank “did not request the resignation.”
Crooks said that the Bank was now “settling down” and Governor Alvin Hilaire on his third day on the job had been holding meetings.
Asked whether the post previously held by Ramdhanie would be advertised she said “we have not thought about filling in the far future.”
Ramdhanie’s responsibilities included strategic communications, the bank’s Financial Literacy Education Programme and the International Relations Unit.
“We now have to sit as a team to manage the best way forward but in the interim those responsibilities fall to me,” she added.
As to other members of the team which operated under the Strategic Communications Unit, Crooks said: “The department remains as is. They form part of the department, we have not taken our minds to that.”
She said the bank always had core functions under corporate communications. Those included “a graphics artist, a publications unit, a curator of the Money Museum for the art collection at the bank and an events unit,” she added.
Until any other decision was taken, she said, the unit continued to function and would be under her purview.
In a memo to staff sent out yesterday and signed by Hilaire employees of the bank were told that Ramdhanie had tendered her resignation effective December 28.
The Governor thanked her for her service for the bank for the past two and a half years. The memo advised that Crooks would assume responsibility for the Strategic Communications and International Relations portfolio of the bank.