Managing director of the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) Jearlean John claims she was fired yesterday for having “an offensive tone” at a meeting with the board on Monday.
Speaking to the T&T Guardian moments after the HDC issued a release saying she had been terminated, John said she received a letter from the HDC’s board informing her she had been dismissed on the basis of “your reaction, demeanor, tone and manner of communicating with the board of directors.”
“They said it was insubordinate and disrespectful,” she said in a telephone interview.
She, however, described her dismissal “as political victimisation to every extent.”
“This is really high-handedness in the extreme. You just do not behave like that,” a bewildered John said.
Her sacking comes three months after she and seven senior HDC managers were sent on administrative leave pending an audit into the operations of the HDC.
In announcing the sacking, the HDC gave no details but the document’s wording gave the impression she had been terminated due to the findings of the audit.
“In December 2015, the board of directors of the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) took a decision to commission an audit into the operations of the HDC. Ms Jearlean John, the managing director, was sent on administrative leave on December 17, 2015.
“The board of directors, HDC, requested a meeting with Ms John on March 21, 2016. Subsequent to that meeting, the board of directors terminated Ms John's employment as the managing director of the HDC,” the release stated.
However, John said the meeting never even discussed the audit.
She said that last Friday the HDC corporate secretary invited her to a board meeting on Monday.
“This was very unusual since it was a verbal request,” John said in explaining the events that led to her firing.
She said anyone who was invited to a board meeting would be informed in writing and that was what she asked of the corporate secretary.
“They did put the meeting in writing, outlining the date, time and place, but did not put an agenda attached... so I went into this meeting on Monday. They did not ask anything of substance. The meeting lasted about five or ten minutes, if so long.”
Present at the meeting, John said, was HDC chairman Newman George and its directors.
“I was asked a few questions and I left,” she claimed.
At no point in time, John said, was she disrespectful nor did she raise her voice or was rude towards the board.
Within hours of the meeting, however, John said she was given the axe.
She said: “The board did not like my tone at that meeting. So because of the tone they said they have lost confidence. I just had to laugh. They cannot be serious.
“They are not a serious group of people. They are firing people in Trinidad because of their tone. This is a new kind of outcome.”
John said even if the board had an agenda “at least think it through with what you are going to do.”
She said it would have been more plausible if they had fired her for not having a straight nose, rather than come up with such a poor excuse.
John said, however, she always felt she was sent on administrative leave by people who did not wish her well.
“You know there would have been some outcome and they had to find a way to do whatever they wanted to do. They started with an internal audit. They couldn’t mash me up the way they intended so now they have to come and say they don’t like my voice.”
John, who had threatened to issue HDC with a legal letter if it did not reverse its decision to send her on leave, said she did not eventually pursue the matter in court.
She said the content of the audit was still pending.
Asked if she now intended to take HDC to court for her sacking, given her claims, John said: “We will see what happens. I don’t want to pre-empt anything.”
John began working at the HDC in November 2009.
A source at the HDC had told CNC3 TV, without elaborating, that John’s behaviour was unacceptable.