JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, March 15, 2025

BIR chairman says ‘voodoo’ artefact played no role in worker’s transfer

by

Sascha Wilson
2 days ago
20250313
A picture of the artefact on BIR employee Mindy Ramoutar’s desk.

A picture of the artefact on BIR employee Mindy Ramoutar’s desk.

The de­ci­sion to re­as­sign act­ing stenog­ra­ph­er Mindy Ra­moutar to an­oth­er de­part­ment in the Board of In­land Rev­enue was due to a staff short­age and not be­cause of the pres­ence of a “voodoo” arte­fact.

This was the ex­pla­na­tion giv­en by Com­mis­sion­er of In­land Rev­enue, De­o­mati Ram­dass, in her re­sponse to Ra­moutar’s pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter.

Through her at­tor­ney Ki­ran Pan­day, Ra­moutar sent the let­ter to Ram­dass on Feb­ru­ary 10, claim­ing that she was re­as­signed to the BIR’s Le­gal Unit af­ter be­ing ac­cused of prac­tis­ing “voodoo.”

Ra­moutar, who is al­so a Clerk Typ­ist I, said last Sep­tem­ber, her col­league gift­ed her a cul­tur­al arte­fact from New Or­leans af­ter re­turn­ing from va­ca­tion. She had placed the arte­fact on her work desk. Af­ter be­ing in­formed by the Hu­man Re­source De­part­ment (HR) on De­cem­ber 10, 2024, that she was be­ing re­as­signed, she said she in­quired from Ram­dass about the rea­son for her re­as­sign­ment and was al­leged­ly told that she was “in­volved in the prac­tice of voodoo” and shown a pho­to of the arte­fact.

In a let­ter dat­ed March 7, in re­sponse to Ra­moutar’s pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, Ram­dass said, “I wish to state cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that al­though Ms Ra­moutar’s re­as­sign­ment to the Le­gal Unit and the pres­ence of the arte­fact were dis­cussed with her on 12th De­cem­ber 2024, they are in­deed two sep­a­rate and dis­tinct is­sues that have no bear­ing on each oth­er. For the avoid­ance of doubt, Ms Ra­moutar’s re­as­sign­ment oc­curred in re­la­tion to on­go­ing staffing needs in the Le­gal Unit, which is well-doc­u­ment­ed, and which was set in mo­tion pri­or to 10th De­cem­ber 2024. The pres­ence of the ‘arte­fact’ is an is­sue that on­ly came to my at­ten­tion on 12th De­cem­ber 2024 by a col­league a few min­utes be­fore Ms Ra­moutar en­tered my of­fice.”

How­ev­er, Ram­dass main­tained that her “per­son­al be­lief” that Ra­moutar was in­volved in the prac­tice of “voodoo” was log­i­cal, giv­en the ad­mis­sion that the arte­fact was a gift from a col­league who had re­turned from New Or­leans.

As is well known, she said, “voodoo is a mag­i­cal tra­di­tion that is deeply con­nect­ed with New Or­leans, as it was tak­en there by en­slaved Africans in the ear­ly 1700s.”

From the pho­to of the arte­fact at­tached to her let­ter, Ram­dass said across the tor­so of the “arte­fact” are clear­ly the words “ooDoo.” How­ev­er, she said the pic­ture omits to show, due to the van­tage point it was tak­en from, the ac­tu­al word—”VooDoo.”

Not­ing the un­can­ny re­sem­blance of the arte­fact to In­ter­net pic­tures of a “voodoo doll,” Ram­dass al­so con­tend­ed that the ap­pear­ance of the “arte­fact” co­in­cid­ed with Ra­moutar’s re­as­sign­ment, “which it is now ap­par­ent she was not pleased with.”

Ram­dass added that she was not giv­en an ex­pla­na­tion for the pres­ence of the arte­fact in the of­fice. She said Ra­moutar was re­as­signed to that de­part­ment be­cause she had a greater un­der­stand­ing of le­gal cor­re­spon­dence than her col­leagues and demon­strat­ed a su­pe­ri­or work eth­ic.

She added that Ra­moutar was not de­mot­ed, as she as­sumed du­ties in the Le­gal Unit as act­ing Clerk Stenog­ra­ph­er II, and there was no loss in ben­e­fits.

Deny­ing any an­i­mos­i­ty on her part, she said, “The un­found­ed al­le­ga­tion that Ms Ra­moutar is be­ing vic­timised based on the ‘arte­fact’ is to­tal­ly in­con­sis­tent with the clear chrono­log­i­cal time­line es­tab­lished by con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous doc­u­ments and events. I cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­ny that Ms Ra­moutar was re­as­signed to the Le­gal Unit be­cause of the pres­ence of the arte­fact on 12th De­cem­ber 2024. I al­so af­firm that M. Ra­moutar has nei­ther, nor is she the sub­ject of vic­tim­i­sa­tion at the Board of In­land Rev­enue.”

Ram­dass in­di­cat­ed that she is open to re­con­sid­er­ing Ra­moutar’s re­as­sign­ment, pro­vid­ed that a suit­able re­place­ment could be iden­ti­fied.

She hoped no fur­ther ac­tion would be tak­en and the mat­ter “which has now be­come a pub­lic spec­ta­cle ow­ing to the wide­spread pub­lic­i­ty this mat­ter gained in the lo­cal me­dia,” re­solved am­i­ca­bly with­out re­course to the courts.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored