By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

STATE Minister for Social Services and Urban Development Lisa Rahming has strongly denied allegations that she verbally abused and carried out acts of political victimisation against employees at the social agency, insisting “that’s not who I am”.

Ms Rahming was responding to assertions made by Marco City MP Michael Pintard over the issue last week.

In a statement, the former Cabinet minister said he was concerned about several disturbing reports he had received from social workers who alleged they were being disrespected and victimised by Ms Rahming.

“Our team is currently in the process of fully investigating the reports raised by the staff at Urban Renewal, which include expulsion from offices, changed locks and discontinuation of services to the public,” Mr Pintard said.

 Responding to the accusations, Ms Rahming insisted the claims were not true and added it was not in her character to use bullying tactics against anyone.

 She also explained that she didn’t have the power to relieve any worker of their duties.

 “As it relates to when Mr Pintard indicated that I intimated the employees or to some effect that the employees were afraid of me or whatever, that is untrue. That’s not who I am. That never happened,” Ms Rahming said.

 “You know most persons will do what they can to get to the next level in their political career and so the intimidation, the lies and the slander, I’m somewhat not surprised at all and so I would like to say as it relates to me terminating employees, I have no power to terminate anyone. I never did. I never told anybody that they were fired and they have to go. I never did that, but what I can say as it relates to political victimisation and the accusation, it’s untrue.”

 The state minister also said since being elected to office, officials decided it would be in the ministry’s best interests to restructure the agency, but suggested some workers may have not been happy with this decision.

 “We sat at the table with administration and management,” Ms Rahming said. “We sat collectively. We spoke and we said what’s going to happen, what processes must be taken in place in order to facilitate the total restructuring of Urban Renewal and so none of this should be a surprise and I would have reiterated even in my speech and in Parliament and on the media, in numerous occasions that we were going to restructure both human capital and financially and so I was shocked when I heard all of the slander.

 “And so, what I would like to say that has nothing to do with political victimisation because in the processes, you would find persons on all political divides are a part of the restructuring whether its favourable or unfavourable, but I can say it’s all in the best interest of the organisation in moving its mandate forward,” Ms Rahming added.

 According to Mr Pintard, Social Services Minister Obie Wilchcombe has given assurances that the ministry will reverse the decision to remove people from their work stations and/or place them on vacation leave.

 The FNM MP also said Mr Wilchcombe has committed to guarding against arbitrary acts against government employees “that are motivated by naked political consideration.”

 Noting that she is committed to treating everyone equally, Ms Rahming said her main focus is serving the Bahamian people, especially the most vulnerable in the community.