Baptiste: Eustace should have been ethical enough to inform me

Anesia Baptiste thinks it is unethical that her former boss Arnhim Eustace did not inform her of his intention to fire her, before she heard it on the radio, last Friday, April 20.{{more}}

She said that to date, Eustace has not informed her of his decision to sack her, saying that the letters she received were a copy of the letter sent by Eustace to the Governor General requesting the revocation of her position and the Governor General’s response to that request.

The former senator is also not impressed that Eustace thanked her while he spoke on the issue of her revocation on Monday, on the New Times radio program.

“You thanking me on the radio? Not even in a letter?” she asked.

“You do not break the confidence of your members by going public first with information like that. I learnt from the media, not from Mr Eustace,” Baptiste explained.

She said that she believes that the only reason why Eustace thanked her was to avoid looking bad and that the gesture was not genuine.

Baptiste contended that she had no prior knowledge that her appointment was to be revoked.

She said some persons had expressed the view that she was rude and intentionally waited to collect the letters, after she had been notified that letters were at the Party’s Headquarters.

“This is not true; had Eustace been ethical enough to inform me before, I would not have to hear it on the radio,” she said.

According to Baptiste, she received a call from Eustace’s secretary sometime after 9:00 a.m on Friday, April 20 and was told that there was a letter there for her, to which she responded that her husband would pick it up.

“I did not know who the letter was from, nor its contents. I simply assumed it was a letter,” she said, adding that she had an arrangement to have the secretary notify her of any mail, so she could go in soonest and collect it.

“So, when she (the secretary) called and said a letter was there, I thought it was a regular thing.”

Baptiste said when she received the call, she was getting ready to make her way to Nice Radio to do her usual segment on the radio program.

She said that she subsequently heard Eustace make the announcement of her dismissal and that a short while after, she received a call from the Governor General’s office to inform her that a letter had been left for her at the Party’s headquarters.

“I wondered at the same time if this was the same letter Ms Nichols was referring to,” Baptiste said, saying that she assured the GG’s office that she would pick up the letter.

But this was all after she had heard the announcement on the radio.

The Governor General’s office called a second time, Baptiste told members of the media, asking if she would have preferred them send the letter directly to her, and if so, arrangements could be made to take it from the party’s headquarters and deliver it to her, an offer she declined.

At this point, she said, she realized that the letter dealt with her revocation.

Baptiste said that Eustace’s secretary contacted her via Facebook chat and informed her that there was a letter there from the Governor General, but when the former senator inquired if this was the same letter she was referring to previously, connection was lost and the secretary never responded to the question.

“Therefore the misrepresentation of me by Mr Eustace on Monday, that I was notified after 9:00 and only picked it up after 3:00, as if I knew the letters were there, informing me of my dismissal, but deliberately delayed picking them up and acting shocked, to be informed by radio – that is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts,” she said. (DD)