Eustace finally pays former secretary severance pay

Rishatha Nicholls, the dismissed secretary to Leader of the Opposition Arnhim Eustace, has received her severance pay.{{more}}

Nicholls, in an interview with SEARCHLIGHT on Wednesday evening, said a cheque for $16,199.99 was handed over to her by the Labour Department earlier in the day, only after she went to collect a letter that was registered in her name at the Kingstown Post Office.

A few hours before she collected the letter, Eustace had called into Hot 97.1 radio station and said that he had paid the money to Nicholls by way of a registered letter.

He said that the cheque was mailed three days before the April 17, 2014 deadline set by a tribunal about one month earlier.

“So, I am hearing a lot of talk on this matter…. I am surprised that I’m hearing that she has not got it, but that was done on the 14th of April…,” Eustace said.

Nicholls pointed out that she only knew that her former boss had made the payment, when someone told her about his statement on radio.

She said that when she received the information, she called the Labour Department, who were also not aware that a payment had been made.

“So, I am saying but the order says send it to the Labour Department for the Labour Commissioner, and Democrat House is not far from the Department of Labour, and the Department of Labour is on the main road even to Eustace driving going home.

“Now the time you take to send an employee or whoever to go to the post office to buy stamps and to mail a cheque that going right across the road or up the road, why the person didn’t take the dollar and drop the cheque there?”

Nicholls said that she was instructed by the Labour Department to retrieve the letter from the post office, which she did, then took it to the Labour Department.

“The cheque was dated the 9th of April 2014, the cover letter for the cheque is dated the 10th of April 2014 and the stamp on the letter was stamped the 14th of April and it was received on the 23rd of April 2014 by me because it was addressed to me.

“It took over a year from the 28th of March 2013 to the 23rd of April 2014…. It took Eustace having to be defeated three times in the Department of Labour, even with lawyers.”

The married mother of two told SEARCHLIGHT that she was relieved that the matter has finally come to an end, and was grateful to God for the wisdom and strength to persevere, and that she had finally received her “hard earned money” that she “worked hard for.”

When asked about Eustace’s statement on radio, in which he indicated that when the New Democratic Party gets into office there will be “zero tolerance for corruption and petty theft,” Nicholls said she interpreted it that the party leader was throwing words at her.

“Vincentians would be hard on politicians who tell lies on citizens, by going to the polls and not voting for them, because I don’t know anywhere where Vincentians are corrupt and petty thieves.

“If there are people in society who commit offences the police and the court will deal with that, and even in those cases people are innocent until proven guilty.”(JJ)