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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2021
$3.90 Ex-BPL worker loses $6k over ‘lewd’ dismissal By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
AN ex-Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) employee has been stripped of the $6,068 she was awarded after being terminated for “lewd sexual activity” while working in the utility’s cashier cage. The Court of Appeal, in a unanimous verdict, overturned the Industrial Tribunal’s token compensation for Sherry Jennifer Brown after finding that BPL followed the correct disciplinary procedures in dismissing her. Ms Brown’s termination arose after she allowed a male Post Office employee to enter the cashier’s cage at the former East Hill Street location, which BPL treated as a “restricted area” that could not be accessed by outsiders or certain employees in order to protect its revenues, on four separate times over a 12-day period during April 2016. While Ms Brown claimed her interaction with Kim Ferguson was “romantic”, the Industrial Tribunal agreed with BPL that it amounted to “lewd” conduct that at one point extended to her “bending over, spreading her legs and lifting her dress, thereby exposing private areas of her body to Mr Ferguson and also in the presence of her work colleagues”. The ruling added: “The Tribunal cannot find it unfair that BPL considered this to be unacceptably lewd, surpassing mere unprofessional behaviour,” Simone Fitzcharles, its vice-president, wrote in her verdict. “Additionally, it would not have been unfair to say that the other acts Ms and Mr Ferguson performed as were recorded (intimate touching and kissing, for example) were inappropriate in the workplace..... “Based on the camera footage, Mr Ferguson’s main reason for visiting the cage was to find Ms Brown for the purposes of chatting closely, groping, touching intimate parts of the body and Ms Brown exposed private areas of her body. Ms Brown’s witness statement mentioned she performed similar acts.” These acts, according to the verdict, took place while Ms Brown’s colleagues worked at their desks. Mr Ferguson was said to have gained access when Ms Brown opened the door, or when it was left unlocked by others. Besides being “offensive to the employer”, the Industrial Tribunal added that other BPL may also have been “demoralised” by it. However, Ms Fitzcharles found in Ms Brown’s favour on a technicality - that the state-owned utility breached “procedural fairness” by failing to give her a chance to argue against her dismissal. Yet she cut the sum Ms Brown would normally have received for unfair dismissal by 90 percent from the maximum $60,678 on the grounds that her actions “significantly contributed to her firing”. BPL, though, immediately appealed the verdict on the basis that failing to
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$3.91
$4.02
‘Russian Roulette’ by 20% of drivers By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
M
ORE than 20 percent of Bahamian drivers “are playing Russian Roulette” with people’s lives because they have no insurance protection, a top industry executive warned yesterday. Anton Saunders, RoyalStar Assurance’s managing director, told Tribune Business the willingness of one in five drivers to use the roads without adequate coverage threatened “serious consequences for the Bahamian economy and families” who had the misfortune to encounter them. He added that the situation threatened to “inflict a burden on the whole society” if accident victims were unable to obtain due
• Uninsured ‘clear and present danger’ to families • Top insurer to ‘absorb’ up to 15% reinsurance rise • Says 2021 growth to come outside The Bahamas compensation for their injuries, or written-off and damaged vehicles, from uninsured drivers. Reiterating the industry’s readiness to work with the Road Traffic Department, police and industry regulator to develop a solution that would stamp out this potential menace, Mr Saunders voiced hope that the government’s planned digitisation of the former agency would give all stakeholders access to real-time information that would help detect uninsured drivers. Yet he also urged the authorities to take enforcement further by following
the lead established by the US and other countries. This, the RoyalStar chief added, should involve the seizure and impounding of vehicles used by uninsured drivers until they obtain the correct coverage rather than the present system of simply issuing a fine and letting them continue on their way. Disclosing that the property and casualty insurer saw the severity of road accident claims, and the loss per incident, increase in 2020, Mr Saunders said the company was looking to other Caribbean territories rather than The Bahamas to fuel its near-term growth.
A PROMINENT realtor yesterday voiced optimism that real estate sales could increase by 50 percent this year as he urged Bahamians to “polish what we have” before the tourism market rebounds. George Damianos, Damianos Sotheby’s International Realty’s chief executive, told Tribune Business he had been “shocked” by how “shabby” Bay Street and downtown Nassau appeared when he drove through the area over the weekend on his way to hold viewings at Paradise Island’s Ocean Club Estates. Warning that The Bahamas cannot afford to let the city, one of its major tourist destinations, “deteriorate” any further, Mr Damianos urged the government, landlords and private businesses to “seize the moment” and give downtown Nassau “a
GEORGE DAMIANOS good polish” ahead of tourism’s revival. “I did have the opportunity to go downtown over the weekend on the way to do some showings at the Ocean Club, and because of that I had to drive through the city a couple of times in the last three days,” he told this newspaper. “I was totally shocked at
Union chief in ‘101%’ backing for judge’s call By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net
a series of fix-ups and improvements to enhance downtown Nassau’s ambience and appearance. Bay Street and the city have been almost a ‘ghost town’ for the past 10 months due to the COVID-19 related shutdown of the cruise industry, upon which the vast majority of its businesses depend for virtually all their trade. The absence of cruise ship passengers and business employees has likely contributed to the seeming further “deterioration”, but the government has recently touted $1bn in investments that it hopes can spark a downtown Nassau renaissance. These include the $200m The Pointe project, soon to
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• Realtor ‘shocked’ by ‘shabby’ downtown Nassau • But hopeful of 50% real estate sales increase • Urges Bahamas to ‘play our cards correctly’ how shabby it was. Bahamians should take the opportunity to polish up the town, the environment and the streets we travel. It could use a good polish. We should think about that for the tourism rebound, seize the moment and not let things deteriorate further, for all of a sudden the tourists will be back. “I’d use this opportunity to polish this place, do a little shining and polish up. The government could use the time to do this as it is not something that is very capital intensive this type of work, cleaning and polishing. It’s so cheaply done. It’s not like building a road, constructing a bridge. It’s polishing up what we have.” Mr Damianos explained that he was calling for
OBIE FERGUSON
A TRADE union leader yesterday gave his “101 percent” backing to a Supreme Court judge’s call to modernise the Industrial Relations Act and take the government out of union elections. Obie Ferguson, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) president and prominent labour attorney, responding to Justice Loren Klein’s verdict on the Bahamas Public Services Union (BPSU) presidential poll agreed that the Department of Labour should not have responsibility for supervising trade union elections and certifying the vote. He said: “The government, or a government department, ought not be involved in the internal workings of the union. That’s a matter for the union members; they decide whether or not there has been a wrong done, and if there has been a wrong done then there is a mechanism in the constitution for them to seek a remedy, or whatever relief they’re looking for, but that should not be left to the registrar of trade unions or the minister of labour. “I don’t know why the government continues to do this as this can become very expensive if you have union elections all over our archipelago. That means you would have to send a designated representative to Acklins or Inagua just to supervise an election that the government need not be involved in.” Justice Klein, in rejecting the Judicial Review challenge to the BPSU results, called for Parliament to upgrade the laws and “eclectic mix of rules” that govern such polls to prevent the courts from becoming overwhelmed by the frequent challenges to trade union elections.
He revealed that RoyalStar had chosen to itself “absorb” the COVID-19 related increases in reinsurance costs, ranging from 7.5 percent to 15 percent, rather than pass them on to Bahamian businesses and households via increased home, motor and marine insurance premiums because the pandemic-devastated economy simply cannot bear it. The number of uninsured, under-insured and incorrectly insured drivers on Bahamian streets has always been a concern
‘Polish what we have before tourists return’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
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Governor ‘lays down gauntlet’ for banking By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
THE Central Bank’s governor has “laid down the gauntlet” with his plans to modernise the commercial banking industry for the 21st century, a BISX-listed institution’s chief executive said yesterday. Gowon Bowe, Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) chief executive, told Tribune Business that the objectives and strategies unveiled by John Rolle at last week’s Bahamas Business Outlook conference targeted issues that the local banking industry should have been doing already. Responding to the
• Banker: Bahamas should be doing this already • Regulator applauded for 21st century moves • Greater clarity sought on ‘embryonic’ reforms
GOWON BOWE
JOHN ROLLE
Central Bank chief’s drive for greater transparency, accountability and consumer protection, Mr Bowe said Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) had no objection to or difficulties with the policies that were set out. “He’s laid down the gauntlet of what he wants to achieve,” he told this newspaper of the governor’s address. “He said that you either get on board or there will be consequences. That’s the right manner as a regulator.
“We are in a fairly mature banking industry, and we have to be nimble in the way we adapt. Some of those are things we already should be doing and we should not be surprised at. From my organisation’s perspective, these are things that have been discussed with the Central Bank over time.” Mr Rolle, in his Business Outlook address, pledged to deliver “greater transparency” on commercial bank fees and provide Bahamian financial services consumers with greater choice and protection. He promised that the “Financial Services Ombudsman” post will be established early this year.
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