A senior press services officer attached to the Ministry of the Presidency (MOTP) is under fire after leaked screenshots surfaced of her using what many consider as racially derogatory remarks to describe the staff.
The screenshots, which were first posted on the Facebook page of Member of Parliament (MP) Nigel Dharamlall, show Lloyda Nicholas-Garrett using a racial slur to describe employees at MOTP.
Dharamlall, who has already been reprimanded and faced public condemnation for racially charged statements on his social media page as well, called for the immediate termination of the services of the “racist staffer” and for her to undergo “a period of race relations rehabilitation.”
Nicholas-Garrett has since deactivated her Facebook account and up until this article was published, no public statement has been issued by the MOTP or any other government press department on the matter.
However, government’s cultural advisor to the Minister of Education, Ruel Johnson in a Facebook post, expressed that the incident is “particularly tragic considering the wealth of skills and otherwise integrity that she brings to her post.”
He further noted that if Nicholas-Garrett should be out of a job then there should be no place for Dharamlall in Parliament.
News Room tried to contact Nicolas-Garrett but her cell was turned off while her supervisor, Communications Director of the Ministry of the Presidency, Mark Archer, in a text message to News Room, said he cannot “answer the phone right now” and requested the news entity to call later.
