P.S.U. Defends Jumoke Castro, P.S.U. Tells FinSec: “Your Actions Were Unlawful and Borders on Being Abusive”
Jumoke Castro, son of U.D.P. Minister Edmond Castro, failed to explain his December 2019 Facebook vile comments that attracted widespread condemnation and disgust. Castro attacked Plus TV’s Sashta Wade with the threat of gang rape. Castro, who is a public officer attached to the Belize Tax Service, was placed on administrative leave after a complaint that he brought the department into disrepute was filed. He was given ten days to proffer an explanation after which the matter would have been forwarded to the Public Service Commission for final determination. That did not happen and a P.S.U. letter sent to the Financial Secretary Joseph Waight tells why. The letter takes a different tune from the December twentieth, 2019 P.S.U. release, which expressed zero-tolerance against acts and threats of violence against women.
Jumoke Castro
The recent letter sent by P.S.U.’s Acting Industrial Relations Officer, Jacqueline Willoughby to Waight states, “Our member is entitled to equal protection of the law. This means if there is a signed and sealed allegation that is purported to have occurred during the execution of his duties, that complaint must be signed, sealed and delivered…We would therefore be grateful for that written complaint.” Willoughby stresses that there are no regulations that speak to the conduct of an officer outside of the performance of his duty. And as such, Willoughby points out that “a mere citing of the regulations that you do without the mentioned allegation does not suffice for our member to respond appropriately.” The P.S.U. tells the Financial Secretary that Castro was unlawfully placed on administrative leave since he was not properly informed of the regulation that he broke. It also says that placing Castro on administrative leave borders on abuse. The P.S.U. states that Castro maintains that he did not contravene regulations and has committed no major misconduct during the performance of the functions of his post. Willoughby’s letter represents a backpedalling from their initial reaction in December following the incident. Castro’s comments attracted condemnation across sectors; the House Speaker among other parliamentarians said the following on December twentieth, 2019.
Laura Tucker-Longsworth
Laura Tucker-Longsworth, Speaker of the House [File: December 20th, 2019]
“More recently a woman was attacked with a threat of rape on social media which is terrible. It tells us though what is happening in our society and we have to come together to regulate social media. We cannot continue to have these kinds of attacks on us.”
John Briceño
John Briceño, Leader of the Opposition [File: December 20th, 2019]
“We find it outrageous, despicable, nasty and intolerable. It should be condemned by all of us in this house and by the society on a whole. Who does this young man believes that he is? That he is entitled to be able to write such nastiness against the wife of Pastor Louis and that he can get away with it. We just ended sixteen days of activism and now here we have this young who works for the Belize Tax Services, who is paid by tax payers. That he feels that he has every right to be able to write this type of nastiness on Facebook. We are paying his salary Madam Speaker, we the tax payers.”
Dean Barrow
Prime Minister Dean Barrow [File: December 20th, 2019]
“I want to say to the Leader of the Opposition that we on this side of the House entirely share his sense of outrage, disgust and revulsion. Our party has issued a statement this morning condemning that post out of hand. I am happy to put on record in this house the fact that the members of government, the members of this administration joined with the larger party in saying that that kind of post is disgusting, entirely out of order, cannot be countenance and I repeat must absolutely and in the most unqualified and unresolved terms be condemned.”
