By Saio Marrah
A former Secretary and Legal Adviser of the Rokel Commercial Bank, Margaret Davies, says she plans to take legal action against the Managing Director of the bank, Ekundayo Gilpin, on allegations of sexual harassment and wrongful dismissal.
She disclosed this to journalists and other local and international human rights organisations at a press conference organised by a law firm, Marrah and Associates, at the Africell American Corner in Freetown on Wednesday 19th October, 2022.
Mrs Davies gave a detailed account of events she alleged she was subjected to since Gilpin joined the bank in 2017 as MD, and up to this year when she was finally dismissed under "very murky" circumstances.
‘’Shortly after he joined the Bank, he started making sexual advances at me. I found the sexual advances very unwelcoming, but strenuously tried to manage our working relationship by entertaining his flirting WhatsApp chats from August to October 2017,” she said.
According to her she had to ignore him to protect her job and that she did not want to be stressed out due to her pregnancy then.
“I told my husband about his advances and he was furious and wanted to approach him but we later advised that I should try to get a witness or evidence in contemplation of such moment. Mr. Gilpin and I worked without any form of intimidation or bullying between the said period until when he requested that I sleep with him and my out-right refusal.”
But she said that she had been so incensed by the alleged harassment that she decided to act. “In November 2017, I sent him a very strongly-worded message and told him expressly that I was not comfortable with his WhatsApp exchanges anymore,” she went on.
She accused her boss of using his “position of authority” to "continuously harass, victimize, suppress, bully, marginalize and intimidate" her. She said it became a pattern and it intensified when she resumed work from maternity leave in September 2018.
“He became persistent and resorted to sending me unsolicited sexually explicit images and indecent materials with a foreign [UK] number. He mentioned to me on occasions that I needed to meet him at home and some other social places (to exercise, talk deep, take drinks, etc.) and also told me ‘we cannot work together if we do not talk deep and be close to each other’", she stated.
Mrs Davies said she started recording Gilpin to have audio evidence of his advances, especially when she realized that he was not relenting.
‘’It was so persistent that one moment I would have a very cordial working relationship with him and the next moment he would start harassing me and once I refused, we got back to the same thing” she said.
She also talked about how Gilpin later decided to designate her jobs to her assistant and introduced the assistant to the public as the company’s secretary and legal adviser even when she was the substantive head.
According to her, the harassment got to a point where she was “left apprehensive, frail and psychologically unsteady at work and it was my husband and my assistant that helped me regain my strength. I also confided in few colleagues and Board Members.”
She said Gilpin refused to comply to a Board Administrative Committee approval that as Company Secretary she be promoted to an Executive Director, but as a result of his "orchestrated victimization", he went about misinforming the public that Davies was pushing him to promote her to a Director when in fact the position of the company secretary was not under his decision, but the board's.
She also accused the board Chairman of supporting Gilpin and that the MD once attempted to demote her by telling the board to split into two the Secretary and legal adviser position she held, but the board members could not approve such a decision.
Mrs. Davies said :“Mr. Gilpin felt dissatisfied with the outcome of the board meeting and made a formal complaint about me to the Governor and the two Deputy Governors (of the Bank of Sierra Leone – BSL) on the 4th February 2022. Consequently, I was invited by the Governor on the 24th February 2022 to hear my side of the story.”
After she came out in the open about her ordeal including the sexual harassment she was said to have been enduring, the central bank instructed the board to investigate the issue.
She said the investigation ended with an ‘Inconclusive Report’ to the Bank of Sierra Leone in June 2022. As a result of that ‘inconclusive report’, the central bank conducted an Independent Investigation.
She said following the investigations, the chairman of the board was instructed to take action based on the findings and recommendations of the BSL and the initial report.
She alleged that the chairman refused the recommendations from the central bank and she was instead later sacked from her job.
She said upon receiving her letter of dismissal, she also received a notification that her end-of-service benefits had been sent to her staff account, but to her shock the account was also blocked and another one was created.
She pointed out that she was a lawyer that had worked in the Law Officer’s Department and in several capacities, and that for her to go through such harassment in her workplace, the fight was not just for her, but also for other women facing similar nightmares.
She called on the First Lady, Fatima Bio and the Government to ensure she gets justice. She vowed to take her case to the ECOWAS Court if the country’s justice system failed her.
Politico tried to reach Gilpin through phone calls and a detailed text message, but got no response from him.
Copyright © 2022 Politico Online
