AT least three former employees of Federal Capital Investment and Finance Limited have accused the company of terminating their services soon after they informed the management that they were pregnant. Chat! newspaper for the full story….

But the allegations have been described as preposterous by chairman of the company Richard Burgher, who charged that the women were determined to destroy his firm which, he said, was already bankrupt.

According to the women, four workers were axed by the company after becoming pregnant between 2009 and 2010.

Natoya Kurdas, who said she was employed to the company as a loans officer for two-and-a-half years, claimed that on March 18 this year she received a letter stating that effective March 13 her services would be terminated as a result of a major scaling down of the firm. However, she said she was the only one in the company who received such a letter. At the time, she was five months pregnant.

The women said too, that last September another employee, who also worked in Kurdas’ department and was six months pregnant, received a letter informing her that her services would be terminated.

Two other employees received similar letters at that time, the women said. However, shortly afterwards, those two employees received a follow-up letter withdrawing the termination letter.

“I know it was because of my pregnancy,” said the woman who claimed she was fired in September. “Some months before I had heard that someone else was fired because she was pregnant. And then the chairman called me up and asked how do I think that my pregnancy would affect my work. I was a loans officer, and so I worked on the road. I told him I didn’t think it would [affect me] until further down.”

She said she was advised by Burgher that she would be transferred to another department.

“He said he was going to change my position from the loans department to the corrections and delinquency department,” she told Chat! “Shortly afterwards they had a board meeting after which they called three persons and gave us letters of termination. But out of that three, I was the only one that was let go.”

The woman said that although she knew that her pregnancy was the reason for her being released, she could never prove it, so she did not take the matter to the Ministry of Labour.

“I was pregnant and I knew I was the one with the most baggage and that is why they let me go,” she said.

However,  Burgher said the three women were simply trying to bring down his company that is already in the red.

“My company is bankrupt. It is locking down. Do you know what bankrupt means? It is bankrupt with a 80 per cent delinquency,” he said.

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