From a business point of view, the lay-off action may be laudable cause it will allow for efficiency in the operation of the Ministry. But the Ministry is not a profit-making entity. On the other hand, it is the enforcement arm of the revenue and finance laws of Liberia. At present the Ministry of Finance may only be collecting about 20% of the overall revenue due Government on an annual basis. Take for instance, in Monrovia and the suburban areas, there are over four hundred thousand residential and commercial buildings standing and occupied by people. Of these buildings the Ministry has not being able to collect about 25% of real estate taxes due on these properties not to mention the collection of taxes on empty land. The situation is worst when speaking of collection of taxes on personal properties outside of Monrovia. But instead of engaging in training employees and giving them the appropriate logistics to enforce the laws, authority at the Ministry only focuses on how disburse the minute revenue they collect from assured tax payers such as major corporations and honest businesses. The letting go of a penny due government is also and equally tantamount to a police or law enforcement officer allowing a murder, arm robber or traffic violator to go free. This is a shame that the poor civil servant who may be trying to contribute his or her quota to the nation is being thrown out of job because a so-called expert with credentials from Western university lacking of total knowledge of the function of the Ministry but target employees for lay-off as the feasible means of injecting productivity in Government. It always make me sick when top officials' failures are being shifted on poor civil servants. With Government's effort to launch the poverty reduction strategies, I think this action will lead to undermining her goal. Because this massive dismissals do nothing but inflict pain on its people. Consider that one of the lay-off has 5 dependents (including children)then about 1665 people are added to this demeaning social life(poverty cause they will go without food, shelter and education for the children). Trust me someone will say who cares. But the recklessness of this action is cruel and inhumane. The cruelty of the action is that there is no unemployment benefits available to these people, thereby sending a wrong signals to those remaining in the employ of the ministry. The inhumanity aligned with the shameful manner of exercising governmental power is such the civil servants worked for their country when they lack such benefits as medical care, retirement funds, delayed paychecks and not to mention recognition of service. Quite frankly, reckless lay-offs or dismissals of civil servants had never done any good to the country but perpetuate negative perception in employees about the purpose of serving one's country. Because it breeds fear associated with job insecurity leading employees to feel that it is necessary or justifiable to collect as much as they can while holding position of trust cause the day of lay-off and the accompanying trauma may come any time. Civil servants should be respected and not bullied with the threat of lay-off. In the past lay-off had been used to silence honest and patriotic employees' opposition to whims and caprices of the dubious top officials and it is beginning to resurface its ugly head on the poor employees. I greatly sympathize with these unfortunate poor victims.

While I am not happy for those who were affected by the laid-off, I feel compell to commend the government of Liberia for taking action that will help to reduce corruptions. The Ministry of Finance is a little country that exists in the government of Liberia, where all employees try to benefit at expense of the remaining ministries and agencies.

Cutting down the neumber of employees will help the fraud unit, if the staff there are honest, to catch criminals that continue to steal from taxpayers. Some people had been at that ministry since Tubman, Tolbert, and Doe eras and have no plan of retiring but to die in office. It is about time that they take exit for the younger, patriotic, and honest Liberians to to take over the revenue sectors of the nation.

Thanks

twuyesoe