Following several months without pay, an estimated 70,000 dependants of the workers of the Liberia Telecommunication Corporation (LTC) are said be facing difficulties.

A recent survey shows that several LTC workers rendered idle by the shutting down of the corporation's facilities have been unable to make ends meet and that families are therefore breaking apart.

"Many of us are unable to put square meals on the table, let alone to pay rent, medical bills, and send our children to school. Our families are suffering; many of them are reduced to hustlers and beggars because someone wants to get rich," said one LTC worker who said he was working in the exchange section of LTC. He did not name the "someone".

LTC, a public corporation, was forced to shut down early this year due to the lack of money to run the huge facilities in the wake of competition from mobile phone companies that effectively rendered line phone obsolete.

With no new technology to offer as compensation, with dwindling income and restless employees as a result worsened by mounting wage bills and other liabilities, management reached the decision to shut down and allow only a skeletal staff to operate pending agreement to privatize the corporation.

Some say besides the competition from the telecommunication innovation, poor management and political meddling was responsible for the company's headaches.

Unfortunately, according to worker and management sources, recent attempts aimed at revitalizing the corporation have been stifled by bottlenecks erected by the corporation's management and board perhaps through political influences from above.

It is not clear what exactly this means, but some are pointing to the saga surrounding the bidding process that was supposed to lead to an agreement for the turn over of LTC to a private company with the highest international acclaim to manage for a certain period.

It may be recalled that in September of 2004 the LTC workers were filled with hope. For months the corporation had been operating intermittently, the billing system down and no money coming into the corporation to pay its arrears to the employees.

Then, Infotel Italia offered credit to the corporation in the tune of about $ 6.5 million to jump-start the corporation by supplying equipment so that LTC could resume its services, pay its bills, pay for the credit and pay its employees.

For some unknown reason, the Board and the management of the corporation decided to reject the credit, deciding instead to offer a Public Tender for the Revitalization and Modernization of the corporation.

This was supposedly done in the "interest" of transparency, to satisfy the international community.

This "interest" collided with the interests of the LTC employees, whose interests start with putting food on the table for their suffering families and sending their children to school.

After three months, only five companies submitted tenders to LTC. Then, after a famous fiasco, the Chairman finally threw out the "results" of that tender, but only after a 4-month wait.

Eight months after the credit was offered to LTC to jump-start the corporation, the corporation stopped operations totally.

The buildings are in darkness, no services are provided and workers roam the grounds with empty bellies as their children sit idle at home, without any hope of tuition to send them to school.

"Why have these ordinary, innocent, citizens been abandoned by the LTC management and by the NTGL. Why should they suffer if an option exists which will stop their suffering? Why has the NTGL leadership decided to abandon their interests in favour of some foreign or personal interests?" another LTC employee wondered recently.

With 900 employees at LTC, that means that there are at least 10,000 dependents of those employees including the extended family, analysts have found.

"Why have the LTC management and the NTGL chosen to condemn these innocent men, women and children to a life without food, without education, without hope.

Although the NTGL is a temporary government whose mandate expires in five months, does it not have a primary responsibility to its citizens to take advantage of opportunities, where opportunity exists, to bring full stomachs and smiles to the faces of the women and children who look to government for direction and hope?" said a high management figure who prefers to remain unidentified.

Insisting that what is happening should have a political dimension, he said unless Chairman Bryant changed the situation in the interest of the workers, it would be seen that part of the money is been diverted to political campaigns for his party.

"There is an election coming up. It is commonly known which candidate is favoured by the NTGL leadership. Is a vote for that candidate, a vote for more of this callous, inhumane, abandonment of the ordinary citizen? A hungry man is an angry man.

Chairman Bryant, think first, before you condemn these suffering citizens by making pronouncements that negatively affect their God given rights," he said.

It is not clear how the failure of government to submit bidding results can be linked to political interest, but observers say it is better to make a decision that is unpopular with the International Community and looks after the well being of the citizens, than to make a decision that favours those people who will not feel the effect of that decision.

According to them, with 10,000 hungry citizens living in an environment without hope, it would be impossible to expect happiness.

Said one LTC employee in his desperation to see things go back to normalcy: "The country whose leadership you inherited is not plagued with the type of problems that confront a normal society. This is not a normal environment. The problems have to be addressed taking into account the reality of the environment. No Liberian will blame you for making a decision in the interests of the people. Be bold and do what is right for the people. You have options in this case that will ease their suffering." In a recent radio talk show, members of the Contracts and Monopolies Commission (CMC) stated that they had recommended Infotel Italia as the most responsive and competent company that took part in the recent LTC Tender.

But according to recent reports yet to be verified, Chairman Bryant rejected the recommendation without saying why?

Further information say Infotel Italia offered to pay the workers' arrears and embark on a programme to bring LTC back to fiscal and technical well being, but that that offer as in the previous case has yet to be accepted in spite of the prevailing volatile situation.

Meanwhile the affected employees are prevailing on Chairman Bryant to "at least let history record that you made one decision that brought relief to the economy and hope for 10,000 hungry and hopeless people." "Chairman Bryant, please do the right thing and use you powers in the interest of the workers of LTC and in the interest of the economy," they pleaded.