The NEWS (Monrovia)
30 June 2008
Monrovia — The Finance Ministry has announced that it has laid-off at least 333 of its staff and has retired 45 of its employees for their services to government ranging from 25 to 40 years of national service.
Commenting on the laid-off over the weekend in a release, the Ministry said it had observed that "duplication of functions and overlapping had created a major operational hurdle in achieving its overall goals, occasioned by the prevalence of an appalling lack of capacity across wide segments of the Ministry's workforce."
To address the problem, the Ministry said it is implementing a "major staff Rationalization Exercise across the three operational departments of the Ministry, including Administration, Revenue and Expenditure with immediate effect."
The Ministry explained that the Revenue Department alone had in excess of 1000, employees both in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs and Exercise which reflect more than two-third of the entire workforce of the Ministry.
According to the Ministry, of the total customs revenue, Free Port of Monrovia Collectorate accounts for 97%, while RIA accounts for 2% and the rest of the rural collectorates put together accounts for 1%.
The Ministry also disclosed that the Freeport Collectorate has only 80 employees and RIA 36 employees, together accounting for 34% of the total customs employees while other collectorates combined account for 66% of customs total workforce.
"It is evident therefore that most workers in the outstation collectorates are either unproductive ghost employees or not needed for the reduced volume of business transactions currently being performed by the Ministry at the rural post", the Ministry said.
The Ministry further disclosed that 34% of the employees are producing 99% of the total collection through the Freeport and the RIA, while the rural collectorates which accounts for 90% of the total workforce of the Revenue Department collects only 1% of the government customs revenue.
The Ministry pointed out that its Staff Rationalization Exercise was determined by two basic criteria under the Civil Service Guidelines: "last-in first-out requirement of the CSA Standing Orders, which takes into consideration the entry on duty date of the staff in a particular department and various efficiency tests on staff to task productivity ratio conducted by the Ministry."
The Staff Rationalization Exercise is also part of the overall process of national public sector reform, the Ministry said.
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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
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.