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Liberia: 333 Employees Laid-Off At Finance
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The NEWS (Monrovia)
30 June 2008
Posted to the web 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."
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The Staff Rationalization Exercise is also part of the overall process of national public sector reform, the Ministry said.
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... [Read Full Text]
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... [Read Full Text]
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