The National Health Workers Union of Liberia (NAHWUL) has condemned the form and manner in which the ongoing audit is being conducted by the General Auditing Commission at the Health Ministry.
According to the Union, the form and manner in which the audit is being conduct is fraudulent and will only lead to the most worsened situation in the health system rather than bringing a remedy to the Ministry of Health.
Addressing a news conference recently, the assistant Secretary General for NAHWUL Deemi T. Dearzrua said for the fact that the GAC had set up their destination points for the process in hard-to-reach area, the candidates being audited will not be able to transport themselves to do headcount when they will not be placed on the payroll.
“The GAC chose designated points which in the first instance are not the assigned areas of the employees located in distances between L$ 2,000 to 5,000 transportation fare to the sight, in hard-to-reach areas, with no guarantee of getting validated on first visit due to the disorganized manner of the process,” Dearzrua stated.
He further said that the headcount process will compel the health workers to leave their patients unattended and go after said audit thus bridging their commitment to the health profession by posing collusion with patients and their relatives.
The Union also reported what it termed as a troubling situation for the GAC to reject the National Identification Registry numbers assigned to civil servants which were insisted by the GoL in 2019 following the introduction of the harmonization policy.
“Henceforth, NAHWUL envisages total chaos at the end of this headcount as it lacks the pedigree to diagnose and mitigate, but rather designed to compound the already complex situation. It does not and will not give any pictures of the gaps in the system but will serve as a gateway to further fraud the payroll,” Deemi Dearzrua added.
“Now, therefore, NAHWUL do hereby sounds the caveat to GoL that she will not condone any unnecessary embarrassment to the already overly stretched women and men whose selflessness and devotion have kept our health system up and running over the years at their own detriment by the so-called headcount being conducted by the General Auditing Commission (GAC),” he intimated.
