Disaster Agency Clarifies “Overtime Funds”

By Alex Yomah
The National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), has clarified media report implicating the governmental institution of stealing over L$2 million Liberian dollars intended for employee’s overtime’s benefit.
The media was yesterday saturated with report alleging that Mr. Henry Williams, Executive Director of the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA and his Deputy Director for Administration, Ashmed B. Sheriff covertly allotted nearly L$2M to staffers of their respective offices, and other staff of the agency, as overtime benefits with the intent of remitting the monies to them when withdrawn.
Clarifying to the media, Mr. Williams described such report as unfounded and urged those involved in besmearing him and his co-workers’ hard earned character to desist.
Clarifying further, he asserted that contrary to media report, overtime budget is not intended for everyone. He said the allotment is intended to motivate those who worked overtime within fiscal period, and this is what administration does and is doing.
He said no matter the negative campaign, he would not be deterred-stating he has the legal authority to dispense overtime and only administration dispenses overtime at its discretion.
“Overtime is a budget line that is allocated to NDMA. Overtime is dispensed by Administration and is based on how the compensation should be divided, and that is my mandate to oversee that financial component. So, to do that, is based upon our discretions,” Mr. Williams clarified.
He added that overtime is dispensed based upon activities, based upon what employees did overtime within the institution and not intended for everyone.
According to him, the institution is confronted with lots of challenges, including meager resources and logistics to cater to flood and fire victims across the country.
He said the institution will not be deterred by negative propaganda spewed against the entity; his leadership will do what is right. Adding, “We will continue with our overtime process which is of course an area that is allocated in the budget line. For this year, we will try to ensure that budget line be in place because if you look at our work, it is very dangerous, demonic; we work all hours, in fact, when incidences happen, we worked 24 hours. So compensation is intended for overtime workers’ purposes,” Williams said.
Prior to Mr. Williams’ clarity, Civil Society Organization, under canopy “The Attention of the Patriots Against Societal Ills ((PASI) came in defense of the Management of National Disaster Management Agency, stating that corruption report implicating Mr. Williams and his Deputy Ashmed was unfounded and intended to blackmail the institution.
“Having perused and investigated this issue, we view such information to be fake, false, misleading and only intended to tarnish the repetition of these public servants. Its further amount to blackmail,” Kollie Tokpah, CSO Chairperson said.
According to him, like any other management team, Hon. Williams and his Deputy have the right to determine beneficiaries of overtime compensation over the period of a budget year. “In fact, all those listed as beneficiaries of overtime compensation are employees of the National Disaster Management Agency,” he stated.