By Precious D. Freeman
Another group of legislative staffers have sprung calling themselves “Majority Members of the Legislative Staffers Association” thereby countering those referring to themselves as “Legislative Staffers Association” at the opening of the second quarter of the Legislature.
This purported majority group’s aim is to reject the endorsement of former Vice President Joseph Boakai and Senator Jeremiah Koung while the former objective was to endorse the Boakai-Koung ticket.
What is most interesting in all this fight is that all contending parties besides President George Weah are the bosses of the very staffers who were agitating for salary increment and other wages at the Capitol.
With the Presidential and Legislative elections just five months away and the National Election Commission has ordered all forms of campaigning abolished, the theatre expected to uphold the laws is where members and their staffers are bent on misusing the authority and defying the NEC in the name of protecting leadership or their political employers.
However, the so-called majority group chanted anti-Weah slogans just the previous unsupported group did, all in public’s glare on what was once the sacred grounds of the capitol with the former honoring Grand Bassa County Senator, Nyonblee Karngar-Lawrence for her leadership while the latter pledging support to Weah-Taylor reelection bid.
Most interestingly, the majority staffers’ leader, Chanbiyor Bridges, said his group comprised of staffers from the House of Representatives and the Liberian Senate categorically condemns the rudely behaviors of their colleagues claiming to be employees of the first branch of government.
He claimed that the group under the banner ‘Legislative Staffers Association’ insulted the Presidency of the Liberian Government and also declared their support for the Unity Party leadership.
“Their action did not only desecrate the ground of the capitol building but also runs contrary to the distaste of the establishment and norms of the Liberian society. To set the record straight, there is no association at the capitol building called staffers association; instead we have the Representative Staffers Association and the Staffers Association of the Liberian senate,” he said.
“We therefore wish to distance ourselves from whatsoever claimed made by the group, we review this action as dishonorable to all members of this detective body, we also want to respond to Senator Koung’s remark stating that he was not part of the harmonization of civil servant salary,” the Weah-Taylor group stated.