By Bill W. Cooper
The Dock Workers Union of Liberia (DOWUL) has inducted its newly elected officers in a move to revamp the leadership and restore trust within the union.
The ceremony held over the weekend elected Ballah Kpadeh, president; Terry Kpowolo, vice president-administration; Ciafa Sarnor, vice president-operation; Abel Dada Darway, secretary general, and Sonzai Kelvin Diahn, director for workers’ education.
Others are Christopher S. Diahn, financial secretary; Daniel Pailey, treasurer; Annie Tarley, women chair, and Chris Boley, youth chair.
In his inaugural address, the Union president general, Ballah Kpadeh, thanked his colleagues for their ongoing support and trust during the transitional period and said he looked forward to achieving significant milestones in the coming years.
Kpadeh, however, emphasized the importance of transparency within the union, vowing to prioritize the welfare of all members, assuring, “Today, we stand together not just as dock workers but as a family committed to advocating for our rights.”
He narrated that the union has now experienced a new dawn and paradigm shift in the institutional structures and the modus operandi moving from a ‘one-man’ leadership to a fully structured leadership that cut across all spectrums.
Kpadeh then accused his predecessor, Jackie N. W. Doe, of her decision to file a protest action against the Liberia Labour Congress (LLC) and the Ministry of Labour in an attempt to undermine the results of the Elections.
He intoned, “It is important to state clearly that Madame Doe’s prolonged stay in power was due to her continued manipulations and refusal to go to elections since she has no history of ever being elected to the position.”
Thankfully, through the intervention of the Liberia Labour Congress, she finally consented at long last, and we went into the democratic process in which she was overwhelmingly defeated,” he noted.
The DOWUL president general further narrated, “Also, comrade Doe, through one of her surrogates in the union, Comrade Momo A. Sambola, has been masquerading with falsehoods about our leadership to our international partners/affiliates that our leadership is illegitimate.”
“We, therefore strongly condemn comrade Sambola’s misrepresentations of our union and his falsehoods being spread about our leadership. Comrade Sambola has escaped from justice, fear of being held liable for conniving with comrade Doe over misappropriations and bad leadership with no single financial report throughout their respective stewardship.
We therefore call on our local and international partners, particularly ITF to refrain from doing business with comrades Jackie N. W. Doe and Momo A. Sambola in the name of the Dock Workers Union of Liberia (DOWUL),” he warned.
Kpadeh added, “It is because their actions are deemed counterproductive to the forward match of Dockers in Liberia. Trade Unions all over the world are democratic institutions. Therefore, the tenets of democracy must be adhered to at all times no matter who is involved.”
