By Bill W. Cooper
ForumCIV, a Swedish Civil Society Organization operating in Liberia, claiming to be working towards a just and sustainable world where all people have the power to effect change has begun ignoring the vision that established them.
The institution with its headquarter offices based in Gbarnga, Bong County is being accused of terminating the services of about six employees from among staff of nineteen and bringing in several others to perform relatively the same services the previous staff were delivering.
This change happened months after the organization got rid of its foreign management and turned the organization over to Liberians to manage the affairs of the organization in Liberia.
In December of last year, ForumCIV Liberia’s Country Manager, Asa David Chon, was accused of retaining the services of some of his close associates and confidants leaving out competent people who sat the aptitude test and made a successful pass as per the recruitment process to implement a new land rights program in three of Liberia’s 15 counties.
According to an investigation conducted by this paper, the alleged employment by the organization came at a time the Swedish Government through its International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) awarded to them (ForumCIV) a new huge four-year project worth 50 million-Swedish kronas to implement project titled: “Our Land: A Pathway to Sustainable Ownership and Land Use for Women and Youths in Liberia.”
The project is aimed at helping women and youths in Bomi, Gbarnga and Grand Gedeh Counties to effectively participate in local land governance and land rights as well as allow beneficiaries to have access and ownership over their land, especially for sustainable development.
Former aggrieved workers of ForumCIV, who were relieved of their post after winning the institution the 50 million Swedish kronas project from SIDA, told this paper that the recruitment of new officers of the organization was not done transparently as expected and was characterized by discrimination, partiality and marginalization.
“If they knew that they had their own people to employ, then nobody should have taken a test, but where you set the standard and it was like the rules, were changed in the middle of the game because the Country Manager and his allies set several different standards for the recruitment where some people went through up to four levels of evaluation, others went through three levels, others two, one and some none at all.” the former aggrieved staff alleged.
It can be recalled that following the granting of the US$50 million to ForumCIV, the Country Manager allegedly downsized six (6) persons without any tangible reasons. These people, according to them, were very instrumental even in the drafting of the proposal for said project as many of those terminated were the institution’s land rights staff considering that the new project is considerable land rights in nature.
“The conflict of interest aspect is that the Finance and Administration Manager who is also the focal person for human resources (James Flomo, Jr) has had a history of employing mostly his former colleagues or friends from Plan Liberia since he assumed the role,” another aggrieved worker added.
After the Program Manager’s position became vacant months back, a Plan Liberia staff was brought onboard through the influence of the same James Flomo, Jr. Two months to the end of the previous project, and again through his influence, two persons were hired as contractors also with a history of Plan Liberia. And again, a finance officer was hired, assigned to their Grand Gedeh office. This staff also had a history with Plan Liberia.
The former aggrieved workers also alleged that ForumCIV Country Manager and others staged the process as an interview for all but it was ceremonious just to blaspheme them and maybe just pretend to be meeting labor or legal requirements.
ForumCIV recently ended a three- year project in Liberia and is set to begin the implementation of a new four- year grant from the Swedish government through Sida. The organization became famous in Liberia from the hosting of its first rural women land rights conference in October 2020 and its many land rights programs and interventions in rural communities across Bomi, Bong and Grand Gedeh Counties. The institution is also prominent in Liberia because of the grants the institution gives out to civil society organizations across their three counties of operations.
Meanwhile, all efforts to contact the Country Manager of ForumCIV Liberia on cell phone number #0770187477 by this paper proved futile.