By Bill W. Cooper
The government has announced its intention to cancel the controversial Harmonization Policy that was instituted by the immediate past government, describing it as a ‘national disaster.’
It can be recalled that former Finance Minister, Samuel D. Tweah introduced the much publicized harmonization policy as part of an effort of the former Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) government Agenda aimed at streamlining expenditures and addressing the country’s economic challenges.
The policy, according to former Minister Tweah, was aimed at addressing salary disparities across the Liberian government as well as ensuring a fair distribution of resources among the country’s civil servants; a move he said, was suggested by the International Monetary Funds (IMF) at the time.
On the contrary, the policy has been widely criticized by Liberians for its negative impacts on the livelihoods of civil servants; many of whom have seen their incomes drastically reduced as a result of the cuts.
The policy, which resulted in salary cuts of over 70,000 civil servants, somehow further led to the defeat of former President George Weah during the just ended October 10, 2023 Presidential election.
But as part of the UP campaign promises, Deputy Finance Minister for Fiscal Affairs, Anthony Myers acknowledged the harm caused by the policy and pledged to reverse it in order to alleviate the sufferings of civil servants.
“Look, this whole Harmonization Policy has been a disaster for our country, causing untold hardship for our hardworking civil servants who have been struggling to make ends meet and the reason why we say so is because, the manner in which it was suggested to be implemented was not exactly what was done,” he explained.
The policy was intended that the whole amount, meaning the aggregate wage bill should come down and not an individual worker’s salaries and the way to do that is, to pension those that might have reached retirement age,” he said.
Addressing a team of reporters when he appeared for budget hearing over the weekend, Minister Myers intoned, “Also, there are ghosts on the payroll which need to be cleaned up and if these things are done, you will then bring the wage bill down without affecting any government employee, least to talk about the civil servants.”
According to him, the government of the former President Weah misapplied the policy by cutting individual worker’s salary almost in half, and asserted, “And the reason why we say is a disaster is because it also makes civil servants to underperform as well as stay away from the jobs thus affecting government overall productivity.”
He maintained, “And this was a total disaster and it was observed over the past few years where the government was not even functioning and that the country was then running on an autopilot like everyone doing their own thing.”
Meanwhile, the government has not yet provided details on how the Harmonization Policy will be reversed or what measures will be put in place to ensure that civil servants are fairly compensated during this budget year but assured that the process will be done in the Fiscal Year 2025.
Minister Myers said, “The cancellation of the Harmonization Policy will not take effect until the conclusion of the government’s payroll audit aimed at establishing who are the real workers, revealing “because there is continuous evidence that there are individuals who are not workers but are taking pay.”
