Liberia’s Albinos Fear Eviction –Appeal To Pres. Weah

The Liberia Albino Society is calling for the Government of Liberia’s intervention in order to avoid a planned eviction plot against them.The albinos said political will to have them included into the country’s national budget will relief some of the embarrassment they are undergoing.
Speaking yesterday at a peaceful protest held in front of the Foreign Ministry, the spokesperson of the albinos in Liberia, Clarence Success Clay said, since the inception of the CDC-led government, it had refused to consider their plight, something which had created serious difficulty on them.
Meanwhile, the National Executive Director of the Albinos, Patricia Logan, complained of several things including medical supplies to keep the health center running, adding that a cut in the albino’s budget coupled with the lack of funds to settle its financial obligations to their landlord.
She said, they risk eviction as landlord is at the verge of throwing them out of their Logan Town and Bentol residences and said that unlike the Weah-led government, albinos were well taken care off during the regime of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and the then Gender Minister Julia Duncan Cassell.
“We have not come to politicize this thing, but we have come to put forth our issues; the only healthcare services that we have, that is giving free healthcare to albinos has no drugs. If you look on some of them skulls, it is so bad off; there is no sun cream coming, how will the sun not kill them,” she explained.
She recounted that during the past regime, they (albino) were provided skull cream, sun glasses, food supplies among other things to keeps them healthy and alive.
“We have two health facilities caring for not only people with albinism but people living without albinism. People from Todee and nearby towns and villages go to the health center to be treated; yet it is going through budgetary constrain. How will you allow such people go through budgetary constrain,” she wondered.
The albino budget under Madam Sirleaf was a little over US$150, 000 even with that, the organization was still faced with challenges and now it had been reduced to US$75, 000; something Madam Logon and her team are advocating against since according to them said amount cannot meet the needs of these people.
The organization is involved with giving out grant, scholarship, back to school program, healthcare services and skull cancer program, all intended to give albinism better future and healthy lives but as it stands, some of these programs had come to a standstill.
Logan indicated that if the budget does not come back to where it was in the past or even improve more than how it used to be, then all of these programs will die because even the vehicle that the government provided them is nonfunctional.
Government’s representative, Deputy Minister for Resource, Policy and Planning at the Ministry of Gender, Hassan Kanneh, has assure the group that all their counts would be addressed in the coming days because according to him, government will setup a team to monitor and evaluate the property whether it worth the US$350, 000 that they are requesting for.
“Regarding the reduction in the albinism budget, the cut affected everybody so we are going to do what we call change line and negotiate to see how best we can engaged central government through the Finance Ministry. We will make sure to increase that line a little bit more. This needs serious attention and it is our responsibility to take care of them,” Min. Kanneh reiterated.