By S. Siapha Mulbah
The Ministry of Transport head offices on Warren Street have been barricaded for two consecutive work days thereby hampering operations by a group believed to be aggrieved workers.
The standoff which entered day two yesterday was calmed by the presence of the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Samuel D. Tweah who committed that the government will look into the employees-management prevailing issues.
The employees in demand of structural reforms in salaries at the entity resolved to call the government’s attention by blocking the entrance of the Ministry thus preventing transactions of any kind until authorities in connections with the payroll system of government take charge of the situation.
Fearlessly holding on to their action despite the Liberia National Police’s efforts to use security tactics to clear the entrance, the aggrieved staffers intimated that the only person needed to intervene in the matter was the Finance Minister.
After series of negotiations, Minister Tweah showed up yesterday asking the staffers to return to work because the government is currently in seize of their concerns.
According to Tweah, the plight of the aggrieved workers is a legitimate claim if they believe that as a government revenue generating entity, there is a need to be on par with other ministries and agencies carrying on similar functions.
He disclosed that the technical team of the Ministry of Finance along with the leadership of the aggrieved workers is part of a meeting aimed at solving the problems arising from the Ministry of Transport in the presence of other technicians from line ministries.
The Minister however clarified that the demand for salary increment raised by the employees is beyond the Finance Ministry’s control and cannot be promised to anyone to raise political motivation that could further damage the system.
“I have heard your concerns, but protesting is not the way forward to solving the problem. The first way to address these problems generally is to engage. We don’t protest for salary increment but since the protest is on, we will address it,” Tweah stated.
Presenting principles of public governance, the Finance Minister disclosed that entities generating revenues should be catered to in the strongest way by government, adding that; “It is the responsibility of government to look after its workers in its own means.”
Tweah added that the payroll that is being used by the administration was inherited from the past regime and is in full swing based on the continuation of governments with the slight adjustments caused by the harmonization process initiated during the insertion of the Weah-led administration.
He denied claims raised by the protesters that over the past months or year under review, there had been people paid below the minimum wage under the Decent Work Act.
According to him, since the President’s last State of the Nation’s Address in which he pronounced that no government worker will be paid below the U$150, the Ministry of Finance in February started the implementation so that the salaries of affect civil servants benefit from the new payroll adjustment.
“We inherited the salary structure of the government. There were certain ministries with elevating salaries in the past 12 years under the previous administration. For same reasons their salaries were added and we able to take every other ministry to that framework, not because we do not have that money,” Finance boss asserted.
He assured that the pending meeting will push solution-oriented matters to have the Ministry of Transport back on course to raise more revenues for the country.
Meanwhile, the aggrieved workers have decided to call-off the protest as a means of listening to the Minister of Finance but vowed to remain off duty till the meeting is held and solutions are presented to them.
“We heard the statement made and will consider it with pending outcomes of the meeting. We will not work till Wednesday. With that, we know what to expect from this administration,” the protesters’ leader added.
