Workers Accuse Foreign Ministry of Administrative Malpractice

25 April 2011

In an effort to broaden the base of the anti-corruption fight, the Sirleaf Administration issued Executive Order #22 in December 2009. The objective of the order, also a precursor to the legislative Whistleblower Act, is to protect individuals who volunteer prima facie information about breach of public trust. More than 24 months on, the two instruments had lied idle without public consequence until last week when a “workers’ group” took up the challenge, making a wide range of allegations against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It did so ostensibly, however, minus what the administration may have been craving for – watertight facts. But, the ministry is not taking the allegations lying down. The Analyst, reports.

Foreign Ministry officials in Monrovia have described as hogwash allegations by a group calling itself “Ministry of Foreign Affairs Concerned Workers’ Association” that the ministry is engaged in widespread administrative malpractices.

The group, in an Internet press information sent to media institutions in the country, had accused the ministry headed by Toga McIntosh Gayewea of engaging in every vile act of administration and immorality – from administrators demanding and accepting bribes to discrimination, to sexual pervasions, to personnel misplacement, to nepotism.

But the Foreign Ministry does not believe that the group exists – it calls it a ghost association –, let alone to give credence to its litany of allegations.

It nonetheless issued a riposte over the weekend to “set the record straight”, lest the public begins taking the allegations seriously.

But just what specifically had the group been alleging?

  The group’s allegation – an SOS?

“The concern workers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have called for a month long Fast and Prayer to invoke divine intervention for a blessing of the Foreign Ministry and to redeem the Ministry for its unwholesome and sinful status which is responsible for the low performances of the Ministry.”

With these words, the so-called “The Concerned Workers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs” began the litany of allegations dated February 17, 2011 and updated April 23, 2011 under the signature of one Willie Flomo as chairman.

Amongst the ‘unwholesome and sinful’ practices, which the group claimed were weighing down the ministry’s operations, were administrative malpractices, sexual abuses and harassment, favoritism, bribery, corruption, and nepotism.

According to the group, senior male administrators at the ministry – from the level of deputy minister down and from the fourth to the ground floor – were requiring sex from female staffers in return for their (female staffers’) official entitlements.

It alleged that it was increasingly becoming impossible for a female staffer at the minister to obtain a cash allowance or get promotion, foreign assignment, scholarship, or even gasoline slip without first having an affair with a deputy minister or another senior staffer in charge.

As the result of this practice, the group alleged, some ambitious female staffers or those who simply wanted to get their official entitlements have practically become the ministry’s call girls or simply whores for the ministry’s guests.

The group did not name names, at least regarding who was lying with whom for what entitlement, but it claimed that the practice involved mainly female protocol officers.

But it said that was the tip of an iceberg of the wholesome activities that were being perpetrated by unscrupulous individuals at the ministry that is Liberia’s frontline contact with the outside world.

“Security officers assigned with guests visiting the country have continuous complained about the ugly behavior of assigned protocol officers who usually request money from visiting guests whenever guests are about to leave the country, while female protocol officers  usually  sleep with guests for money,” it said in the April update.

Without specifics or indication of instances, the group accused the deputy minister for administration of not only giving preferential treatment to relatives in job placement, but also of giving allocated allowances to those with whom he has special ties.

Nepotism and sexual gratification for entitlement aside, the group claimed further that, the ministry as a whole, perhaps save the office of the ministry proper, was awash in corruption.

It said the ministry has literally failed to combat corruption at the bureaux of Archives, Legal, Protocol, and Passports, where it claimed staffers demanded bribes to process such documents as passports, verbal notes, and articles of incorporation, and to duplicate legal instruments.

For instance, the group alleged, the bureaux were charging more than 200% of the official US $20.00 required to process those documents.

“The situation of administrative malpractice has dramatically becomes  and practice of the day, with  those employed in recent time  are either  family  members, close associate  or friends of the Deputy Minister for Finance and  the Assistant Minister for Administration as well as other officials of the  Ministry,” the group claimed without proffering a proof or an example.

Moreover, the group said, job placement at the ministry was no longer meritorious as even individuals, who obtained masters’ degrees through the ministry’s scholarship program, were either assigned below the cronies of ministers or given monthly allowances not commensurate with their assignments expertise.

For instance, it claimed, the office of the chief of protocol was engaged in a “serious conflict of interest” involving the awarding of air travel ticket provision contracts to a travel agency operated by his wife, contrary to government policy.

“The recent government delegation visit to the AU summit flight tickets were purchased from his airline office on Broad Street, while other airlines agencies which are paying taxes to government benefit no support from the government. His airlines office is usually over-charged government for flights tickets,” the group said.

In order to prove dishonesty in allowance disbursement at the ministry, the group gave a general situation in which a crony of a minister received US $350.00 in monthly allowance compared with a masters’ degree holder, who though assigned to higher portfolio, received US $125 as monthly allowance.

“All staff at offices of the Assistant Minister for Administration and Deputy Minister for Administration receives monthly gas slips and better allowance, while some secretaries favored also receive monthly allowance and gas slips, with nothing for other secretaries assigned in other bureaus and departments. We are calling for an audit into the distributions of gas slips and both US and Liberian dollars’ payrolls,” the group

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