By Jamesetta D Williams
Liberia-Some players of the government seem a bit jittery about the latest action of the Civil Service Agency (CSA) to dismiss several employees who it claimed could not be accounted during the headcount exercise intended to clean and right the national workforce.
Workforce at several government’s entities are affected by the CSA’s ongoing civil servants verification exercise, which amongst other parts include head-counting employees to march them with payroll.
At the Information Ministry where CSA found some personnel impropriety in a report recently released, Information Minister Piah said there is a need for proper evaluation of such report to determine the correctness of the information and associated action.
Piah, who returned to the country from China as part of President Boakai’s official delegation, lauded the CSA for the level of work it has done and is benefiting other line ministries.
Minister Piah stressed, “Sometimes there can’t be a measurement of what overflowing the CSA has done by impacting the positive work being done by the entities.”
“The CSA has been doing that across different sectors of ministries and agencies; there was a list of 79 dismissal submitted in my absence which raised concerns and drew the attention of media institutions but I was not in the country,” Pah added.
Minister Piah said while he was away, he got the concerns raised by many Liberians with the CSA report, but told his team to hold on to whatever the CSA report says until he returned.
He promised that a proper evaluation of the report from the CSA is needed before any tangible action can be taken.
He appreciated employees of the Ministry working in different categories for maintaining their peace in the wake of the CSA report which called for the dismissal of 79 employees.
“As a ministry, we will do necessary consultation and eventually have a sit down with the CSA to find a way forward. The ministry will be engaged with conversations to different categories of people and at the end make determination on the report. As Minister, it won’t be that we are taking it personal, we will decide,” Minister Piah stressed.
He quoted the CSA report as saying that some of the affected employees have unexcused absence of 60 days. But he clarified that the CSA law is very clear on that, stating that if 14 conservative days of absence without an excuse is granted for dismissals.
Minister Piah said: “some of the law of the CSA points to 65, days, 52 days, 55 days and 54 days continuous absent from job.”
“If the law of the CSA calls for dismissal of the employees found wanting of the law, we as a ministry will engage before we can reach conclusion,” Minister Piah noted.
Minister Piah expressed the need for thorough analysis of the critical nature of the CSA actions before removing forward, and called on affected employees to stay calm while the ministry engages the CSA on the laws.
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