‘Bloated’ war-time government workforce gets peace-time axe

The new peace-time government of Liberia has begun laying off thousands of government workers, some because they fail to show up for work, others because they cannot read or write, in a bid to slash the swollen payroll after 14 years of on-off civil war. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in her inaugural address in mid-January described the 69,000-strong workforce she inherited as “bloated”. Worker associations say the payroll will be reduced to 30,000 but the government has said only that it wants to ‘right-size’ the workforce. The Liberian government is the single largest employer in the country where the private sector has been largely dormant since the start of the civil war in 1989. Unemployment is estimated at 85 percent, according to the UN. The Immigration Bureau, after two months in office, has already let go 857 office staff either for illiteracy or for collecting their wages despite not showing up for work. “We have dismissed 461 employees for being illiterate, they do not have the requisite educational qualification, and 396 more who have been on payroll, but have not been reporting for duties,” Chris Massaquoi, head of Liberia’s Bureau of Immigration and Naturalisation, told IRIN. And recently Presidential Chief of Office Staff Morris Dukuly told reporters that most of the 1,500-plus employees at the presidential mansion are inefficient and an audit would determine who might remain. Monrovia, once a gleaming seafront capital, lies blackened and destroyed after years of fighting and a lack of investment. Though rich in natural resources - including diamonds, iron ore, rubber and timber - most private operators fled Liberia as the first rebels launched their assault in 1989. President Sirleaf is currently winding up a tour of long-time ally the United States, which is expected to provide the bulk of the millions of US dollars needed to rebuild Liberia. But back home, her government’s downsizing – or ‘right-sizing’ as her officials prefer to call it – is not going down well with the Civil Service Association, the umbrella group representing government workers. CSA president, Jefferson Elliot, told IRIN that members would resist the government action. “Under the laws of Liberia, before a government worker is dismissed or laid off, that person should be informed ahead of time and the requisite financial remunerations given,” Elliot said, calling the current procedure “a violation of civil servants’ rights.” With fewer than two in 10 Liberians employed, competition for a new job is going to be tough and many are worried about how they will cope. “The government needs to know that the unemployment rate in this country is very high and the country is just coming out of war,” said government worker Angie Nimely. “If we are dismissed now, how are we going to survive?”