Civil servants begin three-day strike to demand pay arrears

Civil servants in Liberia began a three-day strike on Wednesday to demand 18 months of salary arrears, dating from 2002 and 2003, when former president Charles Taylor was still in power. Jeffersen Elliot, the president of a trade union representing 50,000 government employees, said Liberia's transitional government had allocated US $9 million in its 2004/2005 budget to pay off these arrears, but this money appeared to have gone missing. "This is a struggle for survival and we will not stop our strike action until the government pays our arrears of 18 months," Elliot said. "We are demanding a full explanation from Gyude Bryant's government as to why the US $9 million in the last budget for our arrears has been diverted." The trade union leader said that if the present three-day stoppage failed to persuade the government to cough up, his union would stage a series of wildcat strikes. Junior government employees earn between 500 and 700 Liberian dollars (US $9 and $13) per month. Most civil servants stayed at home on Wednesday forcing several government departments to remain closed all day. The Foreign Ministry stayed shut and most junior employees failed to show up at the Executive Mansion where Bryant, the chairman of the transitional government, works. Officers of Liberia's new UN-trained police force were on guard at key public buildings to prevent striking workers from interfering with the few senior government officials who did report for duty. The civil service strike began days after Liberia's transitional parliament rejected the government's US$ 80 million budget for the financial year which began on 1 July. The current power-sharing government and nominated parliament were put in place to guide Liberia back to democracy after a peace deal in August 2003 ended 14 years of civil war. However, international donors have complained about rampant corruption in the administration and have proposed placing stringent external controls on revenue collection and government spending to prevent more aid money being wasted. Presidential and parliamentary elections on 11 October are due to return this West African country to constitutional government.