Monrovia – Residents of Montserrado County District #9 and its environs have embarked on soliciting signatures to present to the national legislature for the establishment of an Independent Civil Service Commission with lifetime tenure to set up salaries and benefits for elected government officials, commissioners of autonomous agencies, cabinet ministers and governors.
Report by Edwin G. Genoway, Jr – [email protected]
The residents believed the lawmakers are overly powerful and can decide the salaries of civil servant and increase and reduce the budget of any governmental institution.
The process is being sponsored by the Montserrado County District #9 Representative aspirant Mr. Fubbi Henries.
Fubbi Henries, together with other residents in the district have launched the campaign for the establishment of an independent commission with lifetime tenure to set up salaries and benefits for elected government officials, commissioners of autonomous agencies, cabinet ministers and governors.
Henries disclosed that the process is currently ongoing and over 1,000 persons have affixed their signatures to the document.
According to him, after the completion of the signatures, the House will be petitioned to have the document endorsed for referendum which if passed, will make salaries of public officials to be restricted to stop government officials especially lawmakers from escalating their salaries willy-nilly.
He further suggested that lawmakers’ salaries should be reduced by 25-30%.
“I think it is a good thing that an independent commission be establish that has lifetime tenure to setup the salaries of elected officials, with this it will help for the lawmakers to not take away of our resources free of charge, it will also help to reduce the exploitation of the budget where lawmakers are taking home over US$15,000 and huge sums of gasoline coupons for their private use,” he explained.
One of the signatories of the document, Joseph Sherman said he was signing because he is convinced that the current lawmakers are not in the interest of the Liberian people, saying, if the commission is established everyone entering the house will work hard to maintain their position.
“If you have a commission setup to regulate the salaries issue it will help to fight corruption because the brown envelopes will reduce and lawmakers will have in mind that they have no power to increase their own salaries only the commission has that power to,” he noted.
Jefferson Momo another signatory of the document does not believe that the current lawmakers will look at the document, saying, the document is not in their interest.
“If I were there benefiting from the current corrupt system I wouldn’t support this document because it will take food from table.
So, the current lawmakers know that if they pass this instrument it will take food from their table, but let it be clear to those money eaters in the house calling themselves lawmakers, any attempt to dump this document, they will feel the wrath of the people through the ballot box,” he noted.
Disadvantaged youths otherwise known as zogos are also signing the document. One of the zogos, Melvin Kennedy, commonly called on the streets as Rusty Nail is one the signatories to the document.
“I am happy because if this pass it help to take our brothers and sisters from the streets because all the money they eating in that house will reduce, the one they supposed to eat on the side will come outside to us and it will help to take us from the streets and find a better place for us to sleep,” Kennedy stated.
The district aspirant Mr. Henries also said decisions made in the House now are self-centered and not in the interest of the Liberian people, saying, this is why Liberians need good laws and level headed people to enter the House as lawmaker.
Mr. Fubbi Henries has pushed two cardinal bills in the House regarding amendment of the National Social Security Act of 1975, and the establishment vocational centers in grade schools to boost the building of students’ capacity before graduation.
Speaking on his ambition for the 2017 representative seat in District #9, Mr. Henries said it was disappointing in past elections to see people not voting on issues.
“Rather because someone promised to provide them makeshift toilets, hand pumps, quasi market loans, palaver huts and little cash, because of such low level thinking on the part of voters, they end up producing the wrong leaders, as is the case with District #9,” he noted.
To change this untoward trend, he said voters need to vote on substantive issues and not for makeshift projects which will not last beyond the campaign season.
“We contested 2011. Though we did not win, but 96% of our promises made have been completed. We don’t only talk, we work and show our people the practical way how to do it,” he said.
Naming some of his work in the district, the aspirant disclosed that he took lot of young people from the ghettos and transformed their lives, some of whom are currently involved in waste management in the district. He also helped to mitigate flooding in various communities by using the youths to open drainages.
He explained that the current lawmaker in the district has not used her oversight responsibility to push the issue of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital, to have it improved so as to encourage people to seek medical attention there.
Henries through the Fubbi Health Foundation, in partnership with the Gateway Medical Alliance and the Alex Cummings Foundation has been working with 23 clinics in both districts #9 and 10 and four major hospitals including the JFK, SDA Cooper, Catholic Hospital and C.H Rennie in Margibi County under the FUBBI-Care Foundation to have affordable health care for all.
He disclosed that the second container of medical supplies has landed in the district valued over US$25,000 and is to be distributed to more clinics and hospitals.