Monrovia – The Office of Lee Nagbe Chea Superintendent of Sinoe County has refuted “falsehood and rumor” linking him raining insults against other county officials and engaging in corruption.
Matthew Deljey, who is the communication officer of Superintendent Chea, told FrontPageAfrica on 30 March in Monrovia that the accusations by some media institutions in the county are “unbalanced and needs further clarity”.
Deljay claimed the Facebook account of Superintendent Chea was hacked by an unknown individual and was used to put leaders of the county at loggerhead.
“There are some individuals who do not mean well for Sinoe County, who are using politics to create division between the office of the Superintendent and Senator [Milton] Teahjay,” the communication officer said.
“Senator Teahjay is one of our Senators and we will not want to do anything that will make him feel bad, we are sorry about such post, but the account of the Superintendent was hijacked.
“The Superintendent had posted that his account was hijack, up to the time that the imposter sent out such a message to create beef between the two leaders.”
Deljay said Superintendent Chea respects lawmakers of the county and will not write such an insulting: “My parents trained me, I am not a liar, Teahjay is a liar”.
At the same time, he said the Superintendent is concerned about “unprofessional journalistic practices” by some talk show hosts of Liberty Radio Station in Sinoe County.
He claims the station is “preaching hate messages that tend to damage the image of Superintendent Chea”.
He referenced a recent discussion on the station in which the Superintendent was accused of removing names of employees on the payroll, replacing them with ghost names.
“The superintendent does not have the authority to take employees’ names from payroll according to the Civil Servant Association Law. You can only take their names from payroll when they abandoned job,” Deljay said.
Listening to the audio recording of the radio show, which is in the possession of FrontPageAfrica, there were suspicion raise by the discussants about the handling of the payroll.
Deljay said the office of Superintendent Chea was never contacted to respond to the allegation.
He said the Statutory Superintendent of Tarjuowon District, Annie Pobliah, who hailed from Senator Teahjay’s home town, was the one who submitted a list to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to replace employees on payroll without consulting the Superintendent.
However, when contacted via mobile phone Tuesday, March 31, Liberty Radio Station Manager, Ezekiel Geeplay said the Superintendent was contacted to respond to the accusation.
Geeplay said: “The letter you are talking about was signed by the office of the superintendent a copy of which I have, and that document states that 46 persons were replaced by the Assistant Minister at the MIA but the superintendent said he was not in the know and reserved further comment.”
“I called the office of the superintendent on Thursday to get his position on that letter, and he said that he reserved comment on that because Senator Teahjay has already complained him to the Liberian Senate relative to the matter. The letter was from the office of the superintendent.”
Meanwhile, the Superintendent’s Communication Officer has refuted claims by Senator Teahjay made on the Liberia Broadcasting System alleging that Superintendent Chea unilaterally sold a yellow machine in the county and cannot account for money left in the county’s account by his predecessor.
Deljay said the selling of the yellow machine was approved by the caucus and was therefore captured in the 2019 county sitting where Senator Teahjay and other lawmakers aware.
“The selling of the yellow-machine was not done by Superintendent Chea, it was done by the Caucus of Sinoe County. I am not saying that Senator Teahjay should also be questioned, but he should not be raising such issue because he is in the know. If he’s not in the know, then it means he has not been attending caucus meetings,” Deljay asserted.
According to him, Superintendent Chea has committed himself to providing clarity to Senator Teahjay if the senator is willing to listen.
Meanwhile, when contacted via mobile phone, Superintendent Chea informed FrontPageAfrica that all information provided by his Communication Officer Deljay was approved by him.