Monrovia – Revenue Authority (LRA) reinstate 31 dismissed employees of the agency and settle salary arrears for the period they have been out of work.
In its report Wednesday, the House Committee on Claims and Petitions, Judiciary and Labor recommended that the LRA settle the worker salaries for the past eighteen (18) months and reopen the retirement process.
The committees concluded that the LRA was wrong to retire the aggrieved workers ‘due to financial constraints and prevailed on the revenue authority to reconsider its decision and allow the employees to return to work when the authority’s financial status is improved. “In addition, the issue of 40% of average salary for the past five years must be reconsidered by the Government of Liberia,” the report stated.
During the committee’s probe of the matter, it was observed that the LRA Commissioner General Madam Elfreda Tamba did not give ears to the aggrieved workers thereby causing the situation to escalate.
The committee also observed that there were missteps in the calculation and a lack of proper communication between the thirty-one aggrieved workers and the heads of Liberia Revenue Authority.
It may be recalled that the aggrieved 31 employees of the LRA were retired in September 2016 without appropriate benefits. The workers then sought the intervention of the House of Representatives for their retirement benefits in the amount of US$712,800.
In a letter to the House of Representatives, the aggrieved employees said most of them had not reached the retirement age of 65 or 25 years of continuous service tenure when they were retired. However, Mr. Kaihenneh Sengbeh, Director of Communication at the LRA told reporters that while the Liberian government acknowledges its indebtedness to the aggrieved former employees, the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning was processing their benefits. He added that the case was no longer between the LRA and the former employees.
It may also be recalled that in an October 2015 the Supreme Court directed Commissioner Tamba to reinstate 10 employees, but the affected employees have reported that the mandate was allegedly not adhered to by the LRA Commissioner-General.
The 10 employees were dismissed in June 2015 after they were transferred from the then Ministry of Finance to the LRA. It was reported that the employees were allegedly involved in corrupt practices while in the employ of the Ministry of Finance.
The 10 employees through their legal counsellor, Cllr. Tiawan Gongloe, filed a Writ of Prohibition to the Supreme Court Justice-In–Chamber Kabineh Ja’neh against LRA Commissioner Tamba’s alleged refusal to reinstate them.
Justice Ja’neh ruled that the dismissed employees were never given any due process and therefore mandated the LRA to reinstate them until the merits and demerits of the case were determined.