Woewiyu breaks silence - Alarms at “extravangant salaries”
- Analyst 
Jucontee Thomas Woewiyu has broken silence after a long time of quietude on the political landscape of Liberia, alarming at what he called extravagant salaries of public officials which has led to the poor performance of the economy.
Warning the government is looking for trouble if it continues to pay extravagant salaries to officials while 83 percent of the population lives on a dollar and twenty-five a day, former Senator Woewiyu sees the consumption of the people’s taxes in huge salaries paid to some officials including the Minister of Finance and members of the National Legislature.
“If you are consuming whatever little society has at the detriment of others, this is a crime against humanity and you should expect trouble to rise up against you,” Mr. Woewiyu reiterated.
He did not only speak about the high salaries paid officials and how it may be the reason for rebellion, he also spoke of the new elections law that is being passed at the legislature regarding fees political aspirants have to pay to take part in the electoral process.
Mr. Woewiyu observes that, “Even though we have more or less attracted this so called 16 billion dollar investments, the companies here are not working, they are not employing. However, when a government finds itself in such economic dying state, it needs to take actions that the citizens will know that the government is concerned about the financial challenges.”
Never before even
Question what then is the solution to what he called “the economy being in a dying state; meaning it is broke. Mr. Woewiyu said. “The solution now is to scale down the huge salaries to US $3,000.00 to Maximum US$5,000.00. He calculates that the person who makes 37.50 that is 1.25 a day, if you calculated that by year which is 450.00 a year and divide it by 15.000, it would [take] the person living on $1.25 per day 33 years to consume 15.000. While it would take a civil servant who is paid $100 per month 12 and a half years before he can earn 15.000 which is the monthly salary of one person in the government who is practically paying no taxes,” Mr. [Woewiyu] went into mathematical deduction of his argument.
According to him, he was appalled to have heard from the Minister of Finance and the President Pro Tempore of the Liberian Senate that the Liberian economy is in a dying state, meaning it is getting broke, but noted that these officials are saying the government is getting broke without saying why and what to do to recover from the economic doldrums that they are announcing.
Commenting on the US$30.000 monthly salary paid the Maritime Commissioner; Mr. Woewiyu said he could not understand why a Liberian living here like any other individual would be paid that kind of salary when LISCR, a Shipping agency is being paid millions of dollars to administer the same maritime program. Doing this he said is ridiculous. “You are looking for trouble”, he warned. These huge salaries shouldn’t be paid out to officials of government at the expense of the people and the economy.
Raining Day in Hell
Commenting on corruption as the second vice that got the economy broke; Woewiyu said the monies collected from poor people as taxes are not used properly, according the annual budget. He cited the 200 million the President reportedly spent on Public Relations to foreign firms as captured by the U.S. Congress’ report, saying it is useless to spend such huge amount on public relations abroad when the Liberian people do not have safe drinking water and electricity, which no amount of public relations will make up for.
Woewiyu then described the President of the Senate as, “law passers” who go about passing laws that will only serve their interest. He cited the new election law that is pending before the House for concurrence, which when passed will raise registration fees from US$700 to US$7.500.
The one time warlord and public official called on all Liberians to prevail on their representatives not to concur with the Senate in passing such a law that has the tendency to perpetuate bad senators in power by disenfranchising potential good legislators from among the percentage of the population who lives on a dollar and twenty-five per day.
He also called on the President to veto such election law being enacted should the House concur, saying that any attempt by the Legislature to override such a veto will be what he called “a raining day in hell.” Historically, President Sirleaf gets whatever she wants from the Legislature, he concluded.
Culled from the print edition of The Analyst by Nyanseor
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