Thirty four retirees of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) are urgently calling on President Joseph Nyuma Boakia to prevail on the Minister of Finance Augustus K. Ngafuan to release their retirement benefits in the tone of half a million USD dollars made available since 2018 by the government of Norway.
In their SOS call to the Liberian leader, the retired employees ssaid:” Mr. President, we are frustrated, disgruntled, economically and socially dislodged given the deliberate maltreatment we are receiving from the government through the Ministry of Finance. We need your immediate intervention to save our souls and give us a new birth because we can no more bear this painful and unbearable situation. Your immediate intervention, Mr. President, will prove that you’re truly a God sent leader to rescue the people of Liberia from social, political and economic degradation.”
In a solemn tone they continue, “We’re no more feeling the warmth of life in our own country; we no more share the sense of belonging as citizens of this country given the precarious treatment given us by the government through the Ministry of Finance which has and continues to hold hostage our retirement benefits provided by the government of Norway since 2018.”
The retirees, many of whom are reported to have died out of unbearable frustration and mounting depression believe President Boakia has the mind and ability to redeem them from the grip of what they consider as nightmare. “All efforts exerted by the management of the FDA ,past and present, on our behalf for the government to release our retirement benefits have yielded no fruitful result. According to them, “The immediate past government of the CDC did receive our benefits for sixty four(64) retirees from the Norwegian Government but only chose to settle 31 retirees out of the 64 persons.”
They continued:” Mr President, this is where we find ourselves; this is how we the commoners of this country are being treated by our own government; this is the hell created for us in our own country; this is the way they want us to perish adding ,”Against this backdrop we seek your intervention to save our souls because we elected you to be a light for us in the darkness of injustice, suppression, depression and evils being unleased upon the poor people in the society.”
It can be recalled that in 2017 the Norwegian Government graciously donated the amount of 1.2M United States Dollars to the Forestry Development Authority(FDA) as retirement benefits for those employees who had served the government of Liberia as forest managers at the level of the FDA thereby being qualified for such reward. Out of the amount, two hundred thousand dollars was allotted for operational purpose to the FDA management itself.
During the statistical and careful analysis to select the number of employees for the program, the management of the FDA produced a list of sixty six employees who qualified to receive the benefits and be honorably retired. The FDA at the time issued letters to the sixty six employees individually and enclosed the package to be received by each of them in line with tenure and salary.
Though the money provided by the government of Norway was available and accessible at the time to settle all those involved without any discrimination, the management chose to only settle 32 employees deferring the remaining 34 who equally received letters to an indefinite date. The selected 32 employees were honored at an elaborate program held on December 21, 2018 at the compound of the FDA in Whein Town, outside Monrovia.
The waiver agreement between the affected employees and management considered the following:
1) That our employment will be honorably served on August 31, 2018 after the tenure of service to the FDA. 2) That in consideration of our acceptance of this agreement, the FDA will pay us (employees) a one- time pension payment (severance) to commensurate with the requisite salary of each of us within seven (7) business days after the signing of the agreement. 3) We were required to turn in all FDA properties within our possession on or before the the 31 of August 2018. 4) That upon signing the agreement we waive and release any and all claims we might have against the FDA.