Information Minister Jerolinmek M. Piah has expressed serious concern over the exclusion of one of government’s key information dissemination arms at this year’s MSMEs Conference and Trade Fair that was organized by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry at the Ministerial Complex in Congo Town from December 8-10, 2025.
Making a special remark at the program, Piah said he was the one who had to call his colleague, LBS Director General, Eugene Fahngon to send at least two reporters to the program upon noticing that the national broadcaster was not represented at the 2025 MSMEs Conference and Trade Fair that was held by the Commerce Ministry in collaboration with its partners.
According to him, the action by the Commerce Ministry not to invite other state-owned media institutions to the program, especially the Liberia Broadcasting System undermined the existing inter- governmental agency coordination and collaboration in the area of information dissemination.
He said the hoisting of the 2025 Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises(MSMEs) Conference had a lot of national flavors that needed to be fed with the public.
Minister Piah called for corrective future measures to avoid a repeat of the incident.
He expressed displeasure over the matter at the opening session of the program shortly after he was formally introduced and invited by the Public Affairs Director at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Jacob N.B. Parley to make remark.
Parley, an experienced Liberian print and broadcast journalist, along with another former employee of LBS, served as Master of Ceremony during the program.
While welcoming Minister Paih to speak, Mr. Parley said the Government of Liberia, from time has a triangular communication structure that it uses to project its policy objectives and also counter any misinformation that may be coming from other sectors of the Liberian society.
He said the triangular structure comprises the Information Ministry, Liberia Broadcasting System and the Executive Mansion.
“Of the three, the Information Ministry serves as the government’s political arsenal and this is why those who are appointed to that Ministry, like the case of Minister Piah are noted for their knowledge in assembling the necessary figurative or idiomatic expressions to defend the government,” the Commerce Ministry public affairs director said.
Initially non-media participants thought the Commerce Ministry public affairs director was at fault for the unfortunate situation.
But, Some MOCI employees and journalists covering the program said the ministry is noted for out sourcing its media works once it involves attractive sums of money and prefers using its public affairs division when there is little or no money at all.
They said Minister Piah’s comments had exposed the game being played by some people who have oversight over some of the lucrative projects of the ministry.
They also said these people keep dribbling Commerce Minister Magdalene Dagoseh she took over in 2024.
They indicated that, during the 2025 MSMEs conference, another huge amount was given to Icampus owned by Luther Jeke to handle publicity.
According to some of the employees, Minister Dagoseh, after reviewing the records noticed that there was not much publicity done compared to the money that was given.
They said this year; there was another big program where about US$1,500.00 given for publicity, not through the public affairs division could not be accounted for.
Report indicated that the briefing report submitted to Minister Dagoseh indicated that the amount was used for publicity when in fact the program had not taken place.
Things became very difficult for those who were in charge of the program because there was no evidence of any newspaper, radio or online publication.
It was also gathered during our investigation that another huge amount intended for the MOCI and National Road Fund awareness campaign was out sourced to Cable TV, while the publication division was only included to use his influence to make radio appearances to spread the message.
There are reports that a political appointee at the Commerce Ministry has connection with Cable TV.
For the latest incident that exposed willful undermining of the division of public affairs director, when icampus was chosen to head the publicity committee for 2025 MSMEs conference, Mr. Parley expressed concerns but nobody gave him attention.
But to be on the save side, he attended meetings with Icampus and proposed a coordination in planning and execution, including disclosure of publicity budget, inclusion of ELBC, and other media institutions that have been helpful to the Ministry, but all his professional pieces of advice were ignored by icampus CEO, Luther Jeke.
Parley is said to have raised the concerns over and over with no member of the SMT listing to him and so he decided to let it go before people saw his insistence as trying to obstruct progress.
Sources said Parley suffered immense vilification, persecution and intimidation at the hands of a former deputy minister who claimed whenever he wrote a press release or public service announcement, she had to re-write it. Many people, both Commerce Ministry employees who heard the former deputy minister’s outburst against one of Liberia’s best pen pushers disagreed.
The reported bitterness against Parley reached an explosive stage when she hastily removed him from the position of public affairs director in early December,2024.
However, Commerce and Industry Minister Magdalene Dagoseh, in the middle of January 2025, reinstated Mr. Parley after looking into the matter and found no evidence.
The former deputy minister who ill-treated Parley was fired by President Joseph Boakai between May and June,2025.
Sources also said since Parley was re-instated by Minister Dagoseh, he continues to perform his duties with commitment despite huge challenges.
It however appears that some of those who backed the former deputy minister’s decision against him are still determined to put him out of favor with Minister Dagoseh.
Their new game plan is said to keep out sourcing the Ministry’s public relations work.
“When there is a program that has no money, they make the public affairs division to cover and beg media colleagues to run the press releases, but once it has an attractive amount, that’s the only time we hear Director Parley is not proactive so let’s give it to outsiders,” some MoCI employee revealed.