By Lincoln G. Peters
Several applicants seeking to serve as enumerators for the upcoming census have planned to stage a nationwide protest beginning today, Monday, 17 October 2022.
They have alleged that the Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) removed their names from the list of successful applicants.
The contending applicants also claimed to have passed the LIGIS aptitude test successfully.
Over the weekend, the aggrieved applicants staged a protest and set roadblocks.
The applicants have threatened to continue the protest in front of LISGIS offices to inquire from authorities as to what is responsible for the alleged removal of their names from the institution’s successful candidates list.
The disenchanted people include applicants from Montserrado, Grand Bassa, and Nimba Counties, but many other protesters from other counties are expected to join.
On Sunday, 16 October 2022, some LISGIS applicants at the King Peter Town area on Bushrod Island, District #15, protested demanding to be shortlisted.
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Earlier on Saturday, applicants from several centers in Paynesville including the First Baptist Church also protested expressing concerns as to why they were not shortlisted after allegedly passing the aptitude test.
In Grand Bassa County, hundreds of aggrieved applicants also staged a violent protest, setting roadblocks.
They stalled normal working, business, and academic activities, due to LISGIS’ alleged failure to select them.
The angry protesters were captured saying: “we are over two-hundred persons that were short-listed and we sat for the aptitude test for the upcoming census. But sadly, all of us that sat for the test in Compound #3, Grand Bassa County can’t see our names.”
Several of them have threatened to put a stop to the entire census training sections slated for Monday, 17 October 2022.
Speaking to this paper Sunday at the King Peter Town High School, an applicant named John Mulbah said he and his colleagues had gathered to express their concern to the government and the international partners over the alleged corruption and irregularities at LISGIS.
According to him, when LISGIS opened the application process, they applied online and they were allegedly accepted to come and do the aptitude test which would have qualified them for the census process.
“We did the aptitude test and after the aptitude test, we expected ourselves to be eligible for the process, but in the [end], our supervisor received calls from LiSGIS and they said that they need the result of the test to [make] the final list,” he alleged.
He claimed that the final list included the names of people who didn’t sit for the aptitude test along with the aggrieved protesters.
“Now we want to know what happened,” he noted.
Also speaking at the First Baptist Church in Paynesville, Ezekiel Morlue accused the leadership of LISGIS of allegedly replacing candidates’ names with girlfriends and family members.
According to him, there were 189 persons at the center that allegedly passed the aptitude test and were qualified by LISGIS, awaiting the training to be assigned.
He explained that when the final list came out, it only had nine persons who did not even write the test.
He described it as frustrating and disappointing because they have invested time and resources.
” If you know you have people already to do the work, why did you put out an application?” Morlue lamented.
“Why did you give us an aptitude test and tell us that we passed? They are doing this because of corruption, but we will not take it. They have replaced us with their girlfriends and family, but Monday, we will go to their office,” he noted.
