Fulanis dupe govt on work permit

Several Fulanishere have been charged and taken to court on multiple offenses after allegedly photocopying a single ECOWAS Biometric work permit belonging to one of their compatriots to avoid paying annual work permit fee of US$100.00 into government revenues.

The charged sheet lists defendants Mamadou Barry, ChirnoMamadouJallow, Abraham E. Jalloh and Mohammed Wura for the alleged commission of criminal conspiracy, criminal facilitation and economic sabotage.

The complaint was filed by Assistant Labor Minister for Regional Labor Affairs Atty. Prince M. Korvah alongside the Liberia Revenue Authority or LRA and the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization or BIN.

Atty. Korvah told investigators that during compliance enforcement on 24 October, 2016 following series of awareness, the defendants who are engaged in commercial tricycles driving in Monrovia deliberately refused to pay the annual work permit fees into government revenue as required by the Labor Law and practices here.

“ … [Furthermore], they were caught using photocopies of original Government of Liberia (GoL) ECOWAS biometric work permit receipts that belong to one of them,” Atty. Korvah said. He said the photocopies were identified and seized during a routine system check by ROVIA Gate Technology, the service provider, concluding that the defendants should be prosecuted.

Defendant Mohammed Wura claimed that he applied for work permit and it was allegedly issued to him, and implicated defendant ChirnoMamadouJallow of allegedly asking him for his work permit payment receipt to do a photocopy for the labor inspection purpose.

The police charge sheet says defendant Wura agreed to Jallow’s request and allowed him to photocopy his work permit receipt. He claimed that while defendants Jallow and Barry were using the permit receipt photocopies separately, they were arrested by labor inspectors and that upon failure to produce the original copies, they were turned over to the police for investigation.

By Winston W. Parley