Maritime downsizes 47 employees

Liberia’s Maritime Authority or LMA says it has redundant 47 employees “in the best interest” to save itself from collapsing like other entities here, ahead of plan by the steel giant ArcelorMittal Liberia to lay off 400 staff in January 2016 as cost minimization measure.

In a live phone conversation “Truth Breakfast Show” hosted on Truth FM 96.1, Mr. MulbahYorkor from the LMA’s communication department argued Wednesday, 25 November that the decision reached after serious sleepless night was “in the best interest of the entity.”

Though he claims that top management did not take pleasure in the decision to let go 47 employees, he however argued that management intends to save the entity from collapsing like in the case of other entities that he did not name.

The National Oil Company of Liberia is faced with a serious controversy after it announced bankruptcy and subsequently dismissed more than 50 employeesmonths ago over alleged financial crisis and measures to control cost.

Apparently recognizing the high economic constraints faced here, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in June this year issued a memo ordering her officials to cut down salaries with specific instructions, limiting high salaries to US$5,000 or below.

But Mr. Yorkor who claims that the LMA was not happy to let go its employees, however downplayed suggestions for management to cut down lucrative salaries of top officials as part of the cost-saving strategy, rather pointing to “legal implications” regarding cutting down employees’ salaries.

He says the “47 positions made redundant” at LMA affected security and administration, among others. Callers on the show differed with the LMA communication boss, arguing that the entity was being “insincere” regarding its measure employed to deal with cost control without touching those in top management, who earn fabulous monthly salaries.

By Winston W. Parley-Edited by Jonathan Browne