UP clarifies NASSCORP drama

Cllr. Molfie Kanneh, accompanied by ruling Unity Party officials and other top government officials, faced a setback on Monday when he went to meet with NASSCORP’s senior management team to present his appointment letter from the Executive Mansion as NASSCORP Officer-in-Charge.

By Lincoln G. Peter

Monrovia, Liberia, March 6, 2024: Ruling Unity Party (UP) Chairman Rev. Luther Tarpeh has clarified accusations that top UP officials were seeking to invade the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP) to install a new institutional head.

Tarpeh addressed a press conference Tuesday, 5 March 2024 following a drama at NASSCORP Monday in which presidential nominee Cllr. Molfie Kanneh, accompanied by UP officials and other top government officials, was seen in a video meeting with NASSCORP’s senior management team presenting his appointment letter from the Executive Mansion.

But the head of the senior management team told Cllr. Kanneh that the institution still has a Director General, Mr. Dewitt vonBalmoos, who is said to have about three years before his tenure expires.

President Joseph Nyumah Boakai recently appointed Molfie to NASSCORP while the current Director General Mr. Dewitt vonBalmoos still has about three years ahead of the expiry of his tenure.

In his press conference, Chairman Tarpeh termed as falise and misleading, the allegation that UP officials were seeking to forcefully take over NASSCORP.

He explained that he and other top officials of the government didn’t go to the institution to forcefully take jobs as alleged.

“We did not go there to forcefully take [a] job as it is insinuated in the public. We only went there to present them a letter to the leadership that had been holding the ground since [the] managing director is on sick leave,” said Chairman Tarpeh.

“It was just a presentation of a letter from the President of Liberia. But people insinuated that we went to forcefully take jobs. That is a complete lie and has no truth,” he clarified.

According to Rev. Tarpeh, they were later told to leave the place and that the Minister of State for Presidential Affairs should place the nomination on the Executive Mansion Website.

He said that they immediately walked out, adding that if that is the procedure they are abiding by it.

But he said it was very frustrating that people would be accusing them of forcefully wanting a job.

“UP don’t have that kind of character. We are a civil political institution. We went there to carry on a responsibility,” he argued. 

“I got angry when one of them said that they don’t know where the signature is from when the person is seeing me, the party chairman,” he noted.

He said as their tradition has always been, whenever a leader is taking over an entity, the chairman of the party and other well-wishers go to wish them well.

Chairman Tarpeh added that he was at the Freeport of Monrovia when he received a call that Cllr. Kanneh was taking over and so they needed him to grace the occasion.

He said he and several other officials went and graced the occasion to present a letter to the leadership of the institution that President Boakai has nominated somebody.