“They Are Looking for Trouble”

--Thomas Woewiyu Warns, Foresees Rebellion If…



By Bill K. Jarkloh/0886468244

Jucontee Thomas Woewiyou has broken silence after a long time of quietude on the political landscape of Liberia, warning that the government is looking for trouble if it continues to pay extravagant salaries to officials while 83 percent of the population lives on a dollar and twenty –five cents a day.

Woewiyou, a former Grand Bassa County Senator, also frowns on laws against pluralistic participation in governance, citing recent law still pending before the House of Representatives from the Senate which has raised registration for legislative positions from US$700 to US$7,500.

The New elections bill provides that one of the eligibility criteria for a candidate to contest legislative seat is to tender a non-refundable amount of US$7,500 to the National Elections Commission. But Mr. Woewiyou said if passed, the law is intended to entrench present legislators whom are paid US$15,000 of taxpayers’ money at the Legislature by preventing potential legislators from contesting their seats.

The former Minister of expressed dissatisfaction with the high salaries paid some officials, making specific reference to the US$15,000 being paid to a legislator as salary plus benefits and US$30,000 paid the Maritime Commissioner and an excess of US$20,000 paid the Minister of Finance as their respective salaries when the vast majority of taxpayers were living in abject poverty.

Some rebellion is going to start

Speaking in an exclusive interview with The ANALYST at his residence at the outskirt of Monrovia, Mr. Woewiyou considers as an “abomination and a crime against humanity” the consumption in extravagant salaries paid officials who are paying no taxes, indicating that the people are paying their hard earned money in taxes to government for their welfare. “If you are consuming whatever little society has at the detriment of others, is a crime against humanity and you should expect trouble when the people rise up against you,” Mr. Woewiyou emphasized.

He did not only speak about the high salaries paid officials and how it may be the reason for rebellion, he spoke of the new elections law that is being passed at the legislature and how raising the fees for candidates is equally an abominable offense resistible amongst others, proffering a solution to save the situation.

He said for the country to be run in a way that people are making all kinds of salaries and demanding huge benefits while 83% of the people are living on 1.25, “I think they are looking for trouble”.

“The most important thing the government should consider,” he warned, “is that as soon as citizens wake up and realize that they are living on up to 1.25 a day and paying taxes to people who are making more than 15,000 a month, then some rebellion is going to start, and we don’t want to go that route,” Mr. Woewiyou declared.

Beginning his exclusive with The ANALYST, Mr. Woewiyou, a former Defense Minister of Charles Taylor’s defunct NPFL diagnosed that the government is broke because of the manner public funds are expended to officials in huge salaries in the absence of inadequate economic activities in the country at a time there is not a lot of industries working in the country.

According to Mr. Woewiyou, “Even though we have more of less attracted this 16 billion dollar investment, the companies here are not working, they are not employing. However, when a government finds itself in such a distrait, it needs to take actions that the citizens will know that the government is broke, that the government is facing financial challenges.”

Never before even...

Questioned what then is the solution to what he called “the economy in a distrait - meaning it’s getting broke, Mr. Woewiyu said, “the solution now is is to scale down the huge salaries to US$3, 000 to US$5,000, and use the surplus from these salaries to support education and health.

“We see what happened in the health sector recently; the nurses and medical workers struck - around the country maybe there were more than three hundred of cases dying because there were no medical personnel at the hospital.”

For this, he said, :… a person living on 1.25 a day and is paying taxes, and you are taking the taxes in the name of our people and our people dying because you are taking the bulk of the taxes, that is crime against humanity. “

He explained that the government is paying to some officials, extravagant salaries that never before even when there were industries working in this country, no government was paying a salary equal to this one. “The government needs to look at the kind of salaries it is paying legislator – 15,000 USD a month plus benefits of all kinds and certain ministers of government making the excess of $20,000 a month; but 83% of the people lives on $1.25 a day,” he said.

“You just sit down and calculate the person who makes 37.50 that is 1.25 a day, if you calculate that by year which is 450.00 a year and divide it by 15,000, that is it will take that person 33 years to consume 15,000 as his earning, while it will take a civil servants who is paid $100 month 12 and a half year before he can earn 15, 000 which is the salary of one person in the government who is practically paying no tax,” Mr. went into mathematical deduction of his argument

According to him, he was appalled to have heard from the Minister of Finance and the President Pro Tempore of the Liberian Senate that the Liberian economy is in a dying state, meaning it is getting broke, but noted that these officials are saying the government is getting broke without saying why and what to do to recover from the economic doldrums that they are announcing.

Commenting on the US$30,000 monthly salary paid the Maritime Commissioner, Mr. Woewiyu said he would understand why a Liberian living here like any other individual would be paid that kind of salary when LISCR, a Shipping agency is being paid in millions to administer the Maritime Program.

He added that the President should be blamed because if she never sign the budget, it will never you into effect. “If she doesn’t sign it, if she sends it back to them telling that … what you are doing is ridiculous, you are looking for trouble,” these huge salaries wouldn’t be paid out to officials at the expense of the people and the economy.

Raining Day in Hell

Commenting on corruption as the second vice that got the economy broke, Woewiyu said the money is not used for properly and what it is budgeted for. He cited the 200 million the President reportedly spent on Public Relations to foreign firms as captured by the U. S. Congress’ report, saying that it is useless to spend such a huge amount on Public relations abroad when the Liberian people do not have safe-drinking water and electricity, which no amount of public relations will wide.

Woewiyou then described the president Senate as “law passers” who go about passing laws that will only serve their interest. He cited the new election law that is pending before the House for concurrence, which when passed will raise registration feeds from 700 to 7,5000.

The one time warlord and public official called on all Liberians to prevail on their representatives not to concur with the Senate in passing such a law that has the tendency to perpetuate bad senators in power by disenfranchising potential good legislators.

He also called on the President to veto elections law being enacted if the House should concur, saying that any attempt by the Legislature to override such a veto will be what he called “a raining day in held.”

Govt Confirms Five Suspected Ebola Deaths in Liberia

The Liberian Government through the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has confirmed the death of five persons suspected to have contracted the deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Lofa County.

Addressing a special press briefing at the Ministry of Information on Monday, Liberia's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Bernice Dahn, said all of the five suspected cases were people who came from Guinea for treatment at hospitals in Foya and Zorzor Districts in Lofa County.

According to the Liberia News Agency (LINA), Dr. Dahn said four of the dead are female adults, while the fifth casualty was a male child.

Meanwhile, the Liberia's Chief Medical Officer stated that the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and its partners have dispatched an assessment team to Lofa County, to investigate the situation by tracing contacts, collecting blood samples and sensitizing local health authorities about the disease.

She said the assessment team also took with them protective equipment such as face masks, gloves and goggles to protect health workers in affected facilities.

She told the press conference that the team also took with them chlorine to disinfect the affected hospitals, as surveillance along the border is being strengthened.

The current outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic Ebola Disease, according to Dr. Dahn, said the disease started in the Guinean towns of Guekedou, Nzerekore, Kissidougou and Macenta which are very close to the Liberian border.

The Chief Medical Officer then called on Liberians to avoid direct contact with body fluids of infected or dead people as well as physical contacts such as kissing and handshakes.

She also advised Liberians in the affected areas to wash their hands frequently, avoid direct contacts or consumption of animals such as fruit bats and monkeys, and to always chlorinate their drinking water in order to prevent this deadly disease.

According to Dr. Dahn, sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, as well as internal and external bleeding are all symptoms of the deadly Ebola virus and as such, persons suspected to be suffering from Ebola should be taken to the nearest health center immediately.

In a related development, tests on the suspected cases of deadly Ebola virus in Guinea's capital Conakry are negative, health officials say.

On Sunday, United Nations officials said that the virus had spread to the capital, a port city of up to two million, from remote forests in the south, where some 61 people have died.

The government has sent out text messages, urging people to stay calm and wash their hands with soap. Ebola is spread by close contact and kills between 25% and 90% of victims.

There is no known cure or vaccine, the government said, naming the symptoms of the deadly hemorrhagic disease include internal and external bleeding, diarrhea and vomiting.

Neighboring countries such as Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone are said to be on high alert in case the disease spreads. The BBC Focus on Africa TV reported that Mauritania has closed its border with Mali, for fear of Ebola. Mali borders Guinea and Mauritania.

Five people are already reported to have died in Liberia after crossing from southern Guinea for treatment, Liberia's Health Minister Walter Gwenigale told journalists, while reports from Guinea account for 50 death in Guinea.

However, it is not clear whether they had Ebola.

No Handshaking in Ganta

<b>…As Ebola Patients Transferred to JFK Hospital

The outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic disease in neighboring Guinea has not only characterized health scare in Liberia, it has also become a tool beginning to restrict a norm of Liberia, the gesture of handshaking. Since Sunday when news started filtering from Zorzor and Foyah in Lofa reporting the crossing of Ebola patients into Liberia, the first advice from health authorities and medical practitioners is warning against handshaking amongst other preventive measures. Now that the Ebola scare has transcended Lofa, moved to Nimba and now Monrovia, handshake has become a menace. With the latest report of Ebola discovery at the Ganta Methodist Hospital, the restriction of handshake has become prevalent in Ganta and other parts of Nimba; Journalist Bill K. Jarkloh reports from Monrovia. Already fear is imminent in the country since the country, Monrovia may follow Nimba restricting handshake in public places as two patients infected with the Ebola Hemorrhagic disease have been transferred to Monrovia from Ganta Methodist Hospital. Our Ganta Correspondent who was contacted confirmed that Ganta Health authorities have admitted to transferring two Ebola patients to the John F. Kennedy Hospital in Monrovia, saying that the fear of Ebola contraction has produced a social effect in Ganta, restricting handshakes amongst the population in that city. “My girl, don’t shake hand with me; you can just wave to speak,” is the reaction of most people in Ganta to handshake in that border city with Guinea since Monday, when the news of Ebola discovery in the Ganta Hospital started spreading like wildfire. Handshake is a social phenomenon in Liberia. In Liberian sociology, handshake is an expression of greetings, gesture, approval or solidarity amongst the people.

“This Ebola thing will affect our finger-snapping that is uniquely identified with the Liberian culture, Matthew Y. Gonyon,

a resident of Ganta told this reporter from that bordering city of Liberia. Ganta is socially an interactive city along the Liberian-Guinean border in northeastern Liberia; usually people from inside Guinea visit Nimba for leisure and vise, visa. But in the wake of the Ebola scare, the residents in Ganta have begun to restrict their social activities, our Ganta Correspondent Emmanuel Williams have hinted. The journalist quoted a Congolese national who is the Medical Director of the United Methodist Hospital in Ganta , Dr. Claude Monga, as saying that two suspected Ebola patients were over the weekend brought from a region bordering Guinea to Liberia, Jaykay (spelling may be faulty) from inside Guinea. But Dr. Monga, who said he has seen the symptoms of the patients familiar with those of Ebola infected persons he experience in his home Congo, noted how the patients were bleeding from their spores. He said because the Hospital did not have room for them, they were transferred to the John F. Kennedy Hospital Sunday for further medical attention. He added that additional patients that suffered gunshot wound from industrial action taken across the border came along with the two suspected Ebola patients. Before the press conference by Dr. Monga, the Medical Director of the G. W. Harley Hospital in Sanniquellie, Dr. Laurie Cooper, called for a quick impact project that will create space to secure Ebola patients coming from Guinea and discoveries that could be made in Nimba. Dr. Cooper was addressing a forum for the induction of Nimba County superintendent in Sanniquellie. She informed the Nimba Legislative Caucus to take her call seriously is at Liberia’s border with Guinea and has already started to receive Ebola patients from that neighboring country where an outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic disease is reported. The female medical doctor indicated the rest of Nimba County could be at risk with the Ebola disease spreading like wildfire. Already, the government of Liberia through the Ministry of Health & Social Welfare has announce the outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic disease in neighboring Guinea, calling on Liberians to adhere to preventive health tips that the ministry was availing to the public.