The Chairman of the opposition Unity Party Legislative Caucus, Representative Hanson Kiazolu says he will institute court action against officials of the Ministry of Finance, if they refuse to present the payrolls representing all government ministries and agencies.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with OK news during the weekend, Representative Kiazolu said the failure of the Finance Ministry officials to give justifiable reasons for reducing civil servants salaries, the Unity Party caucus will pray for a writ of Mandamus to compel the ministry to do so.
No one should take the 54th National Legislature for granted. If people are obstructing our oversight responsibility, we will now have to take a proactive role by our actions at the Legislature so the Executive branch can know there are three branches of government in Liberia.
We have received the budget, am scrutinizing it, and we will be calling on the executive programs to submit their payrolls and I have already put on the floor of plenary that the finance minister Samuel Tweah should give an empirical analysis of the government payrolls from 2016-17, and from 2018 to 2019 to know whether the people on the payroll passed through the legitimate process to be enroll on government’s payroll.
Otherwise, the cut they are talking about Harmonization, I tell you we the Unity Party Legislative Caucus will take them to court, especially the ministry of finance, so they can leave the people salary just as they met it, and let those the government brought in the Country make the determination.
We are not going to sit and allow people be crying all in the street and we not be proactive. We need to do something about it.
Commenting further, the Montserrado district 17 lawmaker also commended the Senate’s committee on Banking and Currency for rejecting three of President Weah’s Central Bank nominees.
At the same time, Representative Kiazolu has accused members of the Executive Branch of Government of showing disrespect to members of the Legislature.
The lawmaker has accused some members of the Executive of grossly disrespecting members of the Legislature, failing to recognize the power given to them (lawmakers) by the Constitution.
They have nothing new to provide, these guys were there when the banking internal control system collapsed. They were there when the Liberian dollars begin to depreciate at an unprecedented level, until the bank could send for experts to come and tell us, so what are they doing? That’s my thought!
Issues should not just be salary income, president Weah must take in consideration new generational thinkers who will create a new road map for recovery in the shortest possible time.
Amid Representative Kaizolu’s statement, there has been several responses to reports of reduction in the salaries of civil servants, with many frowning at the national government not to do so.