IPNews-Monrovia: One time Speaker of the House of Representative of Liberia, now Bomi County District#1 Representative Edwin Melvin Snowe has strongly warned government not to ‘cut salaries of civil servants.

Representative Snow stated that the government should put an immediate stop to ongoing payroll harmonization of civil servants’ salaries or else, because the exercise has the propensity to dehumanize government employees across the country.

The Bomi County lawmaker said the exercise has drastically affected the low income earners in the government employed.

Rep. Snowe explains some civil servants in his district had been earning LRD40, 000, but their salaries have been reduced to a very low amount, which is ‘unacceptable and unrealistic’, given the country’s worsening economy.
He says the harmonization exercise has been halted by both the Liberian Senate and the House of Representatives, with some influential officials from the Executive welcoming the decision.

Rep. Snowe argues that if government wanted to cut down expenditures, it should look to other areas, including travels, petroleum products allotted to officials of government, and stationeries instead of civil servants’ pay.
He cautions that civil servants in the country earn very less and the harmonization process could create serious security implication that officials may not handled.

“Cutting our civil servants and lower ranking officials of government should be last option for the government. There are many options we can consider as government. Take for example, gasoline given to us can be cut, travels of officials of government, stationery and other areas. Look, this harmonization of civil servants’ pay is greater national security risk that we all should look into. Thanks everyone is now rethinking and the process has come to a stop.”

Rep. Snowe, who is from the former ruling Unity Party, calls on the Weah administration to open up by bringing on board qualified Liberians regardless of political affiliation.

“President George Manneh Weah needs to open up his administration that is, bringing on board competent and qualified Liberians. Forget about political association, be it Unity Party, Liberty Party, the ANC just ensure they are qualified. Interestingly, the President has constitutional power to dismiss anyone who under performed. I think the President is conserving that because there are serious discussions ongoing on this matter,” he adds.

Meanwhile, Representative Snowe, who is one of Liberia’s representatives to the ECOWAS Parliament, discloses that Liberia will host the regional parliament for the first time ever in Monrovia.

He says the Parliament is coming here to debate regional issues, including economic challenges and plan for the introduction of a regional currency, Eco, among others.According to him, the Parliament is expected to be here for two weeks and the Government of Liberia has made huge contributions for the pending meetings.