IPNEWS: As if the welfare of the Liberian people is of no concern, especially Civil Servants, in considering them for salary increments including other benefits to dignify them among other public servants within the region, members of the erstwhile 53rd Legislature are now calling for payment of salaries and other benefits owed them by the Government of Liberia.

Legislators during this period signed into law 68 concession contracts with only two being consistent with the law.

Members during those periods made expensive travels, and purchased luxurious homes in and outside Liberia, including receipt of retirement packages before the exit of former Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

Many of those members of the 53rd Legislature were booted out by their various constituents during the 2017 general and presidential elections.

Unfortunately, those members are now calling on the government to pay them despite the massive income they received.

In a release issued in Monrovia, the former Members of the House of Representatives of the 53rd National Legislature of Liberia stated that they have filed a Petition for the Writ of Mandamus before the Supreme Court of Liberia seeking to compel the House of Representatives and the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning to pay their salary and benefits arrears which have been budgeted and signed into law.

According to them, the arrears owed by the former lawmakers were allotted in the Special Budget of 2021, but the House of Representatives and the Ministry of Finance have refused overtime to perform their legal duties as required by the law by processing and making payments to the former lawmakers.

In the Petition filed Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023, by Cllr. Willie D. Barclay, Jr, of the Century Law Offices which represents the aggrieved former lawmakers with the Clerk of the Supreme Court, the former lawmakers who served from 2012 to 2018 led by the former Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Worlea-Saywah Dinah, and former Bong County legislator Attorney George S. Mulbah request the Liberian apex court to compel House Speaker Chambers, Deputy Speaker Koffa, the Leadership of the House, the entire Plenary of the House of Representative along with the Minister of Finance plus all Deputy Ministers, all Assistant Ministers and the Comptroller General of Liberia to perform their constitutional and statutory duties by enforcing the Budget law by paying to them the full amount of $832,000,00usd captured in Section 4.7 of the Special Budget Law printed into handbill on July 1, 2021.

The Resolution by the former lawmakers which led to the action before the Supreme Court, the former lawmakers described the refusal to implement the Budget law as illegal and a violation of the laws of the land; the Resolution states further that Speaker Chambers and the entire plenary of the House of Representatives of the 54th Liberian Legislature and the Ministry of Finance defiance of the budget law though under oaths to enforce the constitution and all laws of Liberia relative to their functions are in violation therefore of the Constitution of Liberia, the Legislative Law of Liberia (Title 19, Liberia Code of Law Revised), the Rules of House of Representatives and the Special Budget Statute of July 1, 2021.

The former lawmakers lamented that after numerous engagements over the past five years, they were convinced that their former colleagues headed by Speaker Chambers were holding these conversations in bad faith as shown by their repeated refusal to implement the law that they passed to pay the arrears and therefore left them with no choice but recourse to the courts.

The Resolution further condemns their actions as adverse to all principles of good governance and institutional good practices given that they have willfully refused, deliberately neglected, consistently denied, repeatedly obfuscated, and unlawfully stonewalled the enforcement of the law requiring them to pay the budgeted arrears to even though they are under constitutional oath to always implement and uphold the laws of Liberia.

At the same time, the former lawmakers have expressed high confidence in the judiciary which they described in their Resolution as having a history of dispensing justice without fear and favors and are certain of the true interpretation of the laws as all is set for the nation’s highest court in this matter.