By : S.Winston Blyden
IPNews-Monrovia: Over three thousand contractors, and employees of the Beaches and waterways Project under the Ministry of Youth and Sports, mostly slum community dwellers, have given the government of Liberia a one week ultimatum to settle their arrears.
Speaking Thursday to reporters, the contractors and employees accused the government of being indebted to them for twenty months.
According to them, the government has refused to pay them leaving them with no alternative but to stage a serious protest throughout Monrovia.
The aggrieved beach workers, stated that they have worked for twenty months without pay making them unable to send their children to School and feed their families.
Also Speaking, the Head Monitor of the Project Dekontee Woto, explained that they have been engaging the government through the Ministry of Youth and Sports for their payment but to no avail.
Woto is therefore calling on the government to make substantial payments of their arrears to avoid another planned protest.
It may be recorded, the Government of Liberia through the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) on June 1, 2015, disbursement of five months’ salary arrears to ‘Reclaiming Liberia beaches and water- ways project workers’.
According to an MFDP release then, the amount of twenty five thousand two hundred Liberian dollars (LD$25, 200) was disbursed to each beach worker and while forty four thousand one hundred Liberian dollars (LD$44, 100) to each supervisor.
The salary arrears payment for the beach and waterway workers is a result of a memorandum of understanding between authorities of the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning and the leadership of the beach and waterway project workers during on May 25, 2015.
