IPNews-Monrovia, Liberia: His Excellency President George Manneh Weah has accepted the resignation of the head of the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL), Mr. Tolbert Nyenswah.
President Weah thanked Mr. Nyenswah for the time he served the people and Government of Liberia. He wished him well in his new endeavors.
Pending the appointment of a new Director General of NPHIL, the Liberian Leader has asked the Deputy Director of the NPHIL, Mosoka P. Fallah to act as head of NPHIL with immediate effect.
Additionally, President Weah has appointed Madam Jane Amanda McCauley as Acting Deputy Director General for Technical Affairs at NPHIL. Mr. Tolbert Nyenswah resigned recently for family reasons.
It may be recorded Tolbert Nyenswah, Director-General of the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) on Thursday, October 17, 2109, tendered in his resignation to President George Weah, referencing “family problems and personal issues”.
Nyenswah, resignation letter cited “circumstances and family obligations” as reasons for this immediate resignation. But earlier, there were growing public concerns about the resignation of Mr. Nyenswah, owing to the allegations concerning against his style of leadership at NPHIL.
The resignation of Mr. Nyenswah is now the third high-profile official to have resigned from the Weah-led administration recently. .
It can be recalled that Alton Vanie Kesselly, Deputy Education Minister for Planning, Research and Development resigned since March 2018, even though no official reason has yet been released to the public.
Another recent resignation is Alex Cuffy, who served as Director-General of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), citing “family reasons” as being responsible for his resignation.
The NPHIL was established on January 26, 2017 by an Act of the Legislature to prevent and control public health threats following the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic that devastated Liberia’s already faltering public health system, resulting in over 11,000 cases and close to 5,000 deaths.
Mr. Nyenswah served as the institution’s first Director-General. Prior to heading NPHIL, he headed the Incident Management System responsible for leading and coordinating every aspect of Liberia’s National Ebola Response activities which brought the epidemic to a halt.
Under his stewardship at NPHIL, Mr. Nyenswah succeeded in securing from the United States government and the World Bank Group over US$20 million, to construct the National Reference Laboratory and NPHIL headquarters in Congo Town, now in its second phase of construction.
NPHIL also secured US$15 million from the World Bank for a three-year epidemiology surveillance activities program throughout the country.
Mr. Nyenswah served as Deputy Minister of Health for Disease Surveillance and Epidemic Control in the Department of Public Health, created within the Ministry of Health as a new Department, following the World Health Organization’s (WHO) first declaration in May 2015 that Liberia was free of Ebola in the human population.
He has served in various capacities at the Ministry of Health, including office assistant in the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (now Ministry of Health) in 1999; Assistant Minister of Health and Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Preventive Services (2012-2015); Deputy Program Manager of the National Malaria Control Program (2007-2011), serving concurrently as Acting Program Manager for two years (2009-2011).
