Liberia: After CBL Pay Shock, House Turns on Executives

MONROVIA – Liberia’s House of Representatives has ordered a sweeping review of salaries and benefits across government, days after a rare public disclosure of a senior official’s pay reignited anger over the cost of running one of the world’s poorest countries. By Emmanuel Weedee-Conway In a unanimous vote on Tuesday, the lower house of the national legislature instructed two of its committees, on Ways, Means and Finance and on Public Accounts, to examine the pay and perks of government officials and report back within two weeks. The motion was brought by Representative Alex S. Noah of Sinoe County. Lawmakers argued that they are wrongly blamed for the country’s swollen wage bill, while ministers and the heads of state-owned enterprises earn far more. The disclosure that lit the fuse The vote came less than a week after Euphemia G. T.

Swen-Monmia, President Joseph Boakai’s nominee for Deputy Governor for Economic Policy at the Central Bank of Liberia, appeared on October 22 before the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency for her confirmation hearing. Asked about her pay, she did something Liberian officials rarely do: she gave the numbers. She testified that her monthly salary is US$9,000, that she receives around US$5,000 in cash benefits on top of that, and that her housing allowance should be about US$15,000. She has served in an acting capacity since August 12. That amounts to roughly US$168,000 a year in salary and cash benefits before housing is counted. A civil servant on the government’s US$150 monthly minimum would need more than seven and a half years of uninterrupted work to earn what she receives in a single month. Swen-Monmia is a career central banker who joined the bank in 2010 as a management trainee and rose to director of its Financial Markets…