Robust Work Permit Regime Underway at Labor Ministry -Kruah Vows to Enforce Payment Under Decent Work Law

MONROVIA – Present-day Ministry of Labor “is not taking side” at all—Liberian way of saying one is firmly determined and purposed to maximize efforts—in ensuring that it brings unusual value to the table; not only ensuring worker’s rights and better working environment, but also serving as a pivotal cash cow in Government’s strides to balloon its revenue envelop. As The Analyst reports, the Ministry, under the leadership of longtime veteran public servant Cllr. Cooper Kruah, is bent on closing all leakages and loopholes that have restrained this important government organ from leveraging its fiduciary responsibilities, including strengthening and improving mechanisms towards payment of Alien Work Permit for the good of all.

The Ministry of Labor has announced the commencement of rigorous enforcement of the payment of Alien Work Permit under the Decent Work Act of Liberia as of August 15, with aliens, all ECOWAS citizens that are supposed to have work permit especially for those in the formal and informal sectors.

According to a Labor Ministry release, the informal sector comprised of people that are doing petit businesses like shops, bread shops, and spare parts stores with a minimum payment of $100 USD per annual.

“There are other ECOWAS members or citizens who worked in the formal sector like the financial institutions will pay $1000 USD,” said Minister Cooper Kruah quoted during a press briefing on Tuesday, August 6, 2024.

The Labor Minister said the ministry is proceeding in adherence to a meeting held last month in Monrovia that was attended by the leaderships of all ECOWAS Citizens to Liberia who were informed that it was now time to enforce the payment of the Alien Work Permit in Liberia.

A request was made by the Fula Governor to give them one month grace period so that they could inform their citizens, and that that one month period has expired as of the 15 of this month.

“So, we want our people to know that our inspectors will be out there to inform the people and it should be done in an orderly manner,” the Minister said. “Our inspectors that will be on the field will be uniformed and they will have a team leader. So that wherever they go when there are issues, they will be able to get back to us and we will correct and address those issues.

“We also know that there are ECOWAS citizens who are also citizens of Liberia; we will respect that,” he added. “We will inform our inspectors as they go on the field if someone is from an ECOWAS member states but if he/she is a naturalized citizen of Liberia they are not supposed to pay work permit. We want to make that very clear for the public. If you are a citizen of Liberia though you may be from a member state, just inform our inspectors that you are a citizen of Liberia.”
According to the Labor Minister, showing a citizenship document will qualify a person not to make any payment and important to inform the people ahead of time to avoid missteps.

He noted that personnel are cautioned to be very professional to implement the task which requires proper identification.

“Before you go to somebody business place introduce yourself and be identified by your uniform,” the Minister continued. “Let them know that you are just enforcing the ECOWAS Work Permit $100 USD a month. And along with inspector we will have representative from the LRA and they will collect the money. We have representative from our Alien Work Permit Division and they will issue the bill.”

For those who are closer to banks, the Minister said, “we will ask them to go and make their own deposits and our inspector will bring the copy of the deposit slip to us and we will do your bio-metric ID card. The work permit is now in the form of bio-metric card we will process it and give it to you.

“Those who already have one, if you had one before there have to be an annual renewal of the ID card. For example, if you did it last year August 15, the 15 of August will be the anniversary and then you must be able to pay again. Payment is required on an annual basis that’s why we go on the field. This is why we are communicating with the public to have the people aware.”

Minister Kruah also expressed gratitude to Solidarity Center, an NGO that has been working alongside the Ministry of Labor in employees’ capacity development.

The organization is about to conduct a training session in the coming weeks for Hearing Officers, Labor Commissioners and Inspectors.

Solidarity Center has been working with the ministry over the time to always improve performances of different sectors and sections in the ministry.

“Trainings are necessary and if you don’t do that people become complacent; we think training is important, we think informing the public is also important to help make our jobs easier,” Cllr Kruah said. “That’s why we will continue to do this. Of course, we noticed that during the course of the past six months we being working; a month or two ago we had two teams in the western region-Bomi and other areas then we had another group that went to Nimba and Margibi Counties.”

He further explained that the exercise was very useful and as the result of that exercise “we were able to collect more than a million dollars in July and we would like to continue with that exercise.”

The minister also detailed more about the ministry’s operational activities.

The said: “A month from now, we will be going to the southeast. We did not cover the southeast during the exercise in July. We will be taking the team to the southeast and the official date will be announced for them to be aware that our inspectors will be going there. We understand that there are lots of ECOWAS members in the southeast and the exercise for the 15 of August will not reach there until our team gets to the southeast.”

Cllr Kruah disclosed that his ministry has been having a cordial working relationship with the Liberia Revenue Authority, the Liberia Immigration Service “and they have already shown their willingness to work along with us”.

“While we are in the southeast the immigration officers assigned there will work along with us. We will have LRA from Monrovia to go along with us. They are there to collect the money. Our inspectors are not required to collect cash from anyone,” he said.

“Anyone who goes to you from the Ministry of Labor and say you are supposed to pay $100 but give it to me please we are cautioning the public do not pay money to our inspectors. LRA representative will be there you pay the money to them other than that you deposit your money to the bank.”

In a related development, the Ministry of Labor has been working with the management of the Salala Rubber Company for the past weeks to pay all of the employees.

The decision was taken due to the workers who went on the rampage little over a month ago and vandalized almost all of the establishments- buildings, burning down of vehicles; and almost kills the manager of the plantation.

The management wrote the government through our ministry that they have to revert to their goal which is closing down operations temporarily.

The SRC management has agreed to pay the employees all of their benefits the Labor Minister lamented.

He asserted further: “If you worked for 10 years, they will pay you one month for each year of service and your outstanding annual leave paid. So, we have a team that work with the union leadership, the mother union and our regional office here and they are being paid. I understand almost 75 to 80 percent of the employees have been paid off. Then we look forward to the company to come back and they have assured us they will do everything they can to raise money to come back and re-open.”