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Claim: “Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Samuel Tweah, is demanding the removal of all Lofa and Nimba citizens from professional posts at the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA),” a viral WhatsApp message has alleged.
Verdict: Misleading. LRA refutes the claim that the Finance Minister ordered the removal of Lofa and Nimba citizens working with LRA.
Full Text
Early Tuesday morning, Oct. 17, Liberians woke up to a viral WhatsApp message claiming that the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Samuel D. Tweah, was in the building of the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) demanding the removal of all citizens of Lofa and Nimba County from professional positions within the entity.
The message reads, “Dear brother, please take this information seriously. The Minister of Finance, Mr Samuel, is currently in the LRA building demanding that all Lofa and Nimba citizens working with the LRA in professional positions must be removed from their respective positions because they are Unity Party people. They are trying to weaken our stances on these elections. Please spread the information urgently.
Here is a screenshot of the message below:
This claim is coming at a time when provisional results released by the National Elections Commission (NEC) put the Unity Party candidate in the lead in those two counties.
The suggestion is that the workers in Lofa and Nimba Counties are punished because the residents voted for the opposition party.
Verification
To ascertain the facts about this claim, DUBAWA contacted the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Samuel Tweah, via WhatsApp, but he is yet to respond to DUBAWA’s inquiry.
Here is a screenshot of the WhatsApp conversation between DUBAWA and Minister Samuel Tweah
DUBAWA then contacted the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) through its communications department via WhatsApp.
Mr D. Kaihenneh Sengbeh is the entity’s communications director, and he shared a press statement with DUBAWA, as seen in the screenshot below.
According to the release, the LRA refuted the allegation and tagged it misleading.
The release noted, “The Liberia Revenue Authority strongly refutes the false, deceptive, and misleading information currently circulating on social media regarding the alleged dismissal of employees believed to be Unity Party partisans and supporters from Lofa and Nimba counties.”
Conclusion
Following an investigation of the assertion and based on the statement issued by the Liberia Revenue Authority (RA), the claim is misleading.
