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Claim: An online bloc, “Shine Liberia,” alleges that the National Elections Commission has dismissed over 60 employees.
Verdict: Misleading! The National Elections Commission has not dismissed over 60 employees.
Full Text
An online bloc “Shine Liberia” on Tuesday, December 3, 2024, alleged that the National Elections Commission dismissed over 60 employees.
“National Elections Commission reportedly dismissed over 60 employees for what the chairperson called abandonment of assignment. Days ago, scores of NEC employees staged protests at their HQ to demand their benefits and salary increase. You allegedly took food from the tables of people for exercising their rights.”
The post generated a lot of engagements, including two comments, 36 likes, and 15 shares.
One of the commenters, Anthony K G Freeman Jr., raised concern over the lack of an NEC stamp to help validate the document.
“Unfortunately, there’s no stamp to help us authenticate the validity of this document.”
DUBAWA decided to investigate the claim as part of its aim to counter misinformation and disinformation.
Verification
DUBAWA contacted the claimant via messenger to provide further evidence to support the claim, but they refused to respond to our inquiries. We also contacted Prince Dumbar, the Deputy Director of Communications at the National Elections Commission, who described the claim made by the online bloc as false.
He stated that the National Elections Commission has only dismissed 25 employees for what he described as gross misconduct.
“I don’t know where they get their information from, but what I do know is that the National Election Commission dismissed 25 employees for misconduct. You can check local dailies; it is there.”
Unlike Shine Liberi, several other agencies, including Hot Pepper, Newdawn, Daily Observer, Afric Daily Newspaper, and AllAfrica, reported that 25 employees were dismissed.
Conclusion
DUBAWA found no evidence that the National Elections Commission dismissed 60 employees while the Deputy Director of Communications at NEC also denied the claim.
