PHOTO: Dr. Benjamin Lartey
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
Monrovia, Liberia- Some faculty members at the AME Zion University are getting increasingly disenchanted over what they calim is bad labour practice and unpaid salaries, but the President of the University, Dr. Benjamin Lartey has rejected the claim.
On a tour of this private university you see hunger and sadness on the faces of instructors as the result of what termed as bad labor practice that has engulfed the institution over the past few years.
There is claim this is leading instructors and their families to virtually starvation.
In an interview with www.newspublictrust.com, the University’s President Dr. Lartey confirmed that they owe instructors, but justified that some instructors also owe the school by taking double salaries.
The double salaries he is referring to comes about where instructors who are teaching regular and General studies are taking separate salaries instead of one.
Due to the serious financial crisis, some faculty members are said to have lost their homes, as wives can no longer bear it that although they see their husbands/fiancees going to work every day, yet they take home nothing.
“Imagine, instructors will work for every semester only received pay one time in a year and the rest of months they, work administration can wave it forcibly,” one instructor said.
A source told this Reporter that as a result, some instructors are now demanding students to pay their rent, children school fees. Some instructors even compel students to appreciate them by demanding what amount to be paid by the students and failure on the part for students to pay, they would repeat their courses.
In some cases, instructors are now so nonchalant that they only give the pamphlets to students to study without teaching the course, only because they are not paid.
As the saying goes on the AME Zion University campus nowadays, “empty bag can’t stand”.
According to the University’s President Dr. Lartey, he took over the institution in January of 2020 shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Liberia in March of 2020, when the Education Ministry ordered for shutting down of all schools.
That he claimed resulted into a situation where fees couldn’t be collected, because the school year resumed in November of the same year.
A source at the University said salaries have not been paid by administration for several months now and that the National Social Security premium is not being paid to the legitimate institution, after being cut from employees for months.
The source further added that employees have no annual leaves neither medical benefits and the administration is involved with selective death benefits for only church members and close friends and relatives.
Another area said to be brewing disgruntlement is that the University has no insurance benefits, with poor facilities at its Po River campus outside Monrovia, with no bathroom and some faculty members allegedly use nearby bushes to ease themselves.
The situation on the school’s Benson Street campus in central Monrovia is said to be similar.
The AME Zion University is said to provide one of the least wages in Liberia, where Bachelor degree faculty receive US$40, while
Master degree holders get US$50 and Phd holders are paid US$80.00 per course.
This news outlet has learned that the University is divided into three groups namely, Instructors that have no connection to the church which employees are fewer in number; while the second group comprised of those that are from the church; and the third group includes those that does not abide by any rules from the faculty association only listen to the president of the university.
Also the third group are those who graduated from the university and consider themselves as the most loyal people as they have to protect their Alma Mater but in reality they are the most corrupt instructors. This group does not abide by the faculty decisions. The only group that is alone are those that are not members of the church nor with the church respectively.
At the opening of school in November 2020, the administration realized that majority of the students were attending the institution on gratis without paying tuition.
African Methodist Episcopal Zion University claimed once instructors of the institution see their respective classes filled with students where they collect whatever money from the students, they never care to collect school fees at which when the institution really that they started putting students out for school fees even during graduation period.
Dr. Lartey has said that the administration is not owing instructors but they are also challenged with operational funds and building on Benson Street is being rent by them.
Liberian gov’t blamed
He also blamed the failure of his administration to pay instructors on government’s refusal to pay to their scholarship students tuition, J.J. Roberts, Ministry of state and the so many counties whose authority sent students at the institution and the most frustrating things is that there is no more subsidy being given to private institutions by government.
Despite of the huge challenges facing the institution, he said no instructor is on chain or tied to the institution and if instructors thing that they cannot make it the school challenge, they can easily leave.
“We are trying to transition from the traditional model to an aggressive revenue generation by July of this year at which time, they will be able to reduce the burden of salaries from their back,” AME Zion University President Dr. Lartey revealed.
“My main focus is on improving the facilities at Po-River where they will a modern computer laboratory for none students of institution to attend and obtain a certificate or diploma in computer from the institution.”
Dr. Lartey added that when he took over, the school has over three hundred instructors but he has cut it down to one hundred plus.
Narrating further, Dr. Lartey said, most of the students are owing huge amount of school fees which four hundred and six applied for this year graduation in May. But he said only one hundred and sixty-four have verified and if those who owing the school don’t pay, they will not be allowed to graduate and if this will be the smallest the graduation, it will be preferable then graduating students when they are not clear with their tuition.
At the end of this semester which will be ending in April of this year, the administration will be able to reduce their payroll obligations adding that if his institution was a corporation, then it has been declared bankrupt.
Another factor affecting the institution is that, students who owed the institution, will always leave to go to other university without transfer letter something he claimed in discussion with other universities heads to prevent that because all is done not to settle their financial obligations to the institution.
This coming semester slated in July, he said that no stone will be left unturned, because registration including tuition payment will be done online but some instructors of the institution said, that everyday talk which cannot be implemented.
But now, the biggest question hovering over the AME Zion University’s Po River and Benson Street campuses center on the Liberian adage: “dry dog sweet, but what will the instructors eat before the dog gets dry?