By Kebba Ansu Manneh
Four dismissed staff of the Plant Protection Unit (PPU) of Ministry of Agriculture has accused the Personnel Management Office (PMO) of acting wrongly in making the decision to dismiss them from the public service. Added that, PMO could have acted fairly to deliver justice in their case against the Ministry of Agriculture.
They made these disclosures on Saturday 18th June 2022, at a press conference held at FajiKunda.
Abubacarr Camara, agriculture officer, Alagie Gaye, agriculture officer, Musa Bojang, plant protection officer, and Lamin Jaiteh, plant protection officer were dismissed from the public service by the personnel management office (PMO) with effective 10th June 2022.
In letter addressed to the quadruple, the Personnel Management Office (PMO) reasoned that their decision is anchored on their refusal to report to their new posting position.
However, the quadruple is of the view that the PMO was informed wrongly in issuing them dismissal letters without taking adequate time to look into their letters, adding that the PMO failed to consider their letters and proceeded to act on the misinformation of the Department of Agriculture to affect their dismissal with a hastily written letter that was full of mistakes.
“We have our dismissal letters with us and there are a series of errors and then why these errors, especially on the designation of the officers. Like my designation is senior plant protection officer but on the letter is senior plant protection services, what happened why rush to have such mistakes,” Musa Badgie rhetorically asked?
He added: “It happens on all the letters, he (Lamin Jaiteh), is a plant protection officer but on the letter he is senior agricultural officer, so everything was done in a rush that’s why we are saying that our case was rushed.”
According to him, there reason for not reporting to their new posting position is because they were victimised for exposing the wrong dealings ongoing at the plant protection unit, arguing that all they did wrong was to exposed the activities of the Director and Deputy Director at the plant protection unit who were complicit of malpractices in one of the projects under their unit.
Badgie continued that their problems only started with the Ministry of Agriculture when they voiced out the due retirement time of the Director and Deputy Director of Plant protection Unit and their mismanagement of projects, adding that this truth they revealed about the circumstances at the Plant Protection Unit lead to their transfers to provinces and subsequent dismissal by the PMO.
“Their reason for dismissing us is because we did not report to our new posting positions and the reason is simple. We told them (Ministry Agriculture) we are not going there because simply their decision to transfer us was wrong,” said Musa Bojang, on behalf of his colleagues.
He added: “we told them the decision was wrong and if there is anything we did wrong is our decision to expose the truth. So, the truth was it was hurtful to everyone that was why they transferred us and we refused to go.”
They called on the Personnel Management Office to rescind its decision and thus launch a fresh investigation into their matters, while demanding immediate reinstatement and drop off all allegations meted against them.
“We feel that the PMO could have handled this issue in a different way because dismissal is the highest form of punishment in public service. If you are to dismiss someone the case requires much more attention than what we suspect has happened,” Musa Badgie further submitted.
He added: “We have very simple demands to make: first we want the truth to be established, second we want revocation of all wrongful decisions against us and thirdly, we want justice to prevail in this matter that we find ourselves in.