Unions Demand Liberian Government Account for Funds as Ebola Outbreak Nears End

Liberia is preparing to be declared Ebola-free later this week. Unions and civic society groups are beginning to question how the government spent money allocated to fight the outbreak.

Since the Ebola outbreak began in 2014, more than 4,800 Liberians died from the disease. The country was declared Ebola-free in May, but it re-emerged weeks later.

International donors pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to help the impoverished country fight the deadly disease.

Lamii Kpargoi, the head of civil society group Liberia Media Center, said his group has launched a project to account for how that money was spent.

"We are looking at every funding that came in to respond to the Ebola outbreak, whether it's during the actual outbreak or during the post-outbreak situation," said Kpargoi.

Health workers have recently taken to the streets of the capital, Monrovia, saying they have not been paid by the government for work they did during the outbreak, such as contact tracing, where they find people who came into contact with Ebola patients.

George Williams, secretary general of the National Health Workers Association of Liberia, said, "The government said they were paying health workers salaries of $500, salaries plus incentives. And that is not the reality."

Aldolphus Yeaih, a health officer for Margibi County outside the capital, said the local government relies on foreign donors to pay the salaries of its volunteers and contact tracers' money it has not received.

"We do not have the resource to pay contact tracers, we have not paid contract tracers," said Yeaih.

Source: Medindia