…as suspended NaFAA DG, Glassco, seeks apology, compensation
By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA–The Community Court of Justice of the ECOWAS, on Monday, okayed for hearing, a suit seeking to compel the government of Liberia to pay $10million damages over alleged unlawful suspension of the Director General of its National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority, NaFAA, Ms. Emma Metieh Glassco.
The suit, marked: ECW/CCJ/APP/19/25, was filed by Glassco’s team of lawyers led by a former Chief Justice of Liberia, Kabineh Ja’nneh and Mr. Sayma Cephus.
The Applicant told the court that she was arbitrarily suspended from office in February by President Joseph Boakai over alleged “financial inefficiency.”
Insisting that her suspension did not follow the due process of the law, the Applicant averred that she was neither investigated nor found culpable by any anti-corruption agency in the country.
She told the court that her unceremonious removal from office lowered her reputation in the eyes of the public, saying it potrayed her as someone that lacked integrity.
The Republic of Liberia was cited as the sole Respondent in the matter that was lodged at the Registry of the court in Abuja.
Specifically, the Applicant is among other things, praying the regional court for a monetary award in the amount of $10million, as compensation for “multiple injuries suffered, state-organized harassment, emotional and psychological trauma, public humiliation, false stigmatization, which Applicant has suffered and continues to suffer.”
‘An order to Respondent to pay special damages to Applicant in the amount not less than USD 175,000.00 (One Hundred Seventy Five Thousand United States Dollars) for the unexpired term of Applicants four years contract to address the unnecessary financial hardships imposed on Applicant and family.
As well as, “a declaration that the Respondent’s conduct in removing Applicant was wrong and constituted a gross violation of the tenure law of the Respondent Republic; and by that wrong, Applicant has suffered immeasurable injuries, both in professional standing and psychological outlook; hence, Applicant be compensamed with an amount not less than USD5, 000,000.00 (Five Million United States Dollars.”
The Respondent further wants the Respondent to tender a public apology, to be printed in all newspapers, aired in all radio and TV stations and in Liberia’s official website, “for falsely portraying the Applicant as corrupt, thereby subjecting her to all sort of fictitious investigation and making Applicant to become a complete outcast and a public enemy number one unjustifiably in her own country without evidence.”
More so, the Applicant prayed the court to order the Respondent to pay the sum of $250, 000 to cover the cost of the litigation.
Meanwhile, no date has been fixed for the matter to be heard.
The post ECOWAS Court okays hearing of $10m suit against Liberia appeared first on Vanguard News.
