President Joe Boakai’s government is gradually taking shape with four days in office with the nomination of 12 individuals to serve in cabinet amidst controversy over credentials and snubbing of the youthful generation.
Here, the Oracle News Daily take a close look at the nominees with respect to qualification and public performance records.
| Ministry | Nominee | About | Comment/Record |
| Minister of State for Presidential Affairs | Sylvester Grigsby
Minister |
A career diplomat of over 40 years, Grigsby has multiple administration from the Doe era to current. He served the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in various positions including deputy for foreign affairs, deputy for International
Cooperation and Economic Integration and ambassadorial roles. He was Johnson-Sirleaf ‘s last minister of state and Chief of Office staff.
|
He played a role in the 2011 $150,000 fraudulent
sale of diplomatic credentials to Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger. |
| Minister of Finance and Development
Planning |
Boima Kamara | Kamara Served as Johnson Sirleaf Finance Minister between 2016-18. He studied financial economics at John Hopkins University in the United States.
Prior to his 2016 appointment he served as deputy governor for economic affairs at the Central Bank of Liberia.
|
Good to go |
| Office of the President | Samuel Kofi Woods
National Security Advisor |
Born May 1, 1964, Woods is a Liberian human rights activist, journalist, politician and academic. In 1994, he founded the Forefront Organization, which documented human rights abuses during the Second Liberian Civil War. In 1991, he headed the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission. In 2006, Woods became the
Minister of Labor under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, only to become Minister of Public Works in 2009 following a cabinet shake-up. He won the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1994 and received the Pope’s human |
Good to go |
| rights medal. Woods graduated with a Master of Arts in Development Studies, and a specialization International
Law and Organization for Development at the International Institute of Social Studies under Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Hague, Netherlands. As National security advisor he will be prime policy negotiator. |
|||
| Liberia National Police | Gregory Coleman Inspector General | Coleman is a 2016 graduate of the one-year Mid-Career
Master in Public Administration program at the Kennedy School. The career law enforcement professional is the founder of Sustainable Initiatives International (SII), which works to address community concerns. Previously, Gregory was the last Inspector General of the Liberia National Police under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. He served as Chairman of the West African Police Chiefs Committee (WAPCO), and DirectorGeneral of the National Bureau of Concessions under President Weah.
|
He has been a subject of corruption investigation by the Liberia Anti Corruption Commission. Investigators raised questions about his financial stewardship at the LNP and NBC. |
| Executive Mansion | Sam Gaye
Director, Executive Protection Service |
Sam Gaye is an American educated intelligence professional. He was part of US DEA four-year undercover operation that triggered one of the biggest global drug bust, occurring in Liberia in 2009, involving Columbian and Nigerian drugs dealers. He headed the EPS during Johnson Sirleaf regime.
Following that operation this is how the UK Guardian profiles him: |
Good togo |
| Sam Gaye served as a foot soldier in this expanded war. He is a bald man with kindly eyes and a quiet demeanour, closer in image to a laid-back school principal than a cop. Despite that unassuming persona – or perhaps because of it – Gaye has successfully navigated danger time and again throughout his career, having run dozens of undercover operations for the DEA. He has often played the role of a drug dealer himself.
Born in Liberia, Gaye moved to the United States when he was 20, and went to college in Philadelphia before joining the DEA 11 years later, in 1987. In one of his first cases, he posed as a corrupt African diplomat and negotiated a fake drug deal with a Dominican drug trafficker and his aide, a Washington, DC cop, at a parking lot in DC. In 1989, upon instructions from his supervisor, Gaye had an informant show up near the White House and sell him a bag of cocaine. He learned later that the operation had been requested by White House officials who wanted the bag as a prop for a speech by President George HW Bush about the nation’s fight against drugs. In the early 90s, Gaye was posted to Nigeria to track down fugitives and leads relating to cases the DEA was pursuing in the United States. A decade later, in 2005, after stints in Haiti and Puerto Rico, Gaye returned to Nigeria for a |
|||
| second posting to help the DEA fight an alarming trend. | |||
| Ministry of Foreign Affairs | Sara Beysolow
Nyanti Minister
|
Sara, is an experienced professional. On Dec. 6, 2021
United Nations Secretary- General António Guterres announced the appointment of Sara Beysolow Nyanti as his Deputy Special Representative in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and Resident Coordinator in South Sudan. Ms. Nyanti also served as Humanitarian Coordinator. This is how the United Nations profiles her: Ms. Nyanti brings more than 20 years of experience in international development and humanitarian affairs including in conflict and post-conflict settings, most recently serving as Resident Coordinator in Nepal (2021). She also served as United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Representative in Yemen (2019-2020) and in The Gambia (2015-2017). Prior to her senior-level representational roles, she served in numerous technical capacities in UNICEF and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) related to setting up systems for large scale grant management, social protection/cash transfers, HIV/AIDS, health and education. Before joining the United Nations in Liberia where she worked during the conflict and transitional government |
President Joseph Boakai’s Foreign Minister nominee’s academic credentials she has used for more than two decades to gain top public and private sector jobs have now come into question.
Sara’s Cuttington undergraduate degree and graduate degree from New Charter University are marked in red facing legitimacy inquest. It would be a career meltdown should her accusers match evidence to accusations.
|
| periods, Ms. Nyanti held senior positions in the Ministry of Health of the Government of Liberia (1999-2003). She served as the Director of the National AIDS Control Programme and prior to that, she served as Special Assistant to the Minister of Health.
Ms. Nyanti holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the New Charter University, USA. She most recently completed a second Master’s in Management and Leadership from Western Governors University, USA; and is an accredited Broker with the United Kingdom-based international Partnership Broker Association managing and developing collaboration processes. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Transformational Leadership. |
|||
| Ministry of
Agriculture
|
Dr. J. Alexander Neatah, Minister | No public information | |
| Ministry of
Commerce & Industry |
Amin Modad, Minister | Educated in the United States with MBA and experience working with institutions such as CitiGroup and HSBC the nominee served as Senior Policy Advisor to the
Chairman of the National Investment Commission, and three consecutive Ministers of Commerce & Industry (between 2006 and 2010). He’s Liberia’s first representative to the World Trade Organization. During the Sirleaf administration Modad headed the multi-donor funded Enhanced Integrated Framework Program that was responsible for coordinating |
Modad is a businessman and there’s pontential risk for conflict of interest. |
| many national reforms and the development of key policies across agencies including the Investment Guide, National
Investment Incentive Code, Trade & Industrial Policies, Liberia’s Public Private Partnership that gave birth to the LBBF (Liberia Better Business Forum).
|
|||
| Ministry of Education
|
Dr. Jarso Jallah Saygbe, Minister | Dr. Jarso Jallah Saygbe currently serves as Associate Vice President (AVP) for the
Office of Student Success at Delaware State University. During the Sirleaf administration she served in the following positions: Deputy Director General, Liberia Institute of Public Administration (LIPA), former consultant, Ministry of Education Ed.D. – Educational Leadership – Delaware State University. M.A. – Counseling – Rhode Island College,B.A. – Communication and Sociology – Rhode Island College
|
Good to go |
| Ministry of Health
|
Dr. Louise Kpoto, Minister | Dr. Louise Kpoto is Liberian scientist. She earned a D octor of Medicine from the A. M. Dogliotti College of Medicine at the University of Liberia, Master of Medicine in Obstetrics and Gynecology from the University of Nairobi and PhD in Tropical Medicine from the University of Liverpool, She also earned a
Master of Public Health from Tulane University’s School of Public Health, showcasing her holistic approach to healthcare. |
Good to go |
| She holds the record as the first Fertility Specialist in
Liberia skilled in Advanced Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART), a Merck Foundation Alumni.
|
|||
| Liberia Revenue
Authority
|
Dorbor Jallah,
Commissioner General, |
Jallah served as Executive
Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission (PPCC) during the Weah administration before joining The Carter Center as its Country Representative. He earned a Bachelor of Science, Mathematics, and Physics from the University of Liberia, The nominee studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a SPURS Certificate in Technology and Management and a Master of Engineering, Logistics, and Supply Chain Management.
|
He appears not to have the qualification for the job.
The 2013 Act creating the Liberia Revenue Authority stipulates nominees shall be persons with advance of professional degrees in finance, accounting, economics, public policy, administration, taxation, law or other discipline related to tax administration.
|
| Drug Enforcement Agency | Abraham Kromah, Director | Kromah is former Deputy
Inspector General for Operations at the Liberia National Police during the Sirleaf administration. He is a prominent figure within the country’s security and law enforcement sector. He served as Chief of Staff of the Armed Force of Liberia during civil war power sharing government involving rebel groups. He’s credited for devotion to duty. Kromah takes no captive. |
He’s often accused of rights violation on the line of duties.
In 2015, President Sirleafdismissed Abraham Kromah and three others at the Liberia National Police |
