–Clarifies Number of Alien Employees
ArcelorMittal Liberia has clarified a claim widely circulating on social media that the Director General of the Civil Service Agency (CSA), Josiah Joekai, testified that 3,000 Indians are working with ArcelorMittal and are doing jobs that Liberians should be doing, describing the claim as incorrect.
According to ArcelorMittal, the CSA boss said, “Some of the jobs are jobs that Liberians should be doing,” and not all of the jobs for which the 3,000 work permits were issued. It is important to note that the number of aliens that work for ArcelorMittal as of 2024 is 728, according to the CSA Boss presentation.
On June 17, Nimba County Senator, Nya D. Twayen, made a Facebook post that was shared by many blogs, claiming that the Director General of the CSA boss testified at the Liberian Senate that 3,000 Indians are working at ArcelorMittal—doing jobs that Liberians should be doing.
Considering how widely the claim in this Facebook post has been shared on social media, authorities at ArcelorMittal said they decided to verify the claim by watching the video of the CSA boss’s appearance at the Senate on Tuesday.
Joekai’s appearance at the Liberia Senate on Tuesday, June 17, was based on a request by the Senate to provide analysis of the alien work permit report conducted by the CSA.
Wrote Senator Twayen on Facebook, “CSA boss testifying at the Senate: ‘there are 3,000 Indians working with Arcelor Mittal doing jobs that should be done by Liberians.”
However, after reviewing the video of the Senate’s Tuesday session, AML authorities said they found that at exactly 1:46:24 timestamp of the nearly 4-hour video recording of the Senate’s session, Nimba County Senator Nyan Twayen asked the CSA boss about the number of Indians given work permits in 2024.
The video footage of the conversation between Senator Twayen and CSA boss Jokai is as follows:
Senator Twayen: “Mr. DG, of the analysis you give, more than half of the foreigners that are in our country with work permits are Indians (51%). Were you able to allocate them to institutions?”
DG Joekai: “Sorry, … but I listed them per institution, Afcon for example, 3,319. I still remember that number.”
Senator Twayen: “How many persons make up the 51% constituting Indians?”
DG Joekai: “It’s 4,000.” (4625)
Senator Twayen: “out of the 4,000, how many are with AFCON if not Mittal?”
Pro-Temp Yongblee Karnga-Lawrence: “AFCON has 3,319 and Mittal has 1,895.”
[However, according to DG Joekai’s presentation, Arcelor Mittal has 728 aliens with work permits and Bea Mountain has 1,895.
Senator Twayen: “That’s where my interest is in this whole report, because in recent time, taking que from the basis lay by our caucus, we been doing some scrutiny of Arcelor Mittal operation in our county and Liberia as a whole, so I want to also know again of the more than 3,000 Afcon employees that are sub-contracted by Arcelor Mittal did you see the specific job requirement on their work permit?”
DG Joekai: “The job requirements are listed in the spreadsheet, and we can provide the disaggregated number to the Senate, but the summary is presented to you for easy understanding. But we have the spreadsheet with the number disaggregated.”
Senator Twayen: “So, could you just name the first three categories for me, and if those categories, are Liberians qualified to do some of those jobs?”
DG Joekai: “Yes, and we did the categories, we did the regular, the ECOWAS, the gratis.”
Senator Twayen: “Mr. DG sometime these questions are meant to reinforce to give a clearer understanding to our people to know what you presented, so it is not a lack of knowledge, so, I want to ask again: of the 3,000 Afcon employees, Indians, that are in ArcelorMittal concession area that are working for Afcon, within their work categories, are there jobs there that Liberians can do?”
DG Joekai: “That is correct, and I told you we have it disaggregated, and we can provide the listing.”
Meanwhile, ArcelorMittal Liberia has underscored that they are a part of the ArcelorMittal group, a global steel and mining company operating across 22 countries. On the other hand, AFCON, an infrastructure engineering and construction company, is a diversified Indian conglomerate that operates in Liberia as a subcontractor of ArcelorMittal Liberia.
