A meeting on Thursday, June 18, 2026 between the Minister of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) and team, former employees of erstwhile National Iron Ore Company (NIOC), headed by James Marfalon, and representatives of Guthric Plantation Company was deferred to a later date. The meeting comes following years of appeals from former NIOC workers to the Government of Liberia (GoL) to get their severance pay and benefits owed them.
The planned meeting with Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan and team, the erstwhile NIOC and Guthric Plantation Company employees, which was to be held in the conference room of Finance Ministry, was abruptly deferred to an unspecified time owing to the tight engagement of the minister with the departing International Monetary Fund (IMF) representative to Liberia at a local hotel, whose official tour of duty in the country has ended, this paper has reliably learned.
Having waited for several hours in the conference room on the 10th floor at the ministry for the meeting, the Deputy Minister for Debt Management, Dehpue Y. Zuo, told the delegation that their meeting with his boss and team would not take place due his engagement with the IMF official.
Deputy Minister Zuo then assured the NIOC and Guthric Plantation former workers that the meeting would be rescheduled, at which time the minister would listen to their plights in order to find an amicable solution to their documented claims for severance pay and benefits.
According to reports, the Government of Liberia (GOL) owes the former 1,820 NIOC workers severance pay and benefits in the tone of US$20,365,639 (twenty million three hundred sixty-five thousand six hundred thirty-nine United States dollars) for services rendered the defunct NIOC, with government owning at least 85% in share prior to the closure of the mining company in 1985.
However, the Hot Pepper has not ascertained how much the government owes the ex-Guthric Plantation workers or how many persons are opting for their severance pay and benefits from the government.
Meanwhile, the erstwhile NIOC and Guthric Plantation workers have renewed their appeal to the government, through Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan, to see reason to pay their severance pay and benefits owed them following the closure of both multi-million dollars companies over the years, as their pay and benefits are yet to be settled by the government.
They are craving that Minister Ngafuan and team would look into their case and find a solution to their plight, as they do not want to resort to protest in demand of their severance pay and benefits.
It can be recalled that at least four former employees of the NIOC died out of frustration over delays by the government to look into the matter of paying their severance pay and benefits.
David Johnson, a former worker of NIOC, killed himself nine years ago over the closure of the defunct mining company by drinking poison, and died upon arrival at the Bomi Hospital in 1994. In 2022, oldman Karmon Gbandy went on days of hunger strike by locking himself up in his room in Mano River and reportedly died. These are a few names of ex-workers who have died of frustration, having waited for their pay and benefits to no avail.
It was also reported that after Western Cluster mining company succeeded NIOC operations, ex-President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf set up a special committee, headed by current Bomi County Senator, Edwin Melvin Snowe and Senator J. Alex Tyler to look into the fulfilment of government’s commitment to settling the NIOC former employees’ severance pay and benefits which, to date, has not materialized.
