Africa-Press – Liberia. President George M. Weah has relieved Deputy Foreign Minister Henry Fahnbulleh of his position with immediate effect.
The Liberian Chief Executive took the decision on Wednesday, November 8, 2023, and attributed the decision to “administrative reasons”.
Fahnbulleh, a former Representative of District #4 Montserrado County, and a stalwart of the former ruling Unity Party, served in the position of Deputy Foreign Minister since 2020, when he was appointed by the Liberian leader.
Fahnbulleh’s dismissal comes just two days after he was heard on a phone call, defending the right of a female staffer of Liberia’s Permanent Mission.
He answered a video call placed to him by the staffer, Ms. Wynee Cummings, who claims she was sexually assaulted by Foreign Minister Dee Maxwell Saah Kemayah. In September 2020, Cummings, who has worked at the office of the Permanent Mission, filed a sexual harassment complaint against Kemayah, who was Liberia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York at the time of the complaint.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims that there is an investigation ongoing, though it has been more than forty-eight months since Cummings filed her complaint.
On Monday, November 6, 2023, Cummings showed up at the office of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Liberia to the United Nations, claiming she was still assigned there as an employee of the Government of Liberia and had shown up for work. However, she was met with stiff resistance when the officials of the Mission called officers of the New York Police Department to remove Cummings from the building.
In the hallway just outside the office of the Permanent Mission, Cummings started a Facebook Live video recording of her interaction with the two police officers who responded to the Mission’s call. In an effort to validate her claims of employment at the Permanent Mission, she told the cops she was calling the President of Liberia to attest to the cops that she is employed at the Mission. It is not clear whether she really called the President. However, she placed a video call to Deputy Minister Fahnbulleh who, she told the cops, had seniority over the officials of the Permanent Mission.
During the call, she told Fahnbulleh that Maggie Gurley Gibson, the Third Secretary at the Permanent Mission, called the police on her, claiming that she (Cummings) is not a staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and not authorized to be in the building housing the Permanent Mission.
“My name is Henry B. Fahnbulleh, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs,” Fahnbulleh said, introducing himself to one of the cops over the video call. The cop asked to see his identification and he obliged, displaying his official Foreign Ministry identification card over the video call.
As the cop was suggesting that Fahnbulleh talk with the officials of the Permanent Mission to let Cummings have access to the premises, Fahnbulleh began to explain.
“There’s a complaint against the Minister,” the Deputy Foreign Minister said. “I think the U.S. State Department, everyone, is aware. And I supervise the Foreign Mission and the investigation is ongoing. This is a matter of reprisal against someone who has lodged a complaint of harassment, sexual intimidation and exploitation. So the matter is registered.”
“So why would the secretaries and everybody here not let her in, then,” the cop asked.
“They are operating at the behest of the alleged perpetrator,” Fahnbulleh replied.
“I can’t force them to let her in,” the cop told Fahnbulleh.
“This is not a police matter. No one is breaking anything, no one is hurting anybody, you understand. So she has the right to serve her country,” Fahnbulleh told the cops in Cummings’ defense.
The cop asked if Cummings would consider working from home in order to avoid confrontation. In response, Cummings alleged that the office staff “jumped me to fight in the office” and, this time, “I will fight back”.
Fahnbulleh then offered some suggestions to Cummings about how to approach the situation — which was not very audible — and apparently that was the end of the video call.
Cummings said that she had also sent a message to President George Manneh Weah, saying that the officials of the Permanent Mission had called the cops to arrest her.
The cop who spoke with Deputy Minister Fahnbulleh was granted access to the office of the Permanent Mission to speak with the officials, but their conversation was not disclosed.
Meanwhile, on Cummings’ live video, the cops told her they were not there to arrest her, only to “escort” her out of the building. But she insisted that she would stay in the hallway just outside the office of the Permanent Mission.
Foreign Minister Kemayah has categorically denied the allegations leveled against him by Cummings.
“You’ll have to arrest me,” Cummings told the cops. “It’s injustice. [They have] no right,” she said in tears.
In a lengthy statement issued yesterday, Cummings said: “For the last six (6) months, Minister Kemayah has refused to authorize my salary payments and ordered that I be removed from payroll. However, for service to country, I have continued to go to work regularly with the hope that all the complaints made to senior officials of government in Monrovia regarding my treatment at the Permanent Mission in the hands of Minister Kemayah and cronies will yield fruitful results. Also, quite recently, he ordered that I be prevented from entering the office. To date, all appeals to address my situation have fallen on deaf ears as I have not received a penny of my salary owed me.”
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