Claim: The Information Minister says he can’t see nor talk to the President; overall no money to run his Ministry( MICAT).
Source: Drunk-News
Full text: “ Social media blog named Drunk News on December 21, 2022 posted that Information Minister Legerhood Rennie said that he can’tsee nor talk to the President, overall, no money to run his Ministry of Information Cultural Affairs and Tourism ( MICAT).”
The post made by Drunk-News attracted 206 likes, 93 comments, and 138 shares.
Minister Ledgerhood Rennie was appointed on October 1, 2020, taking over from Lenn Eugene Nagbe, now Commissioner General of Liberia’s Maritime Authority.
Recently, the Ministry has been criticized for failing to pay its workers after its former Minister Eugene Fahngon took to Facebook to say that it was paying as low as US$45.00 and witch-hunting workers.
The workers protested at the Ministry in November of 2022 over Salary Deductions.
November 14, 2022, release said the protest action is not the making of the Ministry’s senior management team.
It is instead the result of a long-standing salary disparity with MICAT’s Payroll.
Did the Minister Say No Money run MICAT?
When TSM contacted Minister Rennie via WhatsApp to verify, he termed the entire post rubbish.
TSM also sent him a video, but Minister Rennie did not respond even though he read the message via WhatsApp.
However, in the video of a live interview with the Minister on OK Morning Rush on December 21, 2022, Rennie was squarely heard complaining of the lack of support to run the affairs at the Minister of Information, Cultural Affairs, and Tourism.
“We are struggling to carry out our mandate; it means that what we expect to have to be able to do what is expected of us has not been forthcoming.”
He continues, ” just to be frank, some of the criticism that we get comes from the fact that we just do not have it to do what is expected of us.”
“The job is difficult now because of the lack of support,”
“So it seems difficult from the outside, but it is not a difficult job when you have the support you need to get.”
Minister Rennie furthered, “When you employ a coach, you give him the mandate to qualify a team for a particular tournament.”
“Most times, people expect that I should be defending the government against things that have been said about the government; What the government is doing and how they are doing it, fair enough, but how do I do it; what is the budget that supports it?”
Did the Minister Say He Couldn’t See or Talk to the President?
The post by Drunk News of the Minister not seeing or talking with the President is partly true. The Minister did say in the interview, “I want to have a meeting with the president because I do not believe he is so aware of what is going on.”
When quizzed by the interviewer that he should have unhindered access to the President, he said, “Yes, but we are in a political world, and certain things happened behind the scenes, so I do not want to talk about it.”
Conclusion: Following our investigations, the post by Drunk News is Partly True. The information about Minister Rennie saying he cannot see nor talk to the President is partly true. At the same time, the information about the Minister on the lack of funds to run MICAT is True.
By: R. Joyclyn Wea, r.joyclynwea@gmail.com
