MONROVIA, Montserrado – In interviews with several top officials of the General Services Agency, it has been revealed that the agency, which ensures that government assets are managed properly, does not have written guidelines for the use of government vehicles.

Much of the reason is due to an unwillingness on the part of ministers and other top officials to relinquish privileges they and their employees currently enjoy.

In April of this year, Mary Broh, the Director General of the GSA, said she would start to publicly shame government officials who misused vehicles by publishing their names in newspapers. Since she made the announcement, there has not been evidence that her agency has followed through on this directive nor has a clear list of what constitutes misuse and abuse been publicized.

Several top officials at the agency, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to the press, admitted that there was no longer a specific rulebook for vehicles, although one was developed many years back, which they commonly referred to as the “dos and don’ts.”

One official said although a written policy does not exist specifically for vehicles, the “rules for damaging and misusing government property apply across the board; it doesn’t need to be just vehicles.”

Another said there were common assumptions by which all those using government vehicles should abide. “You can’t carry it to entertainment spots,” the official added, before listing a host of other locations and activities that were forbidden. These included funerals, weddings, using government vehicles for private business, and allowing use by a family member.

When asked whether it was acceptable to use a government vehicle for meal breaks, the official conceded that there may be some unclear scenarios that a written rulebook would help clarify.

The official said the lack of a written policy document would make it difficult to terminate employees for violating those unwritten policies. “You could take the offender to court, and the person could win, because there’s no defined policy,” they added. “We always talk verbally, but it’s not on the books. Management or the cabinet should do something like that and agencies should enforce it.”

Even the Civil Service Standing Orders document has only one rule that could be applied to misuse and abuse of vehicles. The document is provided to human resources departments of all government agencies for distribution to employees. That clause, contained in Section 4.22f, is one sentence that says misuse and abuse of government property would result in a penalty. However, it did not clarify what constituted misuse or abuse.

When The Bush Chicken initially inquired from Mary Broh about the existence of written rules for custodians of government vehicles, we did not receive a response immediately. The director general later acknowledged that this area was politically untouchable. Broh blamed the stubbornness of top government officials to abide by the rules.

She recounted how when she had initially proposed a policy that all government vehicles be parked at 8 p.m., she received a lot of pushback from people who wanted to keep those privileges. “Did you hear the noise behind me?” she said.

Broh said she was “picking her battles” by avoiding coming up with the rules despite her prior statements that she would establish and enforce those rules.

Even without the explicit rules, Broh said she continues to seize the license plates of vehicles that are being misused. When she does that, she usually receives a call from a top official pleading on the offending official’s behalf.

The head of the GSA mentioned that she also believes that vehicles being used by ministers should be marked on the outside as government property. Ministers have resisted coding the vehicles externally because they claim it would make them easier to recognize and, therefore, less safe. Broh contends that because the ministers’ vehicles are not branded on the outside, they were more difficult to identify when being misused or abused.

She concluded that the issue was just not worth pursuing. “I almost got killed here,” she said. “I pick my battles with the government.”

Broh has made her mark in government as a strong-willed public servant who has made government effective by reducing corruption and improving efficiencies. As head of the Passport Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she significantly reduced the number of days for applicants to receive passports. In her appointment as Acting Mayor of Monrovia, she oversaw several beautification initiatives and improved sanitation, even instituting a monthly community cleanup. While she still serves as Director General of the GSA, Broh has now also been appointed as head of a Special Presidential Task Force to clean up Monrovia and the surrounding areas.

Featured photo: Jeff Topham