GANTA, Nimba – After serving as Acting County Education Officer for 90 days, Moses Dologbay has been appointed by the Ministry of Education as permanent CEO for Nimba.

Dologbay previously served as District Education Officer for Saclepea. His appointment comes in the wake of the reassignment of the previous CEO after a scandal related to ghost names on the Ministry of Education’s payroll.

In November 2015, the ministry instituted a national biometric identification card system for all public schools teachers in the country. The measure aimed to reduce fraud associated with the payroll.

At the close of this exercise in Nimba, it was alleged that the then CEO of Nimba, Wleh T. Selah, had fraudulently placed names of nonexistent individuals on the payroll.

Information gathered by a joint team from the Ministries of Education and Finance during the biometric exercise suggested that Selah had diverted the salaries from those accounts for his personal use.

George S. Wuo, a Regional Education Officer of Region Two (Bong, Lofa, Nimba, Grand Bassa and River Cess Counties), said the investigation did not find Selah liable.

Wuo said Selah would be reinstated as an employee of the Ministry of Education, but would work in a different capacity.

During the period of the investigation, Dologbay was appointed to serve as Acting CEO of Nimba. He took on this assignment in November of last year.

After undergoing what was termed as a three months probationary period, Wuo said Dologbay is now set to take on as CEO of Nimba. He disclosed this information to a crew of journalists in Ganta recently while serving as guest speaker of the Geolanda Public School Student’s inaugural program.

“It is not me as an individual, but it is the Ministry of Education that has decided to make Mr. Moses Dologbay as CEO of Nimba,” Wuo said. “In the next few days, he will be receiving his letter from the ministry as the CEO of Nimba County. So, that acting name will be off.”

When questioned about his thoughts on the latest developments, Dologbay said, “We work at the will and pleasure of our bosses, especially the Minister and the [Regional Education Officer].”

He said during his time as Acting CEO, he had demonstrated that he had the qualifications and experiences to administrate the county’s educational affairs.

“I am able to be the proper CEO if they are in the position to give me a letter of appointment,” he added.

Dologbay said his priority would be to engage the Ministry to assign more teachers in Nimba for science courses.

He said during his time as Acting CEO, he saw a demonstrated need for instructors in Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry in all of the public high schools.