Harper port manager vows transformation 

This week, on Monday, a new management team took over the Port of Harper in Maryland County, urging workers there to unite, think Liberia, and build Liberia under this new administration.

By Patrick N. Mensah, Maryland County

Harper, Maryland County, April 19, 2024: The newly appointed Managing Director of the Port of Harper, Mr. A. Wah Kla Neufville, has vowed to transform the port.

During the official turning-over ceremony on Monday, 15 April 2024, Mr. Neufville assured the citizens and residents of Maryland County that he would move the port forward on a positive roadmap that focuses on unity, teamwork, and administrative best practices, among others.

The ceremony brought together local county officials, women, youths, and the Port of Harper employees.

At the ceremony, Mr. Neufville stated that it is important for employees, contractors, and port users to work together to make the port better as it used to be in the late 1970s and 80s.

Director Neufville said the Port of Harper is not for his hometown, Gbedeh (Grand Cavalla), nor for the people of Blejay (Whole Grayway), the hometown of the outgoing Director, William W. Wallace.

“We must work together to make this port great and better again. I will not condone any form of tribalism and discrimination,” he vowed.

“This port does not belong to any tribe but rather to the Liberian people, and as such, we should think Liberia and build Liberia in this new transition,” Director Neufville cautioned port staff.

“We need to make this port more functional than ever before through teamwork and by achieving our collective goals.

Neufville, a lecturer at the College of Engineering and Technology at William V. S. Tubman University in Harper, said corrupt practices and propaganda would not be tolerated in his leadership.

For his part, the Environmental and Safety Manager of the Port of Harper and outgone Officer-In-Charge, Mr. Stephen Russell, said he was responsible for taking care of the Port through the recommendation of the newly appointed director three weeks before he arrived in Harper.

“This port, excluding your new team of officers you brought, has forty-two employees. These employees spread across the six major departments, including the Liberia Sea Port Police (LSP), the Operations, Technical, Finance, and the Environmental and Safety Departments,” Mr. Russell said.

He explained that regardless of your role at the Port of Harper, you earn the same salary, except for the senior management staff.

Russell informed Neufville that this was a cardinal issue that he was inheriting.

He pleaded, “We hope that you will look at it and talk with the MD and others in Monrovia to regularize the salary structure in the Port of Harper.”

According to Russell, some supervisors and statisticians, including other positions with higher responsibilities, are paid a flat rate.

Russell lamented that the Security Department has twelve personnel, and only the commander and his deputy are not paid at a flat rate, among others.

Mr. Russell, who also manages the Environmental Department of fourteen workers, narrated that eleven of those in that department are employed, while the remaining three are volunteers.

He noted that salary has made the situation at the port worrisome and urged that the new director transform it.

Due to other constraints at the port, he said the port financial records are on the finance officer’s personal laptop.