EPA BOSS TARPEH ACCUSED OF MASSIVE CORRUPTION, NEPOTISM AND FAVORITISM AS LIBERIAN JOURNALIST YATES

Hon. Wilson Tarpeh

Monrovia-September 27, 2021: Investigative Liberian Journalist Charles Yates has reported that the Executive Director of the country Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Prof. Wilson Tarpeh has come under severe criticisms for what employees of the agency described as bad and ineffective leadership style.

According to journalist Yates report, Hon. Tarpeh is being accused by some employees of the EPA of massive corruption, nepotism and favoritism. Something they said is hampering the working environment of the agency. The aggrieved workers who confided in us lamented that the Executive Director has not been able to raise revenue for the government for nearly a year now since he took over at the institution.

The workers disclosed that the EPA has the ability to raise massive revenue but the present of Tarpeh over the institution is killing institution potential. They accused the ED of diverting fines that should be paid to government account to his personal benefit. “The EPA is no longer fining violators for compliances violation but rather compromising with the violators for personal benefits. For example, the executive director will call the violators in his office to compromise with them rather for them to put the fines in gov’t account. ” He will tell the people to find him something and leave but he wouldn’t fine them,” the aggrieved workers alleged..

He continue, “just recently a vessel wrote the EPA that they wanted to dispose some waste in liberia and they wanted the EPA to designate a place for the disposal of the waste in Buchanan.. we were expecting some huge about of money to be paid to gov’t account for that purpose but to our surprise the ED informed some senior staff that the vessel has cancelled the request to dump the waste in Liberia. It is only because he has compromised with the vessel people and diverted the fees to his personal use. There is no way the vessel could cancelled the request because they were coming to Buchanan Port from Togo-Lome Port and they needed to dispose those waste onboard the vessel in order to create space for the iron ore they were coming to upload from Mittal Steel, the source explained. Explaining further the source when on, ” We want to believe that the ED took the money from the vessel and made them to dispose their waste somewhere in the water alone the port of Buchanan and we are also suspecting that he did this with support from the coast guard team of the AFL”, ..

Our source also disclosed that the ED has cancelled all senior staff meeting because he doesn’t want to be engaged by his staff. And has replace it with senior management meeting that include his supporters and loyalists. Professor Tarpeh was also accused of removing all technocrats from the senior management team meeting and replace them with non technocrats.. Our source revealed that the ED has awarded one of his sons a full scholarship on the EPA to go do his master and PhD…he brought in his son (James Tarpeh) to work at the EPA with no experience and in less than six months he send the man on a EPA scholarship to go do his master and PhD. “He has sidelined the operational department of the EPA, and he no longer regards that department..this is the department that used to raise money for the instruction” thee source stated.. When quizzed if he is aware of these allegations emulating from the EPA , the Deputy ED, Randall Dobayou said he do not want to speak to the matter and he pleaded with INTEGRITY WATCH to forget about the story. He said he do not want people to misinterpret his position. “On the record , i will ask you to please forget about this story Charles before people say i am the one trying to undermine my boss . I dont want to speak to this situation,” he concluded.

Fo his part, when contacted the man in the center of these allegations, Professor Wilson Tarpeh declined to speak to the matter but rather warned our investigation not to pay attention to people who he accused of not wanting to see him in the gov’t. Professor Tarpeh recalled that since his appointment in the Weah-Led administration there are some people who have been fighting him because they feel intimidated by his presence in the gov’t. He also challenge those who are making these allegations to provide proofs to what they are alleging before he will address the allegations. … He further confirmed that most of the allegations we confronted him with were brought in the EPA worker’s Chartroom by some staffers .. “i know where these allegations are coming from because all what you just stated here to me were brought out by one of my staffs” he asserted..

Courtesy of Charles Yates