Margibi County Senator J. Emmanuel Nuquay has issued a sharp warning over Liberia’s heavy reliance on volunteer teachers and health workers, describing the practice as a serious governance failure that threatens effective public service delivery and long-term national development.
Addressing his colleagues on Tuesday during the third sitting of the Liberian Senate following the legislative recess, Senator Nuquay said thousands of trained and qualified professionals across the country are performing full-time duties without formal employment status, consistent salaries, or job security.
The lawmaker argued that the widespread use of unpaid and uncertain labor is steadily eroding morale among public service workers and weakening the sustainability of critical sectors, particularly health care and education.
“These are professionals who show up every day, provide essential services, and hold our communities together, yet they remain unpaid and unrecognized by the system,” Nuquay told the Senate. “This situation is not only unjust—it is a dangerous foundation for any serious development agenda.”
Citing Margibi County’s District Number Five as a clear example, Nuquay said the absence of proper employment conditions has led to high attrition rates and declining efficiency among volunteer workers. He explained that many are forced to abandon their posts in search of stable income, leaving already vulnerable communities without reliable access to health and educational services.
The senator also took aim at Liberia’s highly centralized employment structure, which he said systematically excludes frontline workers who are actively serving in communities but remain outside the national payroll.
“There are teachers and health workers in remote areas who are doing government work every single day, yet their names do not exist on the payroll,” he said. “That tells us the system itself is broken.”
As a corrective measure, Senator Nuquay called for the decentralization of government employment processes, arguing that empowering local authorities to manage and verify staffing would improve transparency, fairness, and accountability.
He maintained that decentralizing the employment list would make it easier to identify workers actually delivering services on the ground and ensure they are formally employed and properly compensated.
Urging both the Legislature and the Executive Branch to act with urgency, Nuquay warned that Liberia cannot claim to pursue sustainable development while depending on an unpaid and insecure workforce to deliver its most essential public services.
His remarks have reignited a national conversation around the treatment of volunteer workers and underscored growing calls for comprehensive civil service reform aimed at strengthening governance, restoring dignity to public service, and improving service delivery nationwide.
