MONROVIA – Liberian president George Weah has with immediate effect dismissed his clergy friend Bishop John Allan Klayee, as Managing Director of the Liberia Airport Authority (LAA).
Weah, himself a preacher man, dismissed Bishop Klayee of the Jubilee Praise and Worship Center [church] located on the Old Road, Sinkor, Monrovia, for what the Executive Mansion attributes to administrative reasons.
The Executive Mansion announced Tuesday, that President Weah, early on the same day, had parted company with his clergyman of a managing director, Bishop Klayee.
A statement released by the Executive Mansion disclosed that LAA’s deputy Managing Director for Administration, Martin Hayes, will act in place of Klayee, pending President Weah’s appointment of a replacement for the dismissed Bishop.
Prior to Bishop Klayee’s dismissal, unconfirmed reports were rife that operations at the LAA were beclouded by alleged gross administrative ineptitude and rampant corruption.
Under dismissed MD Klayee, the LAA experienced alleged bad labor practice, with the LAA Management on numerous occasions being in salary arrears to its employees.
The dismissed LAA boss among others; stand accused of practicing nepotism, with multiple accusations being hurled at Bishop Klayee, for allegedly influencing the employment of members of his family and his church at the time. Klay, however, refuted the allegations of indulging in nepotism, terming it as the handiwork of detractors.
But in April, the Plenary of the House of Representatives summoned Klayee, in his capacity as Managing Director of the LAA, to answer to lawmakers’ inquest regarding outsourcing of cargo handling at the RIA, and allegations of his alleged nepotistic practices at the entity.
The lawmakers at the time also probed Klayee over the LAA’s inability to have settled RIA employees’ salary arrears being delayed at the time for over five months.
Recently, it was reported that under the watch of LAA, at Liberia’s lone international airport, the Roberts International Airport (RIA), the Government of Liberia has collected and continues to collect millions of United States dollars as COVID-19 testing fees, unaccounted for.
The dismissed LAA boss, Bishop Klayee, has for years preached the gospel of Jesus Christ and he presides over the Jubilee Praise and Worship Center, while his former boss President Weah is a preacher man, who has delivered sermons severally at his Forky Jlaleh Family Fellowship Church.
President Weah, a retired footballer turned politician, three years ago, added onto himself another role of being a clergyman, as he preached and dedicated a family-founded church, the Forky Jlaleh Family Fellowship Church, during Watch Night Service on the eve of New Year, in 2018.
On January 1, 2019, few minutes after 12 midnight, Weah cladded in a white priestly African gown while dedicating the church edifice he built that is said to be the dream of his deceased grandmother said, “now, we are in the New Year, let me in the name of Jesus, today [January 1] 2019, I am pleased, as I dedicate the Forky Jlaleh Family Fellowship Church in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Born and raised in Clara Town, a slum of Monrovia, Weah was one of 13 children raised by his devoutly Christian paternal grandmother, Emma Klonjlaleh Brown after his parents separated when he was still a baby – he would later grow up practicing protestant Christianity before converting to Islam when he played professional soccer for Monaco in France.
Weah, who attended middle school at Muslim Congress and high school at Wells Hairston High School, and reportedly dropped out in his final year of studies confessed that he converted to Islam and worshiped as a Muslim for 10 solid years, under the influence of his former manager, Mohammed Siliby, who himself is a Muslim.
But in 2004, Weah denounced Islam saying, “I am a Christian. I only did that [converted to Islam] because some people were putting pressure on.”
Howbeit, Weah has since assumed the role of a preacher, and so he delivered the second of his only two noticeable sermons preached three years ago, on New Year eve, the first being in November 2018, at his Jamaica Resort, during a “Thanksgiving Service.”
