DG Joekai Champions Merit-Based Civil Service at MOCIWA Induction Ceremony, Highlights New Testing Initiative

On Friday, January 31, 2025, the Director-General of the Civil Service Agency (CSA), Dr. Josiah F. Joekai, Jr., served as Special Guest of Honor and Keynote Speaker at the Induction Ceremony of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Workers’ Association (MOCIWA).

Addressing the large audience of civil servants, Dr. Joekai noted that countries develop through the quality of their civil servants. He stated that CSA is committed to creating and maintaining jobs and managing the government’s human resource program. The CSA is focused on building an efficient, effective, and productive civil service for national development, similar to other countries.

The CSA’s boss emphatically highlighted that his leadership is working against the employment of incompetent individuals in the civil service at the expense of qualified, productive, efficient, and capable people.

Delivering the keynote address, Dr. Joekai said, “The CSA is not alone in doing this for Liberians; the Ministry of Labor also has a stake in protecting Liberian workers.”. He indicated, “We are going to create conditions that will make it difficult to enter the civil service, not because we want to deprive people, but because we want a qualified, competent, efficient, and effective civil service that will serve for the development of this country.”.

Accordingly, the CSA has started by setting up a national testing center where those who want to enter the civil service will have to pass a system-based test generated for every professional sector. “The system is built to generate 50 questions an applicant must pass to be given an automated certificate; the system will even tell you if you fail just after the test,” the Hon. Director-General intimated.

Hon. Joekai added that there is a solution to curtail this kind of poor service, stating that the solution is the automated testing center created at the CSA, which would act against nepotism and encourage a merit-based recruitment of efficient, capable, and productive civil servants. ‘So, it is not about scaring people away from entering the civil service; it is about bringing our country up to speed with other countries,” he said.

In the meantime, the Civil Servants Association of Liberia, via its President Hon. Moibal Johnson, had praised Dr. Josiah F. Joekai, Jr. for his efficiency and effectiveness in leading the Liberian Civil Service. President Johnson said the CSA’s efficiency at its leadership level is exemplified by the fact that since the administration of President Joseph Nyuma Boakai, Sr., the association has not demonstrated publicly for disagreement. “If you were not performing, you would have witnessed several demonstrations, but the absence of protestation under your leadership means that your works meet our approbation,” Mr. Johnson concluded.

The ceremony was graced by an array of government officials, including Grand Bassa Senator Hon. Findley and civil servants’ leaderships from various ministries, agencies, and commissions of government.