Filed in by Olando Testimony Zeongar – 0776819983/0880-361116/life2short4some@yahoo.com
Monrovia – Following a week after President George Weah suspended his deputy minister for information, Eugene L. Fahngon indefinitely, the suspended deputy minister has turned to primitive charcoal production for sale.
Charcoal is the end product of burning wood or other organic material in a low oxygen environment, a process known as pyrolysis. This process removes undesirable, volatile compounds and moisture, leaving an almost pure carbon end product.
Charcoal is better fuel than wood because when the same amount of charcoal and wood are burnt, charcoal produces almost twice the heat produced by wood. It produces much less smoke than wood, and is a compact fuel that is more convenient to handle than wood.
Primitive lump charcoal production, such as Fahngon is into, chiefly involves the careful stacking of wood into a neat, compact mound and covering same with mud or dry earth.
It is highly effective in Liberia, and is one of several low key businesses, usually undertaken locally by individuals not associated with white collar jobs, such as Fahngon has served in since the inception of the Weah administration a little over a year now.
President Weah suspended his controversial deputy information minister on Monday, 6 May with immediate effect, after the American embassy near Monrovia termed as disturbing tribal tones assertions from Fahngon, former warlord and now Nimba Senator Prince Y. Johnson, and Montserrado Representative Yekeh Korlubah, also a former rebel general.
At the time of Fahngon’s suspension, an Executive Mansion statement quoted President Weah as saying his government remains committed to a “one country, one people” policy with zero tolerance on political divisiveness or tribalism, warning government officials and Liberians to refrain from dividing Liberians along what he calls ethnic lines.
Howbeit, Fahngon posted on his official Facebook page on Tuesday that he has turned to charcoal production, as a form of business to reap income, with his first consignment already being out on the market, and the second expected this weekend.
Fahngon, who is advertising that those interested in transacting with him in his new-found business can do so and he will deliver, envisages to earn some LRD45,000 out of an approximated 100 bags of charcoal.
“I am expected to make $ 45,000.00 LD from about 100 bags of coal. You can REQUEST a bag and we will deliver,” Fahngon wrote.
The suspended deputy minister sees absolutely nothing wrong with his new source of income, indicating that “there is dignity in labor.”
He thanked President Weah, who he says he still holds in high esteem, as his political leader, for letting him know that “The little that God gives you is enough.”
