News:
May 16, 2019
From the country report presented by Liberia at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, on Monday May 13, 2019, top political parties are set to stage mass demonstration that may lead to increased insecurity in the country.
Former Speaker of Liberians Parliament and Leader of delegation to the sub-regional community Parliament, Edwin Melvin Snow Junior presented the report to the House, and noted; “Recent political events unfolding in the country have the propensity to further shatter Liberia already fragile peace if steps are not taken to arrest the situation”, he lamented.
He further explained that the case in point is a planned demonstration slated for June 7, 2019 by a group named “Council of Patriots” under the theme “SAVE THE STATE” and some members of the opposition, particularly four major opposition political parties named Collaborating Political Party, CPP.
Mr. Edwin Melvin also said in the report that the President of Liberia has called for dialogue and has invited the leaders of the Council of Patriots to a meeting on May 14, 2019, which is national unification day and is observed as a national day for a possible reconciliation and dialogue.
“President George Weah has suspended the Deputy Minister of Information of the country, and there are two members of the legislature yet to be called to order, due to allegations made by the US government expressing dissatisfaction in the divide especially congau-native Politics”.
On the issue of corruption, the report stated that the country is working hard to tackle the issue of corruption especially the issue of major allegation of corruption in the country which involves a missing “sixteen billion USD” (16b USD). the President through the Ministry of Justice has set up a committee to investigate the issue with a mandate to further ascertain the fact of the missing dollars while a private US company Kroll has been hired to foster the investigation, the report stated.
He said, according to findings of both reports, it came out that the Central Bank of Liberia did not provide proper accounting for the three billion Liberian dollars leading to the arrest of the former Governor of the Central Bank of Liberia, Wilson Weeks and his deputy Charles Sirleaf along with director of banking operations and former director of banking services.
As part of measures to win the fight against corruption, the President of Liberia has implemented the recommendation contained in the reports by commissioning the General Auditing to conduct forensic audit of the mop-up exercise and the President promised that anyone who is linked to any misapplication, be it members of his government or not will face the full weight of the law.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com/Abuja