corruption

But everything changed, when Garley was captured by troops working for top Liberian government officials, who were tasked with forcibly recruiting people to work on the Spanish-owned sugar cane, coffee and cocoa plantations in Fernando Po (located in current day Equatorial Guinea and parts of Gabon). Many of these forced recruits were abducted from the southeastern region of Liberia. Munah waited as the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months but her husband did not return. After six months she walked alone on the 155-kilometer bush road back to Grand Gedeh. It took her weeks to reach home. When she finally reached, she ignored pains of the sores in her feet and ran around Pelezon Town beating her breast and crying as she told her ordeal.

Fernando Po Crisis: the shame and of lack of accountability in Liberia

November 6, 2019November 6, 2019 admin2 corruption, Fernando Po, Liberia, Shame0 comment

MONROVIA – The future was bright for Doboe-Blee Garley, a 20-year-old, newly-married man in 1926. Well built and outstanding in the Menson Clan of Tchien District in Grand Gedeh County, Garley was a great royal hunter and a farmer. His wife, Munah, had come from a long lineage of traditional priests. Excitedly, the newlyweds made their way to the seaport city of Greenville to buy lapas, salt, and dishes for their home, according to citizens of Pelezon and Garley’s 62-year-old niece Theresa Boryea Walo, to whom the late Garley told…

It is noteworthy to mention the masses of the South-east are our Brothers and Sisters. We are not fighting against them but are fighting with them. We tell them we are acutely aware of the truism that nobody sets out to build a nation of common values, egalitarianism and equality who strife on ethnic bigotry, exclusion, and the colonial method of divide and rule. The above metastasizing menaces are the ones that stymie national progress, frustrate collective transformation, and throw the nation into chaos. They are aberrations to social emancipation! They should not be tolerated!

Public Policy

These 7 public officials receive over US$7.7 million from the national cake in 12 months

October 31, 2019October 31, 2019 admin2 corruption, High Salaries, Liberia0 comment

The Editor, The offices of just seven (7) public officials are receiving over US$7.7 million (L$1.6 billion) from the national cake in 12 months. Should we give their offices this much? They are becoming overnight millionaires as a result of leeching on Liberia’s scarce resources. What do our people get or have to show for voting them? Liberians remain the poorest of the poor because their leaders are overly GREEDY and CORRUPT. I became perturbed beyond limit while driving through West Point on Saturday evening. Our people are really catching…

Hasan then said: "You're acting like you were a passerby or an observer. You were in the thick of things. In the ANC you were the chair, you were the speaker in Parliament. This happened on your watch..." He referred specifically to the sacking of then finance minister Pravin Gordhan in 2017, who had claimed that around R150bn to R250bn had been looted from state coffers. "Why didn't you speak out and join him to call out that looting?" Mbete then gave vague answers, saying she was "right there" and that those issues were being "discussed every day". Mbete also denied having been aware of the looting of state-owned enterprises and state capture.

Op-ed

Baleka Mbete: ANC [ruling party] cannot be blamed for SA’s problems

October 23, 2019 admin2 ANC, Baleka Mbete, corruption0 comment

“We can’t blame the problems of South African society on the ANC. Criminality has been in South Africa for more than three centuries, especially after the colonialists came and brought crime from Europe to Africa,” Mbete said in response to a question by an audience member on South Africa’s high crime levels, especially murder and rape. Hasan then responded: “Hold on, let’s be clear, the British Empire did do exactly what you just said, but they did it to a lot of countries. Why is it that South…

Surmounting all odds in pursuit of public accountability and transparency, thousands of patriotic Liberians defied the heavy downpour of rain on September 24, 2018 to send a clarion message to the International Community and the government of ex-Soccer Star George M. Weah. The bottom line was “Bring Back Our L$16 billion and US$25 million”.

Op-ed

The First Anniversary of Bring Back Our Money Mass Protest – A Brief Reflection

October 8, 2019 admin2 corruption, Liberia, Weah0 comment

Surmounting all odds in pursuit of public accountability and transparency, thousands of patriotic Liberians defied the heavy downpour of rain on September 24, 2018, to send a clarion message to the International Community and the government of ex-soccer Star George M. Weah. The bottom line was “Bring Back Our L$16 billion and US$25 million”. We did submit a 7-count Petition. The Bring Back Our Money Campaign achieved the following milestones after such Petition was delivered: Peaceful Protest (No incident of violence) Massive turnout even under the heavy downpour of rain….

For a little over a month since being elected and installed Senator of Montserrado County, critics of Dillon have chastised him for failing to live up to a campaign promise he made to make his salary and benefits public. Until Tuesday, September 24, Sen. Dillon had always claimed of not being informed about his entitlements as Senator.

News

Sen. Dillon Exposes US$15K Ridiculous Monthly Pay for Liberian Senators

September 25, 2019 admin2 corruption, Dillion, Liberia0 comment

Monrovia – The salary and or incentives of lawmakers have always been one of the untouchables of the Legislature. Lawmakers have kept to their chests the information about how much they earn monthly from taxpayers’ monies. It was a campaign promise by candidate Abraham Darius Dillon to make public his salary and incentives as a senator if elected by electorates of Montserrado County something all the lawmakers have considered sacred and personal. For a little over a month since being elected and installed Senator of Montserrado County, critics of Dillon…

Pres Zuma and his family are involved in everything, E-tolling, with the infamous GUPTA family, these are the same people who are involved via Zuma’s son Duduzane in any and all future nuclear energy projects. Is it true that Zuma is also participating in the Louisiana project of SASOL for the extraction of oil from shale? This project is also way over budget! There are many examples of where the Zuma’s and the Guptas are involved. Unfortunately, they are only succeeding in destroying South Africa!

Public Policy

South Africa: State failure is the ‘new normal’

September 4, 2019 admin2 corruption, Crime, Fail State, South Africa0 comment

Is South Africa becoming a failed state? While Cyril Ramaphosa promises “new dawns” and plays around with property rights, latest crime figures remind us yet again that the government cannot provide South Africans with the security they pay for. Although the incidence of some crimes has decreased, murders are at the highest level in 15 years. The number in 2017/2018 was 20 336 – the first time the figure has topped 20 000 since 2003/2004. The latest murder rate – 35 for every 100 000 people – is the…

President Sirleaf did not heed to the Jallah’s recommendation, which prompted the Korean investors to file the lawsuit of US$2,849,000 as damages against the NSA. Madam Christiana Tah, then Minister of Justice and Attorney General, resigned, accusing President Sirleaf of interference in an NSA investigation. The case grew when a group of four Korean businessmen had arranged the purchase of gold bars through emails with Nasser Aly, whom they believed to be a Lebanese gold dealer with mining interests in Liberia.

News

Can a corrupt judiciary prosecute a powerful Ellen Sirleaf son?

August 14, 2019 admin2 corruption, Liberia, Sirelaf0 comment

Supreme Court Orders New Trial in Fombah Sirleaf‘s US$247K ‘Corruption Scandal’ Case The Supreme Court on Friday, August 9, 2019 ordered the reopening of the US$247,500 case that involved operatives of the National Security Agency (NSA), including the agency’s former director, Fombah Sirleaf, a son of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and some Korean investors, as part of the corruption investigation that the Special Independent Committee initiated since late 2014. The committee, headed by the late Counselor David A.B. Jallah, then Dean and Professor of Law at the…

In our country Liberia, there has been severe leadership deficit from the founding of the Liberian state to today. Liberia has been a country where there has been growth without development from year in year out. All these anomalies culminated in the fratricidal civil conflict that destroyed the fabric of our society and undermined our collective ability to move forward as one nation. With the help of ECOWAS and the International community, peace was restored to our country 15 years ago. Our collective responsibility as a people now is to maintain the peace. Instead, strange things are happening that could weaken our collective resolve to maintain the peace!! Yes, indeed strange things are happening in our country today- where people who were just barely managing to make life yesterday are today among the wealthiest people in Africa, if not the world, just in one year of being in power, as though they are money magicians.

Op-ed

SPEECH: Nepotism Was Wrong Yesterday And Is Wrong Today!

August 6, 2019 admin2 corruption, Liberia, Nepotism, Speech, Tiawon Saye Gongloe0 comment

By Tiawon Saye Gongloe Comrade Chairman of the ALL Powerful Student Unification Party, Members of the Central Committee, Comrade Chairman of the 4 2nd Anniversary Committee, Members of the leadership of ULSU, Veterans of SUP, Members of the All-Powerful Student Unification Party, Representatives of other student political parties, Observers from national political parties, Guests and well-wishers, Representatives of the Administration of the University of LiberiaOther distinguished ladies and gentlemen Before proceeding any further, I respectfully ask you to stand up and observe a moment of silence…

It has become a pungent phenomenon in the history of humanity that discredited regimes faced with the heroic defiance of a mobilized people against all the filths and dirty tricks of the establishment, fearing that playing hardball would lead to its decisive crushing under the revolutionary weight of the enraged masses, agents of such bankrupt order would collapse into political posturing and dangle before the people a call for unity and dialogue—an inglorious pretext meant to save the neck of the regime from the noose in order to continue the spree of social domination.

Op-ed

Letter: – 172 Years of Same & The Shame

July 26, 2019 admin2 corruption, Liberia, Nation State0 comment

By Rodney Sieh Dear Readers, Africa’s oldest republic turns 172 this week shrouded in a damning controversy over whether or not Liberians should be celebrating in the midst of a rapidly-shrinking economy, massive levels of poverty, a free-flying exchange rate, protests on the main campus of the University of Liberia over teachers’ salaries, serious transparency and accountability lapses, massive cuts and delays in civil servants’ pay and a familiar refrain from the past regarding corruption, greed, nepotism, sycophancy and a governance style bordering the patronage theme mirroring…

She denied accusations her son Robert Sirleaf was in any way implicated in the collapse of Liberia's National Oil Company, and said her other son, Charles Sirleaf who was arrested in March, was "illegally charged" over allegations he unlawfully printed local currency worth tens of millions of dollars.

News

“I don’t care,” Ellen Johnson Says About TRC

May 28, 2019 admin2 corruption, Ellen Sirleaf, Nepotism, TRC0 comment

In an Aljezeera UpFront, interview last week Liberia‘s former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf spoke about her 12 years in power. she was challenged on accusations from her critics who have always accused her of nepotism and corruption. Sirleaf responds to allegations of nepotism Ellen Johnson Sirleaf came to power in Liberia in January 2006 following decades of war, violence and coups, and became the first elected woman head of the state in Africa. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 alongside fellow Liberian Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni…