LIBERIA – What is going on in Liberia? That the sitting president would just leave the country on a month-long foreign visit scooping up a whooping US$1.5 Million on his trip; at a time the country still owes civil servants’ salary arrears, drugs in short supply in hospital, residents lacking Pipe-born water supply and the country road network in tartar, etc, etc.
Liberians are flabbergasted by the news that their President George Weah, a former soccer star, has left the country allegedly with an astonishing sum of US$1.5 Million United States Dollars as an expense for his trip.
This latest report on the quantity of money President Weah took on his foreign trip has angered many Liberians who are living below the international extreme poverty line. This brings to mind, the question of how this is possible in the face of the opposition political parties.
George Weah was torpedoed to power in a 2017 election on the mantra of reducing poverty. Poor slum dwellers did everything possible to make George Weah ascend to the nation’s highest office. But the joy that brought him to power has short-lived. Most of his supporters are angry. He cut civil salaries, which further pushed the masses into deep poverty.
The CDC government has not been able to attract major investment since its inception, with corruption reigning higher at every level of the government.
The Country Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah is always linked to massive corruption ranging from the misuse of US$25 Million which was intended to reduce excess liquidity in the country, to allocating monies in national budgets that were squandered with no repayment, misused or stealing of funds intended to conduct a national census and to scooping of national road funds, and the list is so long.
Yet, Weah feels confident working with him, a situation that leaves suspicion among Liberians that Tweah may not be acting alone in his alleged bleeding of the country’s treasury.
Many have criticized Weah’s trip calling it “semi-looting of state coffers.’ Some US-based Liberian Journalists have said there is no hope for Liberians to see the poverty that has entangled them solved as the current Liberian government lacks the methodology to reduce the challenging effect.
Volcano Shelton and Moses Sandy, on their regular online show from the United States, said the government under the leadership of President Geroge Weah continues to spend huge sums of monies on travel expenses that have not impacted Liberia’s growth.
They recalled President George Manneh Weah’s foreign trips during the course of 2018 which they say cost the country, with a broken economy, over a million United States dollars.
This time around, Weah will spend almost one month doing his rendezvous in Morocco, the Middle East, Europe, and the US.
He is also expected to watch his son, Tim Weah play soccer, not for Liberia, but for the United States in the World Cup in Qatar in a few weeks.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Collaborating Political (CPP), Alexander Cummings has attributed mass poverty in the country to massive stealing in the George Weah CDC government.
He said even though corruption has persisted in Liberia for years, he said it has become rampant under the Weah Government.
He told residents in Todee and Bensonville respectively that the only way to stop their suffering is to vote Weah out of power and elect him in the 2023 elections. The citizens of the two areas had endorsed him for the presidency in the upcoming elections.
He stated that corruption has become rampant amongst junior and senior officials in the CDC government and urged the citizens not to give Weah a second term.
Mr. Cummings pointed out that in Liberia, the oldest country in Africa, the citizens continued to suffer because the CDC government is rapidly depleting the country’s coffers.
Cummings noted that the failure of Pres. Weah to take purity measures against his officials indicates he and his officials and family are allegedly implicated in stealing the country’s resources.
Mr. Cummings who is also the standard bearer of the Alternative National Congress (ANC), promised to move the country to prospective if he is elected president.
