By Olando Testimony Zeongar
LIBERIA – The Political Leader of Liberia’s immediate past former ruling party, Unity Party (UP), Ambassador Joe Boakai, has rallied citizens of Liberia to turn up for the country’s controversial National Housing and Population Census (NHPC).
The process leading to the 2022 conduct of the NHPC got off to a rather sloppy start, which was extensively marred by controversies largely due to alleged corruption over resources allotted for the exercise.
A presidential proclamation declaring 11 November 2022, as the commencement date, which was announced as a national holiday, elapsed without the scantily publicized NHPC process getting underway as expected thus, leading to apprehension among many Liberians regarding cooperating further with the Census exercise.
Howbeit, Unity Party’s standard bearer, and former Vice President Boakai stated unequivocally that although he has reservations as to whether the NHPC process of enumerating citizens nationwide would be carried out efficiently, he’s encouraging Liberians to cooperate should it turn out authorities finally get their act together for the counting process.
“We want to encourage citizens to cooperate when it happens that they can be counted. Let us remember that ‘two wrongs cannot make a right,’’ Boakai told a press conference in Monrovia on Wednesday.
He admonished Liberians that participating in the census process is a patriotic duty.
However, the Unity Party political leader blames controversies surrounding the conduct of the 2022 NHPC on what he termed acts of gross mismanagement and unaccountability of budgetary funds at the Liberia Institute for Statics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS).
“My Fellow Liberians, as noted earlier, the National Housing and Population Census preparation has been marred by controversies, characterized by outright corruption and lack of well-defined policies,” Boakai stated.
He indicated that the Weah administration seems not prepared to conduct the NHPC this year as it previously failed to do in 2018.
“Imagine the Census, which by law must be conducted every ten years, has not been conducted since 2008. The census should have been conducted in 2018, but the Weah/CDC-led government was not prepared to do so, and seem not prepared for it to be done,” Boakai stated, noting that such occurrences raise more questions than answer – “Is LISGIS really ready to conduct a comprehensive National Census? Are the Cdcian staff who were hurriedly recruited and claimed trained able to efficiently and effectively collect the critical national data needed to set benchmarks and policies that will transform the development of the country?”
He accused the CDC-led government of haphazardly recruiting partisans of the ruling party to be trained as enumerators, a process he stated was also marred by dissatisfaction, demonstrations, and protests across the nation.
He added that these anomalies point to the fact that the CDC-led government has not realized the seriousness and critical nature of the NHPC, pointing out that without these realistic empirical data, all planning for the country will be based on falsehood lacking the basis to make critical national developmental decisions.
He averted that the Weah administration was approaching the conduct of the 2022 NHPC half-heartedly, cautioning Liberians not to overlook such an approach on the part of the Government, as these and other national issues of bad governance deserve strong criticism, given the fact no improvement is seen in the poor leadership being exhibited by President Weah and those he referred to as the president’s cohorts of government officials who he said seemed incapable of redeeming themselves due to their numerous actions of poor leadership and mounting incompetency and corruption on a daily basis.
“I believe such corrupt acts have undermined the process that is very crucial to the nation and to our partners for national development purposes,” said Boakai, who is recommending the immediate prosecution of dismissed officials of LISGIS and all persons associated with fraudulent acts at the entity, as a way of holding accountable such individuals for funds misused at LISGIS.
Recently, amid corruption claims and counterclaims, President George Weah dismissed two top officials at LISGIS, with a dispatch from France where the Liberian leader was visiting at the time indicating that the pair, former Acting Director General, Wilmot Smith and ex-Deputy Director General for Statistics and Data Processing, Alex M. Williams, were dismissed for administrative reasons.
But Boakai is of the belief that President Weah should go beyond just dismissing the two men and as well take some punitive actions against Minister of Finance Samuel D. Tweah, who serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of LISGIS.
Boakai said: “The question then is, what action does the president contemplate against the Board Chair of LISGIS, Finance Minister Samuel Tweah, and others implicated in this census saga? Was it not the advice of Mr. Tweah to the President that everything about the census was on a course that prompted the declaration, by the President, of a Census Holiday on Friday, November 11, 2022? So, what are we to believe here, that the President is serious? Certainly not!”
The UP political leader then informed Liberians that in spite of his call for Liberians to participate in the census process that does not mean what he termed as the carelessness, heedlessness, and dishonesty associated with the CDC-led government will continue to be tolerated.
“In fact, we should be critical as often as possible, of the poor leadership qualities of President Weah and other government officials, which are returning our country to a pariah, failed state,” he emphasized.
He added: “Today, we, therefore, want to categorically denounce, condemn, decry, and deplore the haphazard manner in which the Weah administration is handling the affairs of the State, especially his government’s disregard of the rights of the people of Liberia to be rightly and correctly informed on matters that affect their lives; and on matters of presidential actions, which include travels of the president with an unusually large and unprecedented entourage that is costing the Liberian taxpayers millions of dollars, which could have otherwise been used for development projects and basic social services.”
