Filed in by Olando Testimony Zeongar – 0776819983/0880-361116/life2short4some@yahoo.com
Monrovia – With a little over nine months in office, President George M. Weah and some officials of his administration has come under intense accusation of dangling wealth, while majority of Liberians are faced with heightened hardship.
An estimated 64 percent of Liberians live below the poverty line, of whom 1.3 million live in extreme poverty. The country’s social safety nets are poorly developed.
Amid excruciating poverty and heightened hardship in Liberia, where the recent reported disappearance of some 16 billion in local currency has caused stir among citizens, President Weah and some of his officials are allegedly engaged into early amassing of wealth, according to Philipbert Browne, the publisher of one of Liberia’s widely read local dailies, Hot Pepper.
Browne, who was the first to blow the whistle that billions of Liberian dollar banknotes had gone missing, recently told a talk radio locally aired on Truth FM that although Weah’s administration has a six-year term, he and some of his officials were amassing wealth too soon.
He claims officials in the administration were riding expensive vehicles and purchasing deluxe structures too soon, and that in all these instances, within the period the Weah-led government has spanned, these officials’ ernest earnings and income cannot possibly make them to have sincerely acquired such properties.
He said Liberia is such a small society that almost everyone knows what might be the income or what he calls financial limit of others, stating that it is very impossible, if not through corrupt means that officials of the Weah administration are so rapidly amassing wealth.
“They (officials of government) should stop thinking that the Liberian people are stupid – they (Liberians) are not,” said Philibert, adding although most common Liberians are not well-educated, they can still decipher what’s going on in government, saying, “the simplest man in the street right now will tell you what’s going on in the government; he did not go to school, but he can tell you everything that is going on in government; this other man has got this, this other person has bought this, this other man has built a house…”
Browne said, social media has even added to the woes of officials of the Weah administration, stating that Liberians are taking to such platform to post information and photos of properties being acquired by government officials so early into the regime’s six-year term.
“Social media has now even damaged it more – when the other people were stealing, there weren’t much of social media – but right now as soon as you look [on social media], you will see one government official’s house – some of the houses they are building are too big until they don’t even fit within the fence,” Philipbert said.
He cautioned officials of the Weah led government to be careful how they proceed with amassing ill-gotten wealth, saying, “… do the Liberian people work first, let the Liberian people be satisfied first, let them sing your praises, then you can…”
‘Probe Weah, others for corruption’
Recently, Punch reported that amid investigation into circumstances surrounding the reported disappearance of 16 billion Liberian dollar banknotes, a civil society movement, Concerned Citizens United to Bring Our Money Back (COCUBOMB), had called on the International Community to probe President Weah and some of his officials, for what COCUBOMB calls the suspicious and rapid acquisition of properties by the Liberian leader and some high-ranking officials of the Government of Liberia.
In a statement released Tuesday, COCUBOMB pleaded with the International Community headed by the United States, whose embassy near Monrovia recently launched a forensic investigation in a bid to get to the bottom of the ‘missing money’ saga, to also take into consideration several other factors including probing the Liberian leader and some of his officials for what the group says is the “rapid and suspicious acquisition of giant-sized properties by President Weah and some high-ranking public officials in just 8 months.”
‘Weah’s personal projects’
In the wake of Browne’s assertions and the call made by COCUBOMB for Weah and some of his officials to be probed by international forensic investigators for what the group calls rapid and suspicious acquisition of giant-sized properties just within eight months’ time, Punch online service has been reliably informed by impeccable sources that several personal properties linked to President Weah are being rushed to completion at lightning speed.
Multiple sources told Punch that at one of President Weah’s project sites, located in the Baptist Seminary Community along the road leading to Liberia’s lone international airport the RIA, construction work on a huge deluxe building is going on unimaginably fast.
Our sources hinted that President Weah has visited the Baptist Seminar project site on a number of occasions.
Just within three months of his ascendency to the presidency, Weah’s 9th Street residence was demolished and is being replaced with an elegant structure almost nearing completion.
In addition to the President’s Baptist Seminary Community project, Weah recently refurbished his Jamaica Resort, also located along the RIA highway.
‘Minister of State 200k mansion’
Punch recalls that the closest official of government to President Weah, his minister of state, Nathaniel F. Mcgill came under intense public scrutiny, when just three months on the job, the minister purchased an exotic residence valued at 200k, although he later clarified that he purchased the building as a result of a loan he acquired from the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI).
However, reports later emerged that even before Mcgill could say he was taking a loan from LBDI to purchase the building many described as a mansion due to its exotic nature, the minister of state had long time made a downpayment of 200k cash and had taken ownership of the property.
He then commenced remodeling the building to suit his style at an extra cost of US$65k, according to sources, who divulged that the redesigning of the structure located in the R2 VOA Community off the RIA highway, was being carried out in an elegant fashion.
Sources said having preempted that the deal to purchase for himself a luxurious home at an early stage of the Weah-led government’s tenure might have somehow become public knowledge, MCgill, who as minister-proper earns a monthly salary of US$6,000.00, an equivalent of US$18,000 for three months, had in advance planned to have taylored the bank loan story as a coverup.
