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MONROVIA- Liberia – Ahead of President George Weah’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), reportedly scheduled for Monday, January 28, 2019, prominent Liberian politician Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine has challenged the Liberian leader to use the SONA to answer several questions regarding the perpetration of graft in government under his watch, and the president’s acquisition of properties just within the period of his ascendancy to the presidency.
Reading from a prepared text Monday in the studio of Prime FM, a local radio station when he addressed several national issues, Cllr. Brumskine, who noted that although he would not dwell much on allegations of the ‘missing’ 16 billion Liberian dollars, the US25 million dollars which is said to have been disbursed by the government outside of the usual banking channel, and the unprecedented number of buildings and housing units that are said to have being erected or are being constructed by President Weah, because people have said so much about those things, intimated however, that those issues are not likely to go away without a comprehensive report from President Weah to the people of Liberia.
Cllr. Brumskine pointed out that especially given the nation’s state of abject poverty and the depressed national economy, President Weah has a duty to let Liberians know what has happened to their money, adding, “And I implore the president to do so.”
He then challenged President Weah to muster the courage and provide the answers to such questions in his upcoming State of the Nation Address, stating, “the president may consider using his annual message to the nation to explain to the Liberians the status of things – the 25 million US dollars; who were the Liberians that benefited from the disbursement of that money? How did the disbursement of 25 million US dollars impact our economy? How did it help improve the lives of the Liberian business people?”
“The president might also want to explain what may be just a coincidence the allegations of the disappearance and the misuse of public funds and the construction and acquisition of an unprecedented quantity of properties just as he became president of the nation,” Cllr. Brumskine further said.
He averred that after 12 months in office, it would also be good to know how has President Weah’s economic policy impacted the lives of Liberians – “how many Liberians have moved from below the poverty line to the middle class?”
The former political leader of the opposition Liberty Party who is also a former senator, further asserted that under his leadership as President Pro-Tempore of the Liberian Senate, the Liberianazation Law was amended, with such amendment increasing the number of businesses from 12 to 26 that only Liberians are allowed to engage in.
He then said it would be good for President Weah to let Liberians know via the SONA, whether his government is enforcing the Liberianazation Law, adding that, if so, the president should state the number of non-Liberians that have been stopped from engaging in businesses that have been set aside by law for only Liberians, and that the Liberian leader should also name those Liberians who have taken over those set-aside businesses.
