PHOTO: Cllr. Edwin Kla Martin, LACC Executive Chairman
By Frank Sainworla, Jr., fsainworla@yahoo.com
With move underway by the Executive branch of government and Liberian Lawmakers to torpedo the robust fight against deep-seated corruption being undertaken by the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC), its Executive Chairman, Cllr. Edwin Martin has condemned the move but says his life is at risk.
In an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) recently, Cllr. Martin said due to threat to his safety and life, he has gone underground and is in an undisclosed location.
This comes just days after the Liberian Senate said that it has concurred with the House of Representatives on the passage of an Act to Amend and Restate an Act to establish the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission and to re-establish the Liberian Anti-Corruption Commission.
The 30-member Senate and the 73-member House are composed of very large number of opposition lawmakers.
This means that the current LACC Board of Commissioners and other leadership will be dissolved and members will have to reapply.
But in an interview with the VOA and the local Daily Observer newspaper over the weekend, the LACC boss threatened that the LACC will challenge the Bill at the Supreme, if signed into law by President George Manneh Weah.
“We are taken aback by the conduct of the Legislature to do a restatement of the law which, in itself, is to dissolve, abrogate and negate the relevant and the adequate effectiveness of the 2008 Act,” Cllr. Martin told the Daily Observer over the weekend.
“I will challenge the new law in court. You cannot dissolve a tenured position to create another. Their action is not only a violation of the law but it provides a signal for a witch-hunt.”
“For the Legislature to dissolve the clause that gave us tenure position of five years to say ‘upon the appointment of the new commissioners thorough vetting, the old Commissioners are no more in service,’ leads us to ask the question: why only the LACC’s tenure clause should be tampered with at this time? We will want to know and the court is the right place to deal with this illegal attempt.”
According to Transparency International’s 2011 Corruption Perception Index, Liberia ranks 91 out of the 183 countries and territories analyzed, with a score of 3.2 on the zero (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean) scale.
The latest action by the two branches of government comes in the wake of a string of apprehension expressed both at home and abroad about the serious lack of political will by President Weah and his CDC government to actualize their public declaration of commitment to fight the corruption menace in Liberia. It also comes in the wake of a string of LACC investigative findings indicting many Liberian officials of corruption and recommending them to the Justice Ministry for prosecution.
United States and Western diplomats have repeatedly stressed the need for the Weah government to go beyond words and demonstrate concrete action in the fight against corruption.
Under the amendment, the number of membership of LACC has been increased from Five (5) to Seven (7) and four (4) principal departments have been created in the Commission. A step up in the size of the commission would mean more financial burden on a government that is already complaining of not having enough funds to increase the budget of integrity agencies.
Earlier this year, a high-level US government delegation who attended the Bicentennial ceremony in Monrovia criticized the Liberian government for not giving adequate support and resources to integrity institutions involved in the fight against corruption.
And also, heads of those institutions such as the LACC, the Internal Audit Agency (IAA) and Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) have themselves repeatedly complained of inadequate budgetary support to carry out their huge responsibilities.
The LACC was created by an Act of Legislature in 2008 with the mandate to investigate acts of corruption and report findings to the Ministry of Justice for Prosecution.
Sierra Leone’s Anti-graft chief speaks against latest move against LACC
Meanwhile, the head of the Anti-Corruption agency in neigbouring Sierra Leone, Francis Ben Kaifala has weighed into latest move being made to undermine the robust drive by the LACC to fight the entrenched corruption in Liberia.
Mr. Kaifala, who is on record to have been given a freehand by Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio to robustly crackdown on corruption at every level of the society, had this to say on his Facebook page over the weekend (July 22, 2022).
Mr. Kaifala
“My heart goes out to my colleagues at the Liberia Anti-corruption Commission (LACC). I am reliably informed that the Executive proposed and the Legislature has passed a law to DISSOLVE the Commission and replace it with a powerless body; in retaliation for their recent proactive work. I pray that good sense prevails and President Weah does not approve such a dangerous move against the fight Against Corruption in Africa.”