By King Brown, sarwahking@gmail.com
BUCHANAN, Liberia- This media outlet, www.newspublictrust.com has reliably gathered that members of the Grand Bassa Legislative Caucus has frozen the Buchanan City Corporation 10- thousand United States Dollars allotment made by the County Sitting, due to lack of accountability of UMARCO money.
UMARCO is a Shipping Line based in Liberia that has been operating during the regime of former Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, with the commitment to pay royalty to the Buchanan City authority to be used for beautification and sanitation of the city.
The US$10,000.00 frozen by the caucus was an allotment meant to ensure the beautification and sanitary works in the city, a resolution that was signed and passed on the basis of US$1- million -23 thousand social development fund payment by Arcelor Mittal Liberia.
The decision of the caucus was triggered by the inability of the management of the Buchanan City Cooperation to provide a comprehensive report on the passed 100-thousand United States Dollars royalty received from UMARCO for the annual period of 2018/2019.
The Chairman of the Grand Bassa Legislative, Hon. Thomas A. Goshua confirmed that the caucus unanimously agreed and thereby stopped UMARCO payment for this year to the Buchanan City Corporation.
According to Hon. Goshua, the City Mayor, Moses Haynes has allegedly failed to obey the mandate of the caucus, after being engaged on separate occasions to provide a comprehensive report to the citizens and county officials how the money was used.
Representative Goshua mentioned that their action to stop the Buchanan City Corporation from receiving both the County Social Development Fund and UMARCO funds is meant to serve as the last remedy to find amicable solution to resolving the problem, because several communications have been sent to the city leadership to make an expenditure report of UMARCO money but nothing has been do so far.
Chairman Goshua said all of the efforts applied by members of the legislative caucus towards the Buchanan city leadership have not produced fruitful results as he accused Hon. Moses Hynes of playing deaf ears to their mandate.
But it has so far been very difficult to get reaction from Mayor Moses Haynes.
When contacted via mobile phone, the Mayoy’s phone rang endlessly with no answer, while text messages sent to him were not also replied.
Mayor Hynes, who is also the chairman of the ruling Coalition of Democratic Change branch in Grand Bassa County, has refused to accept interview after several efforts made by our reporter to get his side of the story.
In December 2019 in the absence of the Bassa Legislative caucus, civil society organization and others, the Buchanan City Cooperation presented a financial report on the usage of UMARCO US$100k that created mixed views amongst citizens of the county terming the report as misused of public money which prompted the legislative caucus to intervene.
Meanwhile, several residents of Grand Bassa County have called on Anti-Graft institution to investigate how the UMARCO money was used.
Investigation continues.