PHOTO: Nat-Mcgill-Syrenius-Cephus-and-Bill-Tweahway
By J. Peter S. Dennis, dennisrealone@gmail.com
GBARNGA, Liberia- Many Liberians want the sanctioned and resigned officials not only to declare their assets exit assets but to restitute whatever public funds they may have benefitted from though alleged public corruption, in order to ensure accountability.
The citizens in the central Bong County also want the US government and the United Nations impose travel ban on them and make them restitute funds reportedly stolen from this West African state. Bong is one of Liberia’s most populous counties.
According to them, when this is done, it will further serve as deterrence to future and current public officials to ensure accountability after resignations.
Recently, Nathaniel Falo McGill, NPA’s Bill Twehway and Sayma Syrenius Cephus resigned from government, barely a month after the US Treasury department under the sanctioned the three for massive public corruption in Liberia.
The three were designated pursuant to Executive Order 13818, which builds upon and implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world.
The sanctions, according to the US, came after a rigorous inter-agency investigation, which determined that these three former public officials engaged in corrupt acts, and they are “now subject to US financial sanctions and visa restrictions.
According to United States under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian E. Nelson, “Through their corruption these officials have undermined democracy in Liberia for their own personal benefit.”
Unlike Bill Twehway who was mute prior to his resignation, Nathaniel McGill and Serena Cephus maintained their innocence.
Particularly for Cephus, he accused Justice Minister, Cllr. Frank Musa Dean for being the ‘master minder’ while McGill told Liberians that the US government reported on the “wrong person.”
On Thursday, September 15, 2022, the Better Future Foundation in collaboration with other key civil society organizations presented an 18-count petition to diplomatic missions in Liberia to assist in tracing, recovering and repatriating Liberia’s stolen money by some Government officials.
Presenting the petition statement to the UN in Monrovia, the head of Better Future Foundation, Augustine Arkoi claimed that the Liberian ruling elites secretly secured the stolen money in some Western, African and other leading banks globally over the years.
BFF, in collaboration with its CSO Partners, expressed strongly believes in a holistic probe toward widespread acts of corruption and abuses.
Flights’ restoration praises
At the same time, many Bong County Citizens have lauded the management of SN Brussels for their emphatic restoration of flights to Liberia.
Over the weekend, SN Brussels announced plans to ban flights to Liberia over poor Navigation System (GPS) at the Robert’s International Airport. The airline is the only Western airline flying into Liberia and it connects Europe to America.
An earlier statement from SN Brussels disclosed that it is forced to cancel its flights between Brussels and Monrovia because the Roberts International Airport is suffering from certain deficiencies that do not allow them to dispatch their aircraft and have them perform an approach and landing in accordance with their operating procedures.
Belgium’s Aviation laws prevent its aircraft from landing without a functioning navigation system.
But the airline later reported that that it had reached discussions with the government to restore flights back to Liberia.
In February, Royal Air Maroc aborted landing for the same reason and subsequently suspended flights to Monrovia. Upon its return, the airline rescheduled all its early morning flights to and from Monrovia.
Also, Africa World Airlines- a regional airline based in Accra, Ghana announced suspension of flights to Monrovia and Freetown citing high operation cost.
Similarly, in April this year, Air France that connects Monrovia to Europe closed its offices citing economic performance, geopolitical situation and overall profitability.
It can be recalled that at the height of the crisis at the airport, the former Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Nathaniel McGill, told Journalists that the government would need up to US$20 million to fix all problems at the airport.
Speaking to www.newspublictrust.com over the weekend in Gbarnga, the citizens described the news as “very welcoming”.
“If this would continue, it was going to affect us badly” they noted.
Earlier, some Liberians blamed the government for not rightly handling the only International airport in the country.
They also want the government of President George Manneh Weah to address the situation to avoid future shame.