-Urges President Weah to take urgent action
By Augustine Octavius,augustineoctavius@gmail.com
The Inter Religious Council of Liberia (IRCL) has expressed its total indignation and disappointment about deliberate abuse and misuse of public funds by public officials.
The Council described the report of the General Auditing Commission (GAC) on the US$25 million mop up exercise as a blatantly hypocritical and contradictory message.
In its report, the GAC said the Standard Operating Procedures developed to guide the conduct of the US$25 duties Million Mop-up Exercise did not address the issues of monitoring, segregation of, etc, according to the GAC findings.
There was a variance of US$ 1,466,783.00 between the summary list of beneficiaries and the detailed report per beneficiaries prepared and submitted by the CBL, the GAC report said.
The GAC report also said “Except for three (3) beneficiaries with a total amount of US$2,507,380.00 listed in the table below, no receipts were issued to the total number of beneficiaries contacted and interviewed during our field verification. Inquiry of past procedures for mopping up of excess liquidity conducted by CBL showed that instruments (receipts) were produced during sale of United States dollars for Liberian dollars.”
The religious leaders are calling on President George Manneh Weah to immediate take actions against all individuals involved in the misuse of 25 million United States Dollars tax payers’ money.
These actions send out about the government’s commitment to the pro poor agenda for prosperity and development, the IRCL said.
The call from the Liberian religious leaders is contained in a press statement read by the Council, Attorney Musa Bamba on behalf of the Council’s President, Bishop Kortu Brown in Monrovia.
The council said it finds even more painful because of the fact that individuals entrusted with the authority to supervise and execute this fiscal emergency exercise are in fact the architects and members of the government’s “Pro-poor” agenda.
The Christian and Muslim leaders maintained that these scandals of fiscal indiscipline (the 25 million United States Dollars mop up exercise and the 16 billion Liberian dollars saga) as well as the “recent drama of daylight violation of the Liberian Constitution at the Liberian Senate by the removal of Associate Justice from the country’s court are in sheer contradiction to all the pillar four of the pro poor agenda.
The council made it clear that the goals and expressed developmental outcomes aimed at creating a reformed public sector and improved fiscal and monetary discipline in order to propel the wheel of development.
The Council, comprising of Muslim and Christian opinion leaders, want the Liberia leader ensure transparent justice in all pending case regarding the 16 billion Liberian Dollars.
They added that any failure or semblance of inaction to show leadership in these critical national matters will not only show the lack of personal commitment to the pro poor agenda but create a recipe for economic chaos and continuous hardship which is the number threat to the quest for positive peace.
The Inter-Religious Council noted that the report by the General Auditing Commission shows a deliberate undermining of the goals of the pro poor agenda, particularly pillar four. This pillar reaffirms to the Liberian people that the agenda is not a mere theory on papers but a policy document backed his full support and commitment.
The religious leaders pointed out that they are aware of the economic challenges faced by the government, therefore it does not expect an overnight solution but at the time, believes authoritatively that the government has absolute responsibility to subscribe to responsible to approaches towards finding solutions to problems
The council advised the government to avoid all semblance of behaviors that will make the PAPD look like a mere theory to fool the Liberian people, most of whom voted to change the Unity Party for the CDC government.