By our Reporter
The Liberian Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria has today (Wednesday) clarified that Senators George Manneh Weah and Prince Johnson have not shown up at the current Fourth Legislature of the ECOWAS Parliament.
It’s now known that Senator Weah of Montserrado County and Johnson of Nimba County are two of the five Liberian ECOWAS Parliamentarians that are not in Abuja for the meeting, as was reported on Tuesday.
The report was based on a December 5, 2017 press release from the Liberian mission in Abuja which said:
“Abuja, December 5, 2017: Liberian legislators at the ECOWAS Parliament have represented their Country Report, bordering on progress and challenges the country has faced since its last report in May of this year….
“According to the release, Montserrado County Representative Edwin Melvin Snowe, Jr, read the Country Report on behalf of the Liberian Delegation. The members of the Liberian ECOWAS Parliamentarian Delegation are Montserrado County Senator George Manneh Weah, who is the head of the Delegation and Nimba County Senator Prince Yormie Johnson. Others are Representative Jefferson Karmoh of Sinoe County who is the Third Deputy Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament and Representative Haja Fatta Siryon of Bomi County.”
But in a message to our Editor from the Minister Counsellor for Press and Public Affairs at the Abuja mission, Nat Bayjay, he said after the story was published: “I can understand why you might have thought so but that hasn’t been the case. I had only used a flashback picture to capture all of our five representations to the ECOWAS Parliament. And I had to mention that he is the head of the Liberian team for this Fourth Legislature.”
Bayjay therefore suggested that “we make that correction that says otherwise. For the records, he and Senator Johnson are not here for this identical session for which the rest of the delegation gave an excuse but the nature of my job as a government PR, I had to be careful in mentioning that in the release based on past situations where his camp had thought I was the one who had told the Liberian media that he was absent from the other session that caused uproar back home. This still remains a sensitive issue for me who has to provide PR service for all members of all three branches of the Government.”
Previously, the media have reported series of stories about irregular attendance of Senators Weah and Johnson at sessions of the ECOWAS Parliament. Some reports have said when they show up for sessions to collect their per diem packages and later disappear.
But the two Liberian Senators had repeatedly dismissed those reports.