The local newspaper, Hot Pepper on Thursday reported that Liberia’s Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor was denied American visa, but her office has reacted sharply to the report.
The office of the VP Howard-Taylor, who is former wife of jailed former Liberian President Charles Taylor, rejected the Hot Pepper Newspaper’s publication “insinuating that the Honorable Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor was denied US visa.”
The paper in its banner headline, captioned, ‘Jewel off to the US; Visa issues, War and Economic Crimes persist’, claimed that the Vice President was allegedly denied US visa on one hand and on the other hand issued Visa.
But in a release, the Vice President’s office clarified that Madam Howard-Taylor “has not been denied US visa, but rather undergoing the normal Administrative process by the US-Embassy near Monrovia.”
Contrary to the claim by the paper that the Vice president pleaded with the US state Department to reconsider its decision to issue the visa, the office of the Vice president said at no time did VP Howard-Taylor issue any communication pleading with the US-embassy to grant her Visa after been denied.
The Office of the Vice president revealed that the Vice President who is currently visiting Neighboring Ghana, is still awaiting response from the embassy on her request to travel to the USA to attend the sixty-second session of the Commission on the Status of Women.
The event will take place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 12 to 23 March 2018.
The release also “dismissed as a complete falsehood and no iota of truth reports by the Hot pepper Newspaper that Vice president might be visited by investigators on issues of war and economic crimes.”
The release further clarified that Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor is not being probed on any issue of such and sees this publication as a complete distraction from the real issue of development confronting the country, the release concluded.
While serving in her previous position as Senator of Bong County, Madam Howard-Taylor visited the United States.