Sirleaf Administration is on Track to Become the Most Corrupt in the History of the Modern Liberian Nation       1             1940 - 11112008f- Two- Soccer Legends

  Monday, May 25, 2009             

Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

     Like most Liberians during the 2005 presidential campaign, I was caught in the electoral frenzy favoring Ellen Johnson Sirleaf over the countless men and the other female candidate, the late Margaret Tor-Thompson, who also vie for the Liberian presidency at the time.

     After all, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was the most famous female candidate among the throngs of male candidates who wanted to be President of Liberia at the time, and her story of repression at the hands of the dictatorial Samuel Kanyon Doe did not only win her admiration but also won her sympathy votes, propelled her to victory and made her an iconic figure to thousands of people in Liberia and worldwide, who admired her for her toughness under pressure and her courage to stand up to Mr. Doe even when it meant going to prison.

     I did not take the decision to support Ellen Johnson Sirleaf lightly, because like 2005, I still believe today that Liberia needs a visionary leader who feels the collective pains of the Liberia people, is willing to guide them to better and prosperous days, and is not nakedly arrogant and untouchable resembling an imperial cult-like figure who cares nothing about public opinion but answers only to herself and those that benefits financially from her administration at the expense of the people.

                                             Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

     I did not loose any sleep over my decision to favor Ellen Johnson Sirleaf early on during the presidential campaign because the male candidates and the other female candidate, Margaret Tor-Thompson, at the time did not gave me a reason to support any of them, and most definitely, I was in no position to support the perennial favorite, George Weah, who did not show me from day one that he is ready and prepared to be President of Liberia.

      Despite her hawkish and reportedly reckless comments during the civil war that supported the burning, destruction and rebuilding of Monrovia, and her opportunistic and politically expedient support of the criminal Charles Taylor in a war that eventually destroyed all of Liberia and killed thousands of innocent Liberians, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf trounced her political rivals decisively at the polls because Liberians truly believed at the time that she represented the change they did not see in both Presidents Samuel Kanyon Doe and Charles Taylor.

    Ellen Johnson Sirleaf echoed those sentiments for change during her inaugural ceremonies in 2006, when she said: “We know that your vote was a vote for change; a vote for peace, security and stability; a vote for individual and national prosperity; a vote for healing and leadership.”

     The new president went even further: “We have heard you loudly, and we humbly accept your vote of confidence and your mandate. This occasion, held under the cloudy skies, marks a celebration of change and a dedication to an agenda for a socio-economic and political reordering; indeed, a national renewal. Today, we wholeheartedly embrace this change. We recognize that this change is not change for change sake, but a fundamental break with the past, thereby requiring that we take bold and decisive steps to address the problems that for decades have stunted our progress, undermined national unity, and kept old and new cleavages in ferment.”

     Since the 2005 presidential election that ushered in her administration, I’ve revisited and regretted my support of the president countless times and realized it was a monumental mistake on my part to support her, and believed strongly that now is the time to face the reality that despite her rhetoric during her inaugural speech to effect change, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has become part and parcel of the entrenched, corrupt and stagnant political status quo that undermined and underdeveloped Liberia, than an agent for progressive change.

     President Sirleaf and her die-hard supporters will not admit this but her trademark silence on key national issues (as if she owes no one an explanation), coupled with her frequent and unexplained foreign travels around the globe (which has never been fully explained to the nation why she has to travel abroad to every award ceremony, commencement exercise, or to even promote a ghost-written “book” with such a simplistic, self-serving, and arrogant title “This Child Will Be Great”), the lack of transparency, accountability, and  rampant corruption in her administration is not helping her in the public relations department and is making her predecessors, Doe and Taylor look like saints.

     For a president who speaks fondly and proudly of change to even leave the country annually for medical check-ups at a time when ordinary Liberians are dying daily from diseases such as diabetes and hypertension (high blood pressure), shows the profound disconnect and hypocrisy on the part of this visionless president, who, instead of running abroad frequently to have annual medical check-ups, should have encouraged the building and staffing of medical centers all across the country to attend to the medical needs of the Liberian people and future Liberian presidents.

     The last time I checked, past Liberian presidents often left the country for their annual medical check-ups abroad leaving the population to fend for themselves. President Sirleaf has repeated the same annual ritual. Is this change? 

     President Sirleaf could also been an agent of change had she had the vision to boldly take on such issues as judicial reform, electoral reform, tax reform, etc, etc, and pushing for the counties to have voting rights that empowers Paramount and Clan Chiefs, Superintendents, Mayors of the counties and cities to be elected; constructing landfills and incinerators for garbage throughout the country, building sewer systems and satellite college campus and learning centers throughout the country (because getting college education should not only be limited to Monrovia), all of which could have bolstered her legacy as a leader with a grand vision.

     Rampant and uncontrollable corruption is another mind-boggling issue this president has failed miserably to halt. However for the Liberian people and her foreign friends to believe she’s serious about halting corruption, President Sirleaf said these words on inauguration day in 2006.

     “Fellow Liberians, we know that if we are to achieve our economic and income distribution goals, we must take on forcibly and effectively the debilitating cancer of corruption. Throughout the campaign, I assured our people that, if elected, we would wage war against corruption regardless of where it exists, or by whom it is practiced.”

     “Today, I renew this pledge. Corruption, under my Administration, will be the major public enemy. We will confront it. We will fight it. Any member of my Administration who sees this affirmation as mere posturing or yet another attempt by another Liberian leader to play to the gallery on this grave issue should think twice,” she said.

     However, instead of confronting corruption head-on as promised, President Sirleaf is either tight-lipped about the issue when it happens, or often puts loyalty over terminating and prosecuting those senior officials who reportedly engages in corruption, which is not change at all.

     Recently, President Sirleaf’s favorite crony, Harry A. Greaves Jr. who has become a one-man government and always doing his own thing at the Liberian Petroleum Refinery Corporation (LPRC), was instructed by the Legislature to halt the implementation of a $24.8 million contract between the UK-based Zakhen International and LPRC until hearings are completed, however, vowed not to listen to the lawmakers, and is going ahead anyway with his own negotiations and deal-signing. Where is President Sirleaf on this issue? Is Harry A. Greaves Jr., above the law and the Liberian Congress?

     The illegal transfer of over $1 million from the Central Bank of Liberian to Eco Bank with the pseudo-name of one “E Jee Sirleaf” together with the signatures of the president and three deputy ministers from the Minister of Finance remains a mystery. In another development, the Ministry of Finance just uncovered its own check fraud crisis, with L$22 million at the center of this latest scandal.

    So where is the so-called change Ellen Johnson Sirleaf promised the Liberian people on inauguration day, especially when the Liberian government is still leasing or renting office buildings on her watch to be used as ministries, decades after the late President Samuel Kanyon Doe famously frowned on such practice? To his credit, however, Mr. Doe began the construction of few buildings to be used as ministries but were never completed before he was killed. Why is it that President Sirleaf cannot complete those buildings?

     The way things are going now; the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration is on track to be the most corrupt and unproductive in the history of the modern Liberian nation.