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Saturday, August 2, 2008

POSITION STATEMENT of Morris Koffa  
Accountability, Transparency, Full Disclosure and Honesty Are Our Goals

 

Morris T. Koffa

 
My Fellow Sinoeans:
My wife and I are grateful to the Almighty God for your safe return from Ohio.  As we reflect on the just-ended SCAA elections held in the City of Columbus, Ohio, I’m driven by the love for Sinoe County to sincerely thank my entire Sinoe Community. I’m particularly grateful to those who find in me, with confidence, leadership values, moral etiquette and farsightedness to lead the Sinoe County Association in the Americas (SCAA) to prosperity and unification, while the tenets of transparency and financial accountability remain the fundamental crux of what we, as a people, stand for in moving our organization forward. 

 

The sacrifices you have made by expanding your personal resources, taking off from your respective jobs, businesses and most importantly assuming risk for the sake of SCAA and Sinoe County, considering SCAA’s ugly past, indeed, demonstrate your affirmation of love which cannot and must not go unnoticed. I must also thank you for exhibiting the highest level of calmness and civility in spite of the direct and indirect provocation during the entire 10th Convention ceremonies. We went into the electoral exercise with dignity and came out dignified, and to that, I say, Bravo!  
Normally, I will constrain myself from exchanges on this medium because of the intellectual cyberspace violence (profanity) that ignites against the norms of intellectual discourse, which are issue-oriented, in many instances when others disagree with you. I know that may very well be the case, but I find it imperative and morally prudent as a Sinoean to speak on some cardinal issues that emanated from the elections at the 10th Convention of SCAA held in Ohio that have threatened our peaceful co-existence, with the propensity to annihilate our institution if we fail to protect our noble institution against the obvious wrongs that a few continue to perpetuate against the Sinoe people.
The finality of it all may be irreversible to the total obliteration of the organization. We were quite appalled to hear Mr. Emmanuel Wettee; Chair of the Elections Commission, gusting his own trumpet echoed by his associates that the elections were free and fair. 

The truth is that the elections were not free and fair, as the entire process was the worst rigged elections I have ever participated in. I am smart enough to know that it is a waste of resources, time and energy to seek redress otherwise called protest through a Chairman of a Commission together with some members who were among the chief architects of the blemished process from the inception to the end. All honest appeals made to Mr. Wettee, the Interim Administration and the Board of Directors were treated with contempt. The Commission initially violated the constitution by demanding chapters to submit list of voters. Secondly, it created its own list not submitted by some chapters. It took the National Convention to force Mr. Wettee to abandon his created list of voters. Worst, Mr. Wettee was caught twice switching my votes to Mr. Tarpeh during the counting of the ballots. Thirdly, another travesty of the electoral process - application forms designed by the Election Commission, which required all chapters’ presidents signature for candidate(s) vying for position, was breached by many but was purposely ignored by the Election Commission. 

A case in point: Almost all candidates from Delaware Valley Chapter, including that of Mr. Amos Suah, Vice President to Mr. Elijah Tarpeh and the MN Chapter candidates did not get the signatures from the respective chapter heads. It is a total and glaring violation of the Election Commission’s own standards.

It is against this background that I seek to clarify what actually transpired in Ohio and how we may forge ahead. We believe in the people of Sinoe, therefore, decided not to withdraw from the elections when we observed Mr. Wettee’s sinister plans and on numerous occasions complained about it in writing to all the organs of the organization. We did not want to be the cause of confusion and division in the Association. 
Protesting the results was unrealistic since the doers of the act would be the same judges and expecting a different result was ideally a total waste of precious time.
What Actually Transpired In Ohio At SCAA Elections
Regrettably, what was obtained at SCAA elections in Ohio over weeks ago instigated by a significant few, did not only demonstrate the lowest and condescending level of the organization but further demonstrates what people can do at length to abort the democratic exercise of accountability and transparency at the center of $44,897.59 of the organization’s money.  

Mr. Elijah Tarpeh, as an incumbent, along with some of his colleagues, concocted a scheme and betrayed every elements of the Charleston, West Virginia MOU that was meant to solidify and concretize the unification that the people of SCAA and Sinoe County yearned for so long. His adamant refusal to be audited and subsequent dissolution of a cardinal committee prematurely was responsible to set the stage of his game plan to perpetuate himself. He has systematically manipulated the electoral process acquiesced by his Ohio friends including Mr. Emmanuel Wettee, ULAA’s sitting president and others. He has placed these people in strategic positions to corrupt the entire electoral process from the inception to the end just to avoid accountability of the $44,897.59. Every effort made to Mr. Wettee, Chairman of the Elections Commission, to address the manipulation was thwarted or ignored. It was during the election when pressure was mounted on Mr. Wettee that he was compelled to address some of the issues when it was practically late for any strategic plan.

Hoodlums from the streets of Ohio and nearby jurisdictions, mostly teenagers including a faculty member from Taylor University who were not regular members of the SCAA voted in the elections. When some of these voters were personally confronted, they said that they were called to come and vote. One of the faculty members, a white man, from Taylor University voted, and when asked why he has voted, he said “I thought it was wrong but I was influenced by Mr. Zackary Major to do so as an honorary member – I feel guilty now.  I know”.

 

As you are aware, SCAA constitution encourages honorary and affiliate memberships but with no voting rights according to Articles VI and VII of the constitution, yet; Mr. Emmanuel Wettee allowed them to vote. Their only qualification to vote was that they were residents of or travelers to Columbus, Ohio. In most cases Voters were not required to present ID cards. Realizing that the cheating was quite glaring, Mr. Wettee shamefully aborted the voting prematurely two hours before his own deadline when the damage was already done! Most discouraging was the fact that Mr. Wettee was caught twice giving my votes to Tarpeh during the counting of the ballots! When my representatives confronted him, he admitted that it was a mistake! How can Mr. Wettee claim that the process was free and fair?

 

It was also alleged that convention fees collected at the door were being recycled and channeled through Wilmot Kunney, the Campaign Manager for our opponent to pay teenagers from far and near to vote for Mr. Tarpeh. The atmosphere was near combative and physically provocative by the likes of Sam Slewion, Jerome Mitchell, Zack Major, Wilmot Kunney and McDonald, among others, all supporters of Mr. Tarpeh.  It was a travesty that amounted to an affront to the membership of SCAA and the people of Sinoe County, and at worst, a total mockery of the democratic process. How can we, as Liberians, considering our past accuse others of the same when we ourselves cannot constrain our egos in a little county organization like SCAA, where we suppose to set example of honesty, for God sake?

 

 Judging our past for our future: Honesty or Deception at its best?
Memories are still vivid from SCAA 2004 Convention in Detroit, Michigan when Zackary Taylor Major purported presidential and vice presidential candidates, Marilyn Tiah- Morris and Sam Slewion lost the elections to Mr. Jarbah and Mrs. Peal. Zachery-Taylor Major, outgoing President and Victoria, Chair of the Board, hijacked over $32,000.00 of the organization money by refusing to turn it over to the new administration.  They created political bottlenecks in the turning over process and took away our money while maneuvering to frustrate the entire association.

 

After over three years of refusing to return the money, we reluctantly decided to participate in the Charleston West Virginia Peace Accord in the interest of our people and the association to facilitate peace and the unification process. With all good intentions, majority of the signatories to the Charleston West Virginia MOU were convinced that their participation would set the stage for unification elections, among other things. Therefore mechanisms were put in place before the elections to unify the association. Cardinals were the Financial Reconciliation and Consolidation Committee (FRCC) and Constitutional Review Committee (CRC). Mr. Tarpeh, as co-president, deliberately refused to cooperate with the FRCC by inventing his own reconciliation and consolidation standards to ensure that his financial misdeeds were buried up to the elections.

 

It was not a surprise rather calculative so to obscure accountability. The first test of the MOU failed at the door steps of Mr. Elijah Tarpeh by his refusal to turnover all  documents requested by the Evan Yancy’s Committee (FRCC) while co- President, Laverne Jones-Williams turned over all documents that were requested by the committee in keeping with the terms of the MOU. Mr. Tarpeh’s premature dissolution of the FRCC rendered the committee’s report inconclusive. 
This deceptive behavior of Mr. Tarpeh was the first blow to the Charleston, West Virginia MOU. It can be deduced therefore that he and his friends went to the peace table with insidious motives. Throughout the process, Mr. Tarpeh betrayed and fooled Mrs. Laverne Jones-Williams and the rest of the Sinoe people that gave up all for the sake of peace. His appointed Chairman of the Board sanctioned every clandestine move by him for obvious reasons except to ask Mr. Tarpeh to apologize to the Chairman of FRCC whom he insulted when his non-compliance attitude was reported at the Joint-Board Meeting.

 

Mr. Tarpeh had a dubious plan: As one of the Co-presidents, charged with the responsibility to steer the organization to a new elections, he was quietly steering himself into power in total contravention of the general norms. The only logical conclusion one can reach is that he did not want to account for $44,897.59. Consequently, he did everything to hold to the helm of power. If Mr. Tarpeh actually cares for the Sinoeans, why did he fail to approve the scholarship payment to the Sinoe University students? When will he produce the deed for the land he claimed to have purchased in Sinoe? Why should Mr. Tarpeh boldly lie to the Sinoe people that he bought a bag of cement in Grand Gedeh, paid someone to carry it on the head to Sinoe and paid for sea water to make a corner stone in Greenville? He concocted all these lies to justify that he paid $80.00 for a bag of cement in Liberia. What a shame!
If You Can Not Help Us, Do Not Hurt Us:   
Mr. Emmanuel Wettee, ULAA’s sitting president bears the onus for his action and inaction for finding solace in exacerbating the problem in SCAA just to appease a friend or friends at the detriment of the suffering people of Sinoe County and further split SCAA.  Mr. Wettee saw the writing on the walls and served as the chief architect that concocted the schemes to corrupt the electoral process. He has given rise to more confusion than ever before in the organization. As president of the highest Liberia community in the Diaspora (ULAA), he should have served in an observer capacity to offer words of calmness that would ensure peace instead; he planted seeds of division among the Sinoe people. There are other community personalities that aided and abetted the process to please family members at the peril of the institution. So, where do we turn now if the situation reaches an uncontrollable boiling point and must seek our umbrella’s organization (ULAA) intervention for an amicable resolution? Will ULAA ever be relevant particularly under this leadership to ensure peace not only in SCAA but others Liberian organizations, considering what we and others now know? Is this the best legacy Mr. Wettee wants us to remember him by as he exists ULAA leadership? 
 
 Institutional Failures & Betrayals
Nearly the entire appointed or selected Interim administration, the appointed Board of Directors and the Election Commission failed and betrayed majority of the Sinoe people through an act of commission or omission.  Their action and inaction have flared more trouble for the organization. It was always silent diplomacy when the issues were raised. Considering it all, the $44,000.00+ question remains unanswered as to the genuine honesty from our brokers – maybe, maybe not. But it certainly comes across quite reprehensible as a total failure of leadership at all levels, because the dividend for which we gave our all with enormous painstaking sacrifices appeared non-reciprocal by all measurable apparatus.   
From the inception of the exercise, the Koffa-Bate Team and other well-meaning Sinoeans constantly complained about the irregularities of the Elections Commission, the Board and the administration under the two co-presidents but to no avail. The end results have severely threatened the stability of the institution because every integral part of this mosaic, the SCAA, has now begun to crumble. Most of the major chapters and many other individuals are disappointed due to the lack of honesty of those entrusted to lead us to a lasting peace. We have now returned to ground zero where we started in Detroit, Michigan. No surprising why Convention 11 goes back to Detroit, Michigan to complete the circle of trouble and confusion.

 

The sad thing about this is that the same people from time to time continuously undermine the organization’s peaceful existence and prosperity with impunity. We no longer enjoy our co-existence with one another because of a few ingrained at all levels to inflate undue instability to our institution and people. They seized our money in Detroit, Michigan illegally when they did not win an election. Again, they have done it to the Sinoe Community by corrupting the process in broad daylight. At what time do we, as a people, say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH? 
It has been almost a month since the elections in Ohio and the new elected Treasurer, Emmanuel Kpelleh, has not received the $16,000.00 plus collected at the door. Why? History is repeating itself. Where are our spiritual leaders, elders, opinion leaders and sons and daughters of Sinoe? Your inaction might contribute to the final eulogy of this once vibrant organization. The questions remain, what is the agenda for SCAA to help Sinoe County? Is it about personal interest? What is it that we Sinoeans are impacting into our children for the future of SCAA and Sinoe County?   Are we not nurturing and perpetuating confusion by our actions and inactions?
Where Do We Go From Here?
We cannot remain in oblivion. We must engender those values that encourage accountability, transparency and the unconditional respect for the rule of law. We must demand audit, accountability and transparency at all cost. We cannot and must not stand idle while the chips fall apart. We must subscribe to the tenets and values that govern not- for- profit entities. We will be treading a dangerous path if IRS gets to know the details and dubious operation of this organization. $44,897.59 is a lot of money that will raise20IRS eyebrows for immediate audit. Anything short of that is tantamount to sanctioning what Mr. Tarpeh and his cohorts are exerting on us as an institution. Enough is enough. We must demand independent audit, accountability and transparency to save SCAA!
May God grant the farsightedness to see SCAA and Sinoe County as the BIGGER PICTURE.
 
Thanks
Morris T. Koffa