The $100,000 PUL Presidential "Buyout," and A Directionless ULAA Of 

Saturday, October 25, 2008    Two Soccer Legends

           By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

The Press Union of Liberia (PUL), and the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA) are two embarrassingly corrupt and inept organizations that operate in name only, even as the people they supposedly represent are having difficulty pinpointing major accomplishments that stands out as monumental between the two groups.

 It is a fact the organizations will try to spin conveniently to either impress their supporters or silence their critics in order to boost their sagging images and blemished records, which clearly shows the two groups are not only terrible, they are painfully ineffective and out of touch with the aspirations of the Liberian people decades after they were introduced to the people at home and abroad.

     Whether it is about the recent controversy regarding what some see as the $100,000 “buyout,” “bribe” or “gift” from president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to the “checkbook journalists” as the president once referred to the journalists sarcastically, before she made the financial contribution supposedly intended to help construct an office building for the Press Union; or the recent controversial ULAA “election” in Pennsylvania that ended in confusion and litigation reportedly tossed out of court, revealed an ugly picture of dysfunction and a fundamental failure on the part of the organizations in these times of uncertainty.

     With a combined 78 years between the two organizations, (PUL, founded in 1964), and (ULAA, 1974), it is safe to say that the Press Union of Liberia, whose trademark patronizing and survivalist approach to journalism and naked corruption leaves a stain on the profession in Liberia, seemed to have no clue about critical issues that unfolds before their naked eyes, as the unfortunate story of failed leadership has been reduced to the familiar and tired excuse about poverty and the lack of opportunities in Liberia to aid struggling journalists, which has been skillfully hinted by current and past members of the profession intended perhaps to win sympathy and encourage mediocrity.

     While it is true that some members of the Press Union who often masquerades as "journalists" are not only good at selling the profession to the highest political bidder for money, the Press Union is also guilty of not doing a better job either in helping to train many of its senior and lower level colleagues to write coherently and with clarity, and even failed to secure a building of their own more than three decades after being around only to depend on presidential financial intervention to be relevant.

     The Union of Liberian Association in the Americas (ULAA), doesn’t even have a tent to do business or archive its records, let along own a building of its own to operate from and attend to the needs of its people after 34 years of being around, yet prides itself as champion of democracy and free and fair elections in the homeland even as the organization struggles in 2008 to conduct its own free, fair and credible election thousands of miles away from home.

     The Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA), is a forgettable, and near-fatal reactionary organization with a history of incredible failure, no sense of direction, and an obvious lack of an ambitious agenda to move the association from stagnancy to prosperity.

     ULAA also lacks a credible and transformational leader with a vision ready to take the association to achieving practical results the Liberian people can be proud of. Instead, the Liberian people are left only with grandstanders, rhetoricians and resume' pushers waiting patiently in the wing annually to fulfill their life-long dream of heading ULAA, which is unfortunate.

           Both organizations have shown over and over how ridiculous it is to be in the limelight without actually accomplishing anything to show for being in the limelight. It is that lack of vision and intellectual heft, coupled with the convenient and not so neutral relationship with successive Liberian presidents that fueled the suspicion about the financial contribution from the often-combative President Sirleaf, whose off and on relationship with the press has shown an inconsistent support for press freedom in her administration.

     The Press Union of Liberia should have being savvy enough to avoid this public relations disaster that resembles influence peddling, and independent enough to raise money on its own from local and foreign donors while discouraging an overwhelming presidential financial intervention, so as not to corrupt the process.           

     To lend credibility to the president’s offer, she and others, including foreign and local political and business leaders, Liberians in the Diaspora, Friends of the Press Union, athletes, entertainers, civic and religious leaders and the Liberian people should have been invited to a fundraising drive to contribute financially to this worthy cause, and not encourage President Sirleaf to be the primary donor in a country where presidential financial and other contributions can influence the press and other institutions in a negative way.

      The Press Union of Liberia and the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas cannot continue to claim to be working in the interests of the Liberian people when they continued to dance to a different drum beat, completely different from the drum the Liberian people yearned to dance to, only to produce the same dead-end uninspiring results year-after-year. 

      Writing for one of the Liberian newspapers, a member of the Press Union of Liberia, “Journalist” Bill Jarkloh, responding to his colleagues’ criticism of the president's offer wrote these unpolished and unclear comments that resembles the writing of an elementary school kid.

     “Instead of rallying support for the Union to move out of rented building while at the United States, they have probably been enjoying the ice scream and the hamburger and forgotten that the PUL needs to be developed back home – doing nothing to rally support for this project which it is of no doubt they know about,” Jarkloh writes.

     “They forget their obligation to helping the union grow to get on par with other equal umbrella groups in other countries, they rather vaguely say the PUL’s administration of George Barpeen was being awarded for by the President Sirleaf with the US$100,000 without stating why they leadership is awarded for,” Jarkloh noted again.

     If this is what the Press Union of Liberia is all about, then I rest my case.