By: Konah Rufus

Monrovia-Plenary of the Liberian Senate today launched investigation into reports of alleged misappropriations in the distribution of $25million emergency stimulus package for the Liberian population pained- down by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Senators’ demand for accountability came in the wake of media reports that food ration and other essential materials intended for Liberians under Covid-19 lockdown had been allegedly misdirected or siphoned into individual homes .

“We need to make the steering committee to account for the $25 million package. We must provide the oversight function to compell agencies responsible to account because, hadn’t we affixed our signatures to the resolution that produced that money, this Government would have never gotten the package. We need explanations on how it went” Montserrado Senator Darius Dillon demanded during Tuesday’s heated debate.

In April 2020, the Liberian Legislature signed a resolution approving US$25 million food package to be distributed to Liberians under Covid-19 lockdown throughout the country, but the distribution process has been mired by reports of corruption and misappropriation.

Uneasiness over the Covid-19 stimulus package distribution also came in the wake of President Weah’s open assurance of his government’s commitment to seeking the welfare of the Liberian population who have been severely imacpted by the global health emergency.

“Honorable Pro-Tempore and members of the Senate. I think Senator Dillon is being diplomatic here. The reality is that people stole the so-called stimulus package. My county Sinoe received only $17,000 out of $25million. We need to call the relevant agencies here to account,” Senator Jonathan Milton Teahjay of Sinoe declared.

The Southeastern legislator suggested that unless people are made to account for public fund, the Government will continue to carry bad image. His comments were also backed by fellow Senators.

“We should not sweep this one under the carpet because our people need to take us serious here,” Bong County Senator Prince Moye advised. “This Senate must not be the one to always open itself to public redicule,” he warned

The latest stimulus package saga is one of major embarrassments confronting Liberia’s troublesome history of corruption. Liberia, a post-conflict nation with nearly five million people, has been in the web of corruption reports in the most recent past, some of which have claimed International attention.

Noticeable among these include the Government of Liberia’s $25million stimulus package announced in 2019 aimed at addressing the country’s liquidity problem. Despite boasting of the rightness of this monetary intervention, which the Weah administration argued would have tackled and have a firmed grip on the country’s fading economy, the outcome of that stimulus package proved disastrous, resulting to several bloody street protests.

An infamous halabaloo ensued over a missing LD16billion months after the $25million stimulus package fracas which nearly left the country in tumoil as anti-graft institutions, pressure groups, activists, and the country’s opposition communitty demanded accountability from the Government. The Council of Patriots(COP) are on record to have staged a mass protest against the Government on June 7, 2018 for alleged corruption, mismanagement, misuse and abuse of public funds, among other charges.

An international auditing firm Kroll Associates investigation discovered mass discrepancies and misapplications of financial transactions, including procedural errors, though it found no evidence of 16billion getting missing. The report left much to be desired by the Weah administration in terms of its commitment to fighting corruption, once reffered to as Liberia’s number one public enemy. Repeated demands for President Weah to fire his finance Minister an other corrupt officials also felt on deaf ears.

But the impact of corruption has always weighed heavily on the country’s impoverished population who feed on less than a dollar daily. Liberia, one of the world’s poorest countries, still grapple with its old nemesis, rampart corruption, bad governance, patronage, among other vices that are still visible within the society. which has led to uprising in the past. Corruption,, time-to-time, has been underlined as one of the prime factors for the country’s underdevelopment and backwardness.

In April 1980, the then junta Government led by Master Sergeant Samuel Doe put 13 public officials of the Tolbert Government on firing squad for rampart corruption, a moved observers say laid the foundation for the country’s brutal 14 year civil brutal unrest which left over 250,000 dead and sending more than 300,000 across displaced camps.