Liberia: “A Serious Blow to Liberia’s Image”
The Standard Bearer of the CPP, Alexander Cummings
— Cummings reacts to the U.S. Ambassador’s statement on the Weah Administration’s misplaced priorities.
The Standard Bearer of the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), Alexander Cummings, has warned Liberians not to give President George Weah another six years.
According to Cummings, doing so would severely damage the country’s international credibility and worsen suffering and poverty.
“To repeat the mistake of re-electing Weah will completely drive away Liberia's long-term partners and investors, with devastating economic effects on ordinary Liberians,” Cummings noted. “Liberia has become a pariah state under the failed CDC government, discouraging and turning away credible investors and partners, badly needed to revive the ailing economy and alleviate the suffering of the vast majority,” Cummings added.
The presumptive CPP Standard Bearer statement was in reaction to US Ambassador Michael McCarthy’s press statement in which he indicted Weah administration for alleged “gross incompetence, mismanagement of public funds, and outright carelessness” in the handling of affairs of the Liberian people.
Cummings noted that issues of continuous stealing and gross mismanagement of public resources as raised in the Ambassador's recent statement are nothing strange to Liberians.
“It is the daily reality for millions of Liberians, that governance in Liberia has become so rotten under this administration, to the point where our traditional allies must raise these concerns in the press, is viewed as a serious blow to Liberia's image,” Cummings said.
Cummings added Weah and his cronies continue to enrich themselves, while, ordinary Liberians continue to suffer, high unemployment, raising cost of living, growing insecurity, worsening families condition, unprecedented influx of dangerous drugs, and at the same time, thousands of Liberians continue to die of easily preventable diseases, due to lack of drugs in hospitals, caused by massive corruption.
The CPP Standard Bearer said these heart wrecking reports uncovered through the personal initiative of the U.S Ambassador point to the fact that, “it is time to show Weah the door, enough is enough.”
Cummings assured that a CPP Government will certainly get Liberia back on track by building a wholesome functioning system to restore basic essential social services for the Liberian people.
“As I have pledged many times, we will aggressively fight corruption by empowering the courts to prosecute corruption cases swiftly and fully – especially for officials at the highest levels of government,” Cummings said.
He vowed to remove all barriers to ensure that local businesses grow and create more jobs and at the same time, will implement an aggressive strategy to make Liberia an attractive investment destination for international investors, in alignment with Liberia's long-term vision for real change in Liberia.
Cummings said the pending October 10, general and presidential elections are about choosing between the old “politics as usual” that has led Liberia where it is today, versus “real results-driven transformational leadership that will make an actual difference in the lives of the people.”
The CPP Standard Bearer said in all his interactions with Liberians nationwide, he has seen and heard the strong desires for real change, and reaffirmed his sincere commitment to real and genuine change in Liberia.
The US Ambassador in his report said he was deeply troubled to encounter multiple county hospitals that received not one penny of what they were promised in the 2022 budget. “Hospitals on which lives depend, where outbreaks are prevented and suffering is alleviated, did not receive any portion of the US$100,000 or more appropriated by the legislature for them to operate,” the report said.
The Ambassador referenced a report in the press last week, that the Tellowoyan Memorial Hospital in Lofa County, and other health facilities currently survive “on the backs of incredibly dedicated health professionals, making do with whatever they can scrape together.”
The report said “Lest you think this is the work of one political party, that notion was quickly dispelled by Liberians I talked to,” noting that “the blocking of resources is so complete that it must be institutional: and the lack of any alarm being raised indicates a syndicate involving players at the legislature, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.”
The US Ambassador report further unearthed that Liberia's legislature has spent more every year for the past three years buttering their own bread, allocating over US$65 million in 2022 for salaries and operations, while hospitals are without, service centers “withered on the vine, the 30 senators and the 73 representatives spent sixty-five million U.S. dollars feathering their own nests.”
“We withhold 25% of the salaries of our Liberian employees at the Residence and at the Embassy to pay their legally mandated income tax to the LRA. Why are the much better-paid representatives and senators not paying a full 25% of their salaries? Why are legislators and ministers, those living on the top of the heap, given annual duty-free imports that deny the LRA much-needed additional revenue? Is there any reason other than the perverted version of the Golden Rule — ‘those that have the gold, make the rules’”? the Ambassador said.