Liberia: Weah Fires Post & Telecom Minister

Former Post and Telecom Minister, Cooper Kruah

 


— Ruling party zealots have been calling for the Post and Telecommunication Minister’s head

President George Weah has dismissed his Post and Telecommunications Minister just days after he attended a ceremony in support of key opposition leader and former Vice President Joseph Boakai's naming of his running mate at the Unity Party headquarters in Monrovia.

Party zealots of the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) have since called for Minister Cllr. Cooper Kruah to be fired after he was spotted at the well-attended political event. 

The President granted their wish as the minister could not survive the Monday deadline given by one of the ruling party’s stalwarts, Montserrado County district #8 Representative, Acarous Moses Gray.

Kruah was never a member of the CDC, but rather Chairman of the Movement for Democracy and Reconstruction (MDR) of Nimba County Senator Prince Y. Johnson. And since the MDR cut ties with the ruling party and has now joined hands with the Unity Party to form a joint ticket ahead of the October elections, CDC stalwarts are livid. 

He was bitterly criticized by partisans and stalwarts of the ruling establishment, many of who questioned his loyalty to the President and the government. The MDR Chairman had attended the UP’s ceremony to see his political leader and kinsman from the vote-rich Nimba County, Senator Jeremiah Kpan Koung, picked as running mate to former vice president Boakai.

Until recently, Johnson, who is a former Liberian warlord, and facing US sanction, was a close ally of Weah and his ruling CDC but he is now backing Boakai’s presidential bid.

It was on the basis of the political marriage they sealed in 2017 that Kruah was named by the President to the ministerial post in 2018. But the President had to let him go after CDCians in an uproar decried Kruah as a traitor that cannot be trusted anymore.

Hours after the UP running mate naming ceremony, Representative Gray took to social media urging Kruah to resign. Gray also appeared on state radio, ELBC, on Monday and called for his dismissal.

“The traitor Cooper Kruah, Minister of Post and Telecommunication, must resign now,” Representative Gray posted on social media. “You are a dangerous sellout and it will be good to have lunch with you on Monday. No room for political polytheists and quislings.”

Kruah’s daughter and UP vice chairperson, Cornelia Kruah-Togbah, came in defense of her dad minutes after Gray’s social media calling on the government to rather sack her father as he would not resign.

“He will not RESIGN. You will have to SACK him. We want to know what the “N” in Nimba stands for,” she posted in response.

President Weah dismissed Kruah and named his replacement in an Executive Mansion press release issued on Monday May 1, 2023.

“The President, George Manneh Weah has nominated Worlea-Saywah Dunah as Minister of Post and Telecommunications. Weah named the accomplished administrator and veteran public servant on Monday, May 1, 2023.

The nomination is subject to confirmation by the Senate.

The incoming Post and Telecommunications Minister was a two-term [2006 – 2018] member of the House of Representatives for Nimba County and an executive of the former ruling Unity Party. He has since jumped ship, siding with the CDC.

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