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When President Ellen Johnson took over the political mantle of Liberia in the year 2006, she vowed to literarily stamp out corruption from the public sector. As a show of commitment, the first elected African female head of state, in her 2006 inaugural address, declared the menace “Public Enemy Number-1”.
Since then, the Sirleaf administration has taken several corrective measures aimed at clamping down on shady deals in Liberia, especially in the public sector. But building institutions, it predicted, serves the goal best. The government sought funding from the European Union for the support of the work of the General Auditing Commission (GAC); and established the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC). The work of the GAC is to ensure fiscal probity and transparency in government through audits, while the ACC has a statutory mandate to probe and prosecute public officials accused of financial malpractices.
Despite the efforts, corruption in the public sector continues to thrive, at the disadvantage of struggling Liberians. Worse, it has somewhat stunted national development and put a dent in the image and credibility of the Sirleaf administration.
Speaking recently at a town hall meeting held at Morgan State University located in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, President Sirleaf, who seemed appalled by the effects of this national headache, confessed “Corruption in Liberia is a societal problem; it is systemic. We have corruption in government, but we are fighting it.”
The town hall meeting--attended by hundreds of Liberians across the United States--was organized by the Liberians for Ellen (LIFE), a non-partisan political movement in collaboration with the leadership of the Liberian Association in Maryland. LIFE is a pro Sirleaf group dedicated to her re-election in 2011.
The Liberian leader told her compatriots that “deceitfulness” in their native land was not unique to public officials but a problem, which is “engrained in the daily lives of the people”. “Any one of you in this room, who is building in Liberia knows how building materials are stolen by people you entrust them with. Some individuals intentionally sell a parcel of land to two or three persons; a situation which often leads to crises,” Mrs. Sirleaf said. These scenarios, the Chief Executive noted, are graphic examples of how corrupt “our country is.”
She attributed the root causes of fraud in Liberia to “poverty and economic deprivation”. She maintained that in order to minimize the problem of fraud and waste in the public sector, her administration has embarked on what she called “systems improvement.”
elected Pics of LIFE Maryland town hall with Pres. Ellen Sirleaf (135 pics/Alieu jabate)
Mrs. Sirleaf said government has raised the salaries of public servants and it is currently working on the computerization of public institutions. “Improved salaries will help to reduce some of the problems. How do you expect a tax collector, who generates thousands of US dollars, to be honest when he or she earns US $30 monthly?” she wandered. The minimum monthly wage for civil servants in Sirleaf’s Liberia is $80.
The President also said her administration is working on the transformation of the nation’s judiciary. She said to win the war on corruption, the government needs an efficient, and honest judiciary.
She, however, regretted that “the judicial system in this government remains our weakest link”, saying that the government has lost several high profile cases in recent years because of ineptitude and fraud in the judiciary. “For now”, the President continued, “we have started the removal of judges and court officials, who engage in acts of impropriety”.
She disclosed that the US government is helping her administration with the training of judges and lawyers in Liberia.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Sirleaf has praised the GAC for the work the Commission is doing in exposing treacherous deals in the public sector through audit reports. The President said the GAC is doing a remarkable job. “What the GAC, the press and the Liberian people are doing in bringing to the fore individuals, who are allegedly undermining national development through fraud, is the right thing to do.”
“For many years in Liberia, corruption was swept under the carpet. But today, the story is different. Whenever I make a foreign trip and return home, I always submit an expense report with receipts to the government”, she added. She said the report often itemizes expenditures and accounts for every dime used from the taxpayers’ monies.
“Tell me which of the Liberian former presidents ever did that before?” she asked.
President Sir leaf’s public recognition and support of the GAC’s contributions in the war on corruption in Liberia is a considered a significant twist in the wake of the war of words between some insiders of her administration and the Auditor General, Mr. John Morlu.
Mr. Morlu, in a recent new story indicting Sirleaf administration for failing to account for the US $54 million it reportedly spent under general claims in the 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 fiscal years budgets, vowed to resign if, ‘the Liberian government proves the GAC’s findings otherwise’. In a response, the government, through the Ministry of Information Culture Affairs and Tourism (MICAT), cautioned the Auditor General against what the Ministry called “un-professionalism and the mixer of professional work with politics.” MICAT further maintained the AG’s trend of debate somehow validates “healthy suspicion that he has other agenda, which he seeks to achieve through inflammatory and unjustifiable arguments.”
Since the start of the Sirleaf administration, the GAC has conducted more than 30 audits of public institutions, and submitted countless findings to the Liberian national legislature and executive branch.
By many accounts, the LIFE Maryland town hall was a huge success, although it lacked the fireworks many had predicted.
Editor’s Note: Moses D. Sandy is a regular contributor to The Liberian Journal (TLJ); and he can be reached at 302-494-4866 or E-mail: mdogbasandy@aol.com
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