Montserrado County District #8 Representative Acarous Moses Gray terms the recent pull out of the four opposition Collaborating Political Parties from the COVID-19 food distribution steering committee as an act of cowardice.
Representative Gray specifically notes that decision by officials of the CPP to ask their representative, Mr. Mohammed Ali from the technical committee set up to distribute food to the suffering population is wrong.
Speaking to reporters in Monrovia, he said the decision by the parties to walk out of a process that is inclusive of international partners, including the World Food Program, World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, religious groups and other civil groups here on grounds that the process smells of corruption is a terrible mistake and a direct signal of cowardice. According to Gray, such pronouncement by the CPP officials falsely accused international partners who have best of integrity.
“To back from a process that comprises international partners who built their operations on integrity, transparency, accountability, and fairness, to accuse them of smells of corruption means, the CPP unjustifiably accused our international partners for no reason and I know one the thing: the CPP survives on lies and falsehood,” he says.
He explains that the distribution of food is not onlyto CDCians or people who support the Presidency; instead, all Liberians who fall within the category of vulnerability. “The best option for the CPP would have beento stay in and criticize the process or right the wrong,” he stresses.
According to him, the CPP survives on lies and falsehood and such trend of politics is detrimental for the political future of the Collaboration, which groups the former ruling Unity Party, the Alternative National Congress, the All Liberian Party and the Liberty Party.
But the Collaborating Political Parties had earlier argued that the proposal for the stimulus package did not identify budgetary items that would be cut to raise the US$25 million, leaving that difficult exercise to the Legislature, which is not privy to all the facts to make an informed decision.
“The proposal does not identify which existing projects will suffer as a result of the World Bank’s reallocation of the US$10 million contribution. Food aid in ‘designated counties’ begs the question of which counties will be included and which will be left out? Given how small our country is and the interconnectedness of our people, it seems unjustifiable that there is a county in Liberia that can be excluded from the government’s food aid program,” the CPP expressed in reaching its decision pull out of the steering committee headed by Minister of Commerce and Industry, Wilson Tarpeh.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]
By E. J. Nathaniel Daygbor–Editing by Jonathan Browne
