By Kruah Thompson
The Assistant Secretary General of the Liberty Party ((LP), Daniel O. Sando, says President George Maneh Weah did not just fall short of providing detailed information about the proclaimed performance of the economy, but he fail miserably to establish actual facts in his Annual Massage.
Speaking to reporters in an interview, Mr. Sando notes that the reason why President Weah did not provide detailed information about the state of the economy, is because the stability the President talked about did not commensurate with the process of job creation and purchasing power of Liberians.
He recalls that before the President took office in 2018, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank projected a growth rate of 4.6 percent, so how did “we” get to a point of decline, that today, the country is trying to manage its way back to 4.6 growth rate? He asks.
He says by now Liberia should be experiencing two-digit increase either 10% or 15% growth rate if government had really instituted some fiscal policies at the beginning.
He wants President Weah to state clearly and very emphatically what is obtaining in the country.
He points that this is not a successful story for the Weah administration to boast of, when there was a 4.6 projection of growth rate in the economy before he took office.
According to him, instead of the President implementing fiscal measures to help improve the country’s economy when they took office in 2018, the government blocked all civil servant payroll, thereby instituting actions that immediately discouraged international partners, saying “Look at what happened to LEITI.”
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LEITI is the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency International.
The LP assistant secretary general however adds that all the actions taken by President Weah and his administration have brought the country to its knees and as a result of that, it’s having a serious trickledown effect on innocent Liberians who entrusted their hope in the President to bring a rapid change through his governance across the political subdivisions of Liberia.
He observes that the only thing that has changed in the country today is those who in the name of CDC took the airwaves (radio) and insulted former government officials, staging protests that created chaos in the country.
These are the denigrating characters of people who are now in charge of the country’s resources. They are accumulating wealth and acquiring properties in a very short period of time, he continues.
Predicated on this he notes that if one were to conduct what he terms a lifestyle audit of officials of the Weah administration, every one of them would be found culpable “because their lifestyles have changed.”
“Somebody who could not afford to pay rent for a two-bedroom apartment two years ago now owns duplex across the country.”
Meanwhile, he says President Weah has flown with jet-less speed to acquire luxurious properties in a very short period of time, pointing to the President’s 9th Street residence in Monrovia.
“He broke down his 9th Street residence and built a very big structure. And he owns even bigger ones in the country.”
Mr. Sando laments that the President has intentionally refused to declare his asset, while the standard of living and the balance of payment in the country is not encouraging, yet he claims the economy is healthy.
“If the economy is healthy why are we still importing more than we are exporting, why are we still relying on extracted industries that are not sustainable enough to grow the economy?”, he ponders. Editing by Jonathan Browne
