By Lewis S Teh
Monrovia City Mayor Jefferson Koijee responding to the United States Government’s Treasury Department sanction issued against him here says “sanctions will never silence him.”
“We want to thank God for everything, and we ask all our followers to remain calm we will get through this. But let our friends know if this is meant to silence us, you have to rethink because sanctions will never silence us.”
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced Friday, 8 December 2023 that it had designated Mr. Koijee under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, otherwise known as GloMag.
OFAC said GloMag is in line with the U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption, a core U.S. national security interest.
The U.S. had earlier sanctioned Margibi County Senator-elect Nathaniel McGill, River Cess County Senator-elect Bill Twehway, and former Solicitor General Cllr. Saymah Syrenius Cephus.
Three senior officials from the Executive were sanctioned along with Nimba Senator Prince Y. Johnson and Grand Cape Mount Senator Varney G. Sherman.
But commenting on his designation Monday, 11 December, Koijee who also served as CDC Secretary General told followers that he will come out victorious in the allegations level against him by the US government.
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Koijee is being designated for being a foreign person who is responsible for or complicit in, or who has directly or indirectly engaged in serious human rights abuse and for being a foreign person who is a current official who is responsible for or complicit in, or who has directly or indirectly engaged in corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery according to E.O. 13818.
However, Koijee appearing Monday at the Center of Exchange and Intellectual Opinion on Cary Street in central Monrovia, assured partisans and supporters to remain calm as
According to him, if the Sanction is a means to silence him, the U.S. government should re-think saying he will never be silent.
He maintained that the CDC, as a Party, and President Weah will give its official position in the soonest time before making an official position about how he feels about the US Government’s decision.
“Today, we just passed by to visit our people since we are in the festive season. We stopped by to send festive greetings and to thank all of you for your kindness not just to me but to this revolution,” Koijee said.
Meanwhile, Koijee warned that any attempt by the Boakai’s administration to undermine the constitution of Liberia will be resisted by CDC as a party, though he did not specifically say what would constitute undermining of the constitution and how the CDC as a party would resist such move.
The sanctioning of Koijee makes it six in total the number of officials who have been designated and sanctioned by the US Government under the George Weah regime.-Edited by Othello B. Garblah
Look Mr. Koijee please shot up your mouth and thinks about how you can restructure your life to suite our modern time society and avoid issuing verbal threatening remark against the people of this country.
You were privilege through appointment to serve as mayor of the capital city of Liberia. With this privilege, you should have used to contribute immensely to the pro-poor development agenda by making Monrovia the cleanest city in south Sahara region but instead rendered havoc on peaceful citizens of this country.
Be ashamed of yourself Koijee, you failed the cdc government and needs to repent from your wicket ways.