MONROVIA – Since the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company announced a number of policy actions professedly aimed at lowering price of petroleum products in the country, some economic and political commentators have been commenting on the matter, some hailing the move, while others detest it.
For his part, the Secretary General of the opposition Congress for Democratic Change and former Lord Mayor of the City of Monrovia, Jefferson Koijee has venomously reacted, stating that “what is unfolding at the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company is nothing short of a carefully orchestrated fraud against the Liberian people”.
“This is not just mismanagement,” he said. “It is a deliberate criminal conspiracy designed to rob our nation of hundreds of millions, enrich a small circle of Unity Party loyalists, and quietly prepare the ground to rig the 2029 elections.”
According to Koijee, the Amended and Restated Public Procurement and Concessions Act is clear: all procurement involving public funds must go through the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission. “Yet today, Amos Tweh, the Secretary General of the Unity Party who now sits as Managing Director of the LPRC, has brazenly violated this law by secretly importing petroleum products without any international tender. This is a direct assault on the Liberian people.”
He asked a couple of rhetorical questions “in defense of our democracy and survival as a nation”:
Was this petroleum importation contract, valued in the hundreds of millions, subjected to the PPCC process? What is the annual value of this contract and how many years is it set to run? Which company was handpicked behind closed doors to benefit from this shady deal and what are the terms? Was a PPCC ‘No Objection’ ever obtained as the law requires?”
The CDC Secretary General stated: “The truth speaks for itself. Amos Tweh and his Unity Party cartel are using the LPRC as their private bank, looting public funds and enriching themselves while the majority of our people struggle to buy a cup of rice or a gallon of gasoline. This is not leadership. This is organized economic gangsterism, carried out under the disguise of governance.”
Koijee said “enough is enough” and the country is not for sale to a cartel of greedy men who think state power is a business venture.
“We will not remain silent while they mortgage our future and use petroleum dollars as a war chest to hijack the will of the people in 2029,” he continued. “Let the nation and the world hear this loud and clear: the Liberian people are not asleep. We will resist with every fiber of our being. This country belongs to all of us, not to a handful of thieves hiding under the Unity Party banner.”
Koijee called on Liberians to rise up and expose the UP party government, to challenge them, and to reject them.
“They may control institutions today, but they will never control the will and determination of a people who demand justice and accountability,” he concluded.