CDC Thrashes Boakai’s SONA -Says He Regurgitated Litany of Falsehoods, Distortions

MONROVIA – Like a smart secondary pupil fresh after graduation and confronted with Algebra questions he sufficiently had already imbibed, and on his fingertips, folks of the immediate past ruling establishment, the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), demonstrated great acumen and savvy with Liberia’s governance ecosystem yesterday when, barely 24 hours after President Joseph Boakai’s State of the Nation Address, they held a press conference at which time they put the president SONA on the prism and discarded it in total. As if they ran their fingers along every sentence and paragraph of the President’s Annual Message, the CDCians left no line and utterance undissected and un-rubbished, finding faults, seemingly grounded in facts and contexts—and thereby virtually leaving the entire SONA Speech empty and bare, and making the CDC’s days in power a nostalgia. The Analyst reports.        

The Coalition for Democratic Change made opposition politics a sensation yesterday, particularly to its base and the public in general, when they took aim at President Joseph Nyuma Boakai and his State of the Nation Address, essentially tearing it into pieces.

At a press conference yesterday, the immediate past ruling establishment made history, and bigly too, when it produced its first ever post-SONA analysis in opposition—a biting censure of the current ruling class’s message to the Liberian people through embattled Speaker Jonathan Fonati Koffa whom the CDC considers the legitimate head of the Legislature even though he was absent from the President SONA.

Said the CDC from the onset of its statement: “Yesterday, President Joseph N. Boikai delivered his second State of the Nation’s Address and this is our official response. We choose to speak directly this time to the Liberian people because of the grave instability and uncertainty that now hang over our democracy and economy. Our nation is in crisis. The state of the nation is weak, divided and polarized, and this was evident yesterday, when about eight Senators, more than 25 representatives, and the entire Supreme Court bench boycotted President Boakai’s SONA. This is deeply troubling.”

“Liberia is in decline,” the CDC maintained. “The democratic and economic gains we made in the last six years are being eroded. We now see the Unity Party trapped in the very lies they sold the Liberian people to get elected. There is too much confusion and disunity in the land. All of these require a spoken response that expresses the raw emotions and feelings of our people during these turbulent times.” 

The CDC made it clear that President George Manneh Weah conceded political power to then President-elect Joseph N. Boakai—a concession made several days before the National Elections Commission completed the announcement of election results.

In conceding to then President-elect Boakai, the then incumbent President Weah demonstrated an act of extreme patriotism, the country’s largest opposition party insisted, saying their standard bearer broke ranks with Liberia’s bitter past of contested elections, which were often marred by violence and Supreme Court challenges.

“He signaled the dawn of a new day in Liberian peace and democracy,” said the CDC further. “Where before others believed that our democracy was weak and fragile, President Weah showed that Liberia too was capable of democratic and electoral strength we see in advanced democracies such as the United States, Britain or Germany.

“President Weah handed President Boakai a peaceful country and democracy, a Liberia in which the rule of law was respected, in which no president, legislator, or justice was above the law.”

Messy Democracy, Rule of Law

The party indicated that one year after the aforementioned most peaceful democratic transfer of political power, Liberia now lies in a democratic and rule-of-law mess, because as seen all over the place, the Unity Party administration of President Boakai is now teaching the Liberian people that the rule of law has no meaning or no value; that the law is whatever the President  and his legislative friends say the law is; that only ordinary common Liberians are supposed to respect and uphold the law while the Unity Party bigshots disregard, disrespect and violate our laws.

Said the CDC: “Our fellow citizens, because the rule of law is so important to the working of any society—to how citizens’ rights to justice, healthcare, or education are nourished and protected; and to how foreigners and investors perceive the role the law plays in protecting their investments—the Unity Party’s destruction of the rule of law has now affected every aspect of Liberian social and political life since President George M. Weah left office.”

“Today, citizens are confused as to where the country is headed under Joseph Boakai,” the CDC’s statement of critique continued. “Boakai Today, citizens are beaten and wounded if they dare to get into the streets to exercise their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. Today, whatever the Supreme Court says is no longer the law. Today, opposition personalities and former government officials are being witch-hunted and unjustly imprisoned. Today, the country has both a constitutionally elected speaker and a quote-unquote majority block Speaker who was illegally selected.

“Despite these violations, the Executive has imposed this illegally selected Speaker upon the Government and people of Liberia, while at the same time seeking the resignation of the duly elected Speaker. What a mockery of democracy and the rule of law!” 

“How did Liberians get into this big political mess?” the CDC asked rhetorically before stating that “we got here because the Unity Party packaged a massive bundle of lies and sold those lies to the Liberian people. They lied that harmonization was bad and upon taking office they would have  reversed it immediately; that the CDC was the importer of drugs in the Country and they would have solved the drug problems in six months; they said  that no car was going to get stuck in the mud in the first  100 days of the Boakai administration; they promised Liberians   never to  use private jet  for presidential travels; they promised to bring down the prices of basic commodities in one year; and of course,  they said they were going to bring down the US dollar- Liberian dollar exchange rate  down to its lowest.”

“As if this was not enough during the campaign, President Boakai repeated many of these promises in his first State of the Nation address,” the party emphasized, adding: “One year after falsely raising the hopes of the Liberian people, the reality has now set in for the Unity Party.”

UP Lies, Contradictions

Before taking on specific misrepresentations in President Boakai’s SONA, the CDC reflected on some of the lies and half-baked information it says the UP used as a conveyor belt to power, and which appears no more matter to the wining party after their victory.

The CDC recalled the very harmonization policy the UP demonized and which they now accept as impossible to reverse, since they know it is not possible to go back to the UP-era Basic Allowance and General Allowance systems.

The “kush” they were supposed to stop has now grown into Zombie and satellite drugs with no hope for the rehabilitation of our children who are affected by this national calamity.

In the first 150 days we saw cars being stuck in mud more than ever before in the history of Liberia to the extent that a bus caught fire in the mud.

Today, the CDC said, President Boakai is not just using private jets for international travels; he is using them for domestic travels as well, and his latest private jet has improved to the most expensive type.

The Economy, Business Climate

President Boakai on Monday, January 27, painted an adorable picture of the Liberian economy amid applauses, claiming amiable business environment, growth and lower infliction, but the CDC in its methodical counter exposed the farce.  

Speaking of signs of hardship in the country, the CDC point out that “today the price of basic commodities has not just increased, but the UP Government has admitted in the illegally passed 2025 National Budget that the exchange rate may reach as high as LRD 219 to US$1.00 in 2025. 

“The economic reality we present above shows that the ‘country is hard,’ that the ‘Rescue Mission has now become the Excuse Mission’ and that Liberians should prepare for the worst economic situation in 2025,” the party said, adding that Boakai’s speech “was packed with misinformation in so many areas.”

Asserts the CDC: “First, the Government says it collected $734 million in total revenue last year but spent on US$661.4 million. This means, we have $72.6 million of surplus that the Government should declare in the 2025 budget as the CDC administration used to do.  But we know that the 2025 budget has no surplus or balance brought forward. So, two things are possible. Either the US$ 72.6 million was blown off in massive act of corruption or everything the president said about 2024 revenue was false and misleading. We leave the UP to choose which is which.  Accounting for the money through a GAC audit or admitting that they lied to the Liberian people? We wait for the response.”

Second, the party further argued, the President said that he decreased the price of rice. “This one, we leave them with the Liberian people to judge. It was Liberians who were paying LR$3,100 for a 25kg bag of rice when the UP took over in January 2024, and who are now paying LR$3,500 as we speak. There is no way to lie about the price of rice in Liberia.”

“Third, Mr. President, harmonization is still the prevailing policy in Liberia, and if you say quote ‘people were facing extreme hardship because of harmonization, unquote, then you are admitting Mr. President that people, are still facing extreme hardship under you as president,” since harmonization has not been reversed by your administration.

“Fourth, information that 6,000 ghosts were removed from the payroll is misleading. The Unity Party has provided misinformation to the International Monetary Fund on this. The maximum number of ghost workers on the existing Government payroll cannot be more than 1000 persons. So, the maximum that can be saved due to ghost removal is about $1.8 million.”

According the CDC, instead of removing 6,000 workers, the UP has hired about 6,000 workers, increasing the Government payroll by about US$10 million, reasons why the party says, the UP administration has been hesitant to release actual expenditure information before the SONA.

It stated that the UP is afraid that its promise to the IMF to bring salary to US$270 million by end 2024 would soon be proven a lie; compensation will end at US$310 million or more, which will cause a big problem for the Government under the IMF program.

The Government said it added US$15 million to ‘increase salary.’ But how can you add US$ 15 million to US$ 310 million and still produce US$315 million in the Draft 2025 budget. There is too much confusion and cooking of the numbers happening within the Government.

And fifth, the former ruling party said international climate financing heard about yesterday in the speech was secured by the CDC administration. And the UP Government should give due credit for this.

“The West Point Project, or the Monrovia Metropolitan Climate Resilience Project is a US$25 million project financed by the Green Climate Fund. All this was secured by the CDC administration. Let the UP not take credit for a project they did not initiate,” the CDC further said.

“Mr. President your people misinform you.”

Fellow Liberians, having corrected some of the key misinformation in yesterday’s SONA, we move on to compare and contrast CDC’s first year   achievements verses those of the Unity Party. President Boakai said very little about what the UP achieved under its 100-day program or in its first year.

Foundation CDC Bequeathed to UP

Contrary to claims in President Boakai’s SONA that the Unity Party in 2023 inherited a poor state of condition, the CDC provided what it considers to be verifiable facts, including that in 2018 it was rather the CDC inherited a broken economy, with declining international aid, underperforming domestic revenue, and a two-payroll system that widened inequality among Government workers.

Despite these challenges, the CDC said its administration stood on this weak foundation to achieve a number of feats in its first year and handed the UP a solid foundation by end 2023.

Some of those feats included construction of more than 75 kilometers of community roads; placing more than 2,300 health workers on the Government Payroll; increasing the salary of medical doctors from US$700 to US$2000; keeping the price of 25 Kg bag of rice at US$13 per bag; sending more than 20 medical doctors for special training abroad and other declaring free tuition for college students at public universities and Free WASSE for high school students.

Other feats cited by the CDC are breaking ground for Military 14 Hospital which was completed the following year; launching the Pro-Poor Agenda for Transformation in nine months; digitizing registration at the University of Liberia, amongst other things.

With those and other feats achieved, the CD said it set out to work to produce a strong economic foundation for the Unity Party to inherit.

The CDC thanked President Boakai for acknowledging in his speech yesterday that his government is building on the foundation laid by the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD) under president George Manneh Weah.

According to the party, the foundation left intact and which that President Boakai referenced in his speech yesterday include increased domestic revenue to US$640 million, surpassing the Unity Party’s highest domestic revenue of $460 million during its 12-year rule; stabilizing the exchange rate and inflation, and handed UP an inflation of 10 percent, though UP handed CDC an inflation of 12% in 2018; harmonizing a broken Basic salary and General Allowance wage system. System ensuring fairness and reducing the wage bill by US$32 million; handling the UP Net International Reserves of US$240 million, compared to US$150 million handed to the CDC by the Unity Party after its first 12 years in office.

Other pillars of the foundations the CDC said it left inherited by the Unity Party is the maintaining the price of a 25kg bag of rice at US$13, for more than four years. It had to take global crises like COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war to move prices higher; handling UP an economic growth rate of more than 4.5 percent but had to stand on a growth rate of 2.5 percent in 2018; handling UP a declining poverty profile according to the World Bank 2024 economic report. According to this same report for the year 2017, the CDC inherited an increasing poverty profile in 2018.

“We handed the unity party completed road works from Ganta to Saclepia, and major contracts fromTapeta to Toe Town, and Town Toe to Zwedru, with all financing and secured. We also handed UP the Fish Town-Zwedru corridor contract and financing frameworks,” the CDC claimed.

“For our urban beautification and infrastructure improvement, we handed the unity party the SKD Boulevard, and the ministerial complex overpass contracts and framework,” it added. “We also handed the UP the RIA road corridor. We handed the UP a completed central Monrovia water supply project and revenue generation infrastructure

“We handed the UP 10-year World Bank financing for electricity transformation; the CDC passed the MCC scorecard three times, paving the way for Liberia’s Compact eligibility. In contrast, the UP handed the CDC a weak MCC eligibility database in 2018 which led to Liberia failing the scorecard.”

Poor Budget Execution and Management

The CDC also charged the Unity Party Government of mismanagement of the national budget—something it says that has resulted in severe inequities in resource allocation, stating that while senior government officials enjoy exorbitant allowances and benefits, Liberia’s healthcare, agriculture and educational systems remain critically underfunded. 

“When the data finally comes in, we will see that budget execution for 2024 has been a disaster. Critical entities at the frontline of service delivery, especially in health and education, receiving as low as 50 percent of their budgetary allocation,” said the former ruling party, which added that the nation’s 23 public referral hospitals, which serve over 5.2 million citizens, lack essential medical supplies and critical services, and have unpaid health workers. This stark disparity in resource distribution reflects a government disconnected from the realities of its people.

“For the Unity Party, budget execution is about personal benefits and allowances,” said further the CDC “The UP uses the budget to ensure Government officials receive large amounts of gas coupons, scratch cards, and other benefits.

“Under the CDC, these benefits were cut to make room for spending that impacted the mass of Liberians who do not work for the Government.”

The Parade of Investment Deception

The CDC also noted that while the year 2024 saw no new foreign direct investment and no serious effort to resolve business climate challenges that can boost both local and foreign investment, what the nation rather saw was ‘investment by showmanship,’ publicly packaged misinformation deceiving Liberians into believing that their government is bringing investment into the country.

“Investment is not showmanship, the attempt to impress Liberians that the President has external relations and is about to bring investments because of his personality,” the CDC asserts. “We have seen a parade of deceptive announcements that were supposed to impress Liberians that the Unity Party was about the solve the country’s investment challenge. These were all deceptive.”  

UP’ Concession Mirages

The CDC statement also doubled down on UP’s faking of concession deals, in most in cases misinforming Liberians on the true nature of the deals entered into, and other instances violating Liberian laws bordering procurements.  Here are a few ones picked up by the CDC

Faking the HPX Deal  

First, there is the HPX ‘investment deal.’  Earlier in the year, on February 20, the government announced an ambitious partnership with HPX and Guma Africa Group, promising an investment of $3 billion to $5 billion to develop the Liberty Corridor. This investment is still hanging and we are yet to see this materialize.

The Yellow Machine Procurement Saga

Then came the yellow machine brouhaha. Back in July, Monrovia witnessed a spectacle of its own. On July 15, a convoy paraded promising 285 earth-moving machines and dump trucks, heralded as the first tangible proof of the administration’s ARREST Agenda. Crowds cheered as the sample of the 285 yellow machines was paraded to a military barracks, a supposed display of progress. 

But as the fanfare subsided, the truth emerged. There was no signed contract, no formal agreement, and no financial commitment. When pressed, the President offered only a vague explanation, attributing the initiative to a casual conversation with an unnamed “friend.” The parade was a mirage, a spectacle designed to mislead.

This was a serious violation of our procurement laws and the people’s trust, riddled with corruption. The machines were valued at US$80 million but we now know that the real value is around US$20 million. The President was misled. The remaining US$60 million were kickbacks for officials of Government. 

Another Hollow Promise: The Great Bus Deception 

On June 24, 2024, the Boakai administration put on yet another show, claiming to have found the solution to Liberia’s transportation crisis. They proudly paraded two buses, billed as samples from the Brazilian manufacturer “Marcopolo,” with promises that 300 more would follow in just 40 days.

This whole bus saga was Vlah” as we say here in Liberia. 

The China Charade 

Then the China charade was to follow. September brought another round of grand proclamations. Upon returning from the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the Unity Party Government announced a $3 billion memorandum for an oil refinery in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County.

Once again, the truth fell far short of the rhetoric. The grants, valued at 200 million RMB, were roughly US$28 million in U.S. dollars. The debt waiver was a mere US$900,000, and even the food assistance package, initially celebrated as US$30 million, was less than US$5 million. Instead of celebrating modest gains, the administration inflated figures to craft a narrative of triumph. 

The MCC Compact Rebuff

Lastly comes the MCC Compact announcement. On December 19, 2024, Liberians awoke to what seemed to be an extraordinary announcement. Social media buzzed with celebratory posts: the government claimed to have secured a $500 million grant from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). For a country grappling with economic challenges, this was presented as a watershed moment, a sign of Liberia’s bright future under President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s leadership. 

By afternoon, the jubilation turned into confusion. The MCC released a statement, calmly dismantling the government’s claim. There was no grant, no $500 million, and no MCC compact funding. That eligibility does not guarantee a Compact as the government propagated. What Liberia had witnessed was yet another act in the administration’s theater of deception, a desperate attempt to distract from its lackluster governance and dwindling credibility. 

This was no isolated incident. Within the first year of governance, the UP administration has repeatedly used misinformation as a political tool, leaving a trail of empty promises and unfulfilled dreams.  They used this lying and deceptive playbook to win the election; they aimed to use it to govern the Liberian people. But they are now trapped in their own lies.

Fight Against Corruption and Accountability      

Our fellow citizens, the CDC welcomes the fight against corruption but such a fight cannot be on a selective basis. The UP   Government has shown no serious commitment to fighting corruption and its current fight pertains to witch-hunting former officials of the CDC administration and aiming to use the weight and influence of the Government against them where there is no basis. Currently, several cases of corruption involving the National Port Authority, the Liberia Revenue Authority, the Ministry of Public Works, the LRRRC, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Central Bank of Liberia, and the Liberia Telecommunications Authority, and the Ministry of Agriculture, involving tens of millions of US dollars remain unaddressed by the Unity Party Government.

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