Montserrado County Lawmaker, Moses Acarous Gray, says it’s time officials of government appointed by the President of Liberia, Dr. George Manneh Weah, to boggle up or boggle out.
Gray, who is one of the dependable lawmakers of Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) and President Weah in the House of Representatives, said CDC lawmakers have been doing too much in house protecting even nonperforming officials but warned they must double up to improve or be sacked.
“The writings are on the walls that the honeymoon is absolutely over and the latitudes given have ended,” he said, adding: “The issue of using oversight you are absolutely right and I 100% agreed that we were doing too much in the House protecting our own and hoping that some will catch up speedily.”
Representative Gray, in his frustration over the massive defeat of the CDC suffered in recent years indicated in a Facebook post he and other CDC legislators are poised to increase robust oversight.
“The mission was to solidify and get properly seated as there were calorific opposition attacks all over the place,” he said, indicating that they had to from one media institution to another to put up defenses for the ruling party since government’s media apparatuses, including ELBC and the Ministry of Information, were not adequately funded, and that a few individuals in Government were and are more concerned about protecting their image than that of the Government and the presidency.
He continued: “I am not escaping taking some of the blames as a face of the CDC and National Leader. The writings are on the walls that the honeymoon is absolutely over and the latitudes given have ended.”
Gray pointed out that he concedes being guilty of protecting many of “our own when they are called to the Capitol. This I take responsibility for as a leader.”
“We are resolved to end it after three years, and nothing will change this popular people’s demand,” Gray stressed. “President Weah has done so much to put many of us in positions of trust and we must not take advantage of such privilege to serve our people,” Representative Gray said in his outburst.”
This is not his first public comment exposing the delinquency of the CDCians in the governance process since the defeat of the ruling party by the opposition bloc during in 2020 Midterm Senatorial election and the preceding the Montserrado County by-election that brought Senator Abraham Darius Dillon to the Senate.
Recently, Representative Gray who in this latest outburst said the “narrative will have to be rewritten once and for all even if it means stepping on toes.”
He accused three officials of the ruling party, including the Minister of Finance, Planning and Development, Samuel Tweah, Minister of State for Presidential Affairs; Nathaniel F. McGill and the Managing Director of the National Port Authority (NPA), Bill Twehway, as officials in the CDC-led government practicing what he called “nepotism.”
At the time, Representative Gray accused them of employing unqualified members of their families in positions in government and intentionally leaving out qualified Liberians who are supposed to fill such positions and lacked the capacity to solicit international assistance badly needed to relieve Liberians of the harsh prevailing economic conditions.
The Montserrado County District #8 Representative spoke at the time on the Spoon FM, in an apparent warning to President George Weah for urgent action to address the deteriorating economic conditions.
The Finance Minister’s inability to reach out and seek external help from economic experts has created serious problems for the economy and the Weah led administration,” Representative Gray diagnosed.
One of the recent reports by US Officials confirmed the acute shortage of cash in banks in Liberia and long queue of angry depositors hopelessly demanding to withdraw from their accounts.
The Liberian Government’s inability to settle billions in debt owed businesses has worsened the economic conditions, forcing several businesses to scale down or relocate to neighboring West African countries.
COVID-19 has also devastated the country’s economy, with Liberian Government authorities’ only hope being to print additional billions of Liberian banknotes to infuse in the economy, although economic experts have warned of the negative consequences, while Liberian officials insist that on the only remedy to addressing the shortage of cash at local banks and ATM Machines in Monrovia being the printing of more banknotes.
In the last two years of the Weah administration, the economy has taken a nosedive, with public officials shifting blame for the poor performance of the economy. Unemployment, especially among the youth, has exceeded the 85 percent mark, which was previously blamed on the economic downturn caused by bad economic policies of the Weah administration, a private foreign business official said.