State Headed for Governance Collapse -Rowdy politics on Capitol Hill holds Liberia in random, as activists call for radical people’s actions

MONROVIA – Legislative works have frozen clearly effectively in the country. That House of Representatives, cojoined with the Senate constitutionally, is not holding sessions and deliberating on issues of national concern, brings the entire 55^th Legislature into eventual paralysis. Though nationally and internationally known Liberian groups respected for their peace interventions are sitting on the fence, grassroots voices are rising, ordinary Liberians are mobilizing to design pressure on protagonist lawmakers to return to work. As The Analyst reports, Liberians are concerned about excesses of the other two branches of Government in the absence of full legislative functions, particularly as the current fiscal period is fading away and revenue status of the nation right now and in the ensuing budget period is in abeyance.

For nearly a month now the first branch of government, the Liberian Legislature, has not been holding regular sessions – it has not been doing the Liberian people’s job – essentially causing effective governance paralysis since the Liberian political architecture is built on three legs—the absence of one rendering normal business of government ineffectual.

Article 3 of the 1986 Constitution provides that Liberia is given to a Republican form of Government with three separate coordinate branches: the Legislative, the Executive and Judiciary, which consistent with the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances, bars person holding office in one of these branches shall from holding office in or exercise any of the powers assigned to either of the other two branches.

The critical importance of the National Legislature, with its two wings – House of Representatives and Senate – sharing life support on a single umbilical cord is further accentuated by the Constitution, as the most mentioned or referred to branch of government, called out 70 times, and given the most essential responsibilities in the state’s life, existence and effective functioning.

As if the current occupiers of the 73 seats that constitute the bulwark of the House wing of the Legislature were ignorant of their critical place in the democratic, social, diplomatic and economic life of Liberia, they, in the four three weeks and counting, placed hold on their constitutional responsibilities and embroiled in self-destructive acts.

Given the condition of paralysis in which the House of Representatives wallows, students of political science posit that the entire national governance ecosystem is crumbling in effect if not already crumbled, as the sister wing of Senate constitutionally can hardly do anything with the House, and as neither the Executive nor the Judiciary can be considered wholesome-functionally relevant and effective.

In other words, as one pundit contends, Liberia is under siege, governance almost completely paralyzed at the behest of 73 Liberians who have chosen to do the work of their ego, placed the constitutionally responsibility of making laws, representing their constituents and oversighting the other branches of Government, with desperate desires to crush one another into submission and show supremacy.

Thus, for nearly a month running, the 55^th Legislature and all that is expected of it as a key institution of the Liberian governance system is frozen, as the House of Representatives is cracked in the middle.

Some 43 members of the House – claiming majority power since the other constitutionally legitimate party has 30 members – are making demands for the resignation of their Speaker on account of violations they believe he has committed.

In the prosecution of their agenda to remedy their grievances against their Chief Administrator, whom they elected just nine months ago, the 43 House members are boycotting sessions, refusing to sit under the gavel of their leader, until he resigns.

It does not appear to many observers that the House Speaker, J. Fonati Koffa, is grandstanding; he is rather requesting his day in court; that the petitioners should use the operating rules and laws appertaining to grievances including demands that he resigns.

As the legitimate Koffa faction has continually failed to cause the 43 dissenting members to attend sessions and begin to do the Liberian people’s job, it is also unable to convene sessions in respect to rules over quorum. And concurrently, the objecting 43 colleagues are holding their own sessions, however widely considered illegitimate and ineffectual.

Embattled Speaker Koffa, a lawyer, a week ago took flight to the country’s High Court apparently as a way of bringing the “renegade” lawmakers to order and have a logical resolution to the saga, but all so far appears fruitless because the 43 colleagues of his, reportedly sojourning at a local hotel, would not heed the stop order of the court.

Key National Stakes Floating

Meanwhile, as the deadlock continues, many important governance imperatives remain ineffectual, and there is the prediction that if care is not taken, and very urgently, the gradual grounding of Liberia’s governance trajectory will tragically reach a halt.

Experts decrying the fact that while the rival internal-House protagonists battle it out, seeking the head of each other, a number of pivotal national issues are at stake, with no immediate signs to indicate how and when order will be restored.

According to a number of governance experts that talked to The Analyst, the political war on Capitol Hill has got crippling effects on the running of Liberia.

“To understand the enormous consequences of what is happening on Capitol Hill, one needs to read Article 34 of our Constitution which places into the hands and care of the National Legislature the entire governance ecosystem of the country,” said James Maston Toby, a political activist.

“One of the most obvious hiccup looming as the result of the House imbroglio is the national budget process upon which the very survival of the government and the nation depends. Article 34 contains a bundle of critical prerogatives on the state’s fiscal and monetary regimes, and much is left to desire what happens to these fiduciary actions of the Legislature in its current fragile state.”

Toby recounted some of these constitutional actions – which are now in abeyance due to House infighting – as including the Legislature’s right to levy taxes, duties, imports, exercise and other revenues, to borrow money, issue currency, mint coins, and to make appropriations for the fiscal governance of the Republic.

He continued: “Another key stake that is floating is the Legislature’s key function of all revenue bills, whether subsidies, charges, imports, duties or taxes, and other financial bills that the constitution says shall originate in the House of Representatives.”

1. Ocrates Keh concurs with Toby when he said in an interview with The Analyst: “The House lawmakers are breaching critical prerogatives, and I am surprised they appear so oblivious if not ignorant of the magnitude of the problems they are causing the government and the state. The very security of the state, as articulated in Article 34(b) of the Constitution, lies with the Legislature. And the House is so cojoined with the Senate such that one wing cannot recess or adjourn without the consent of the other even for five days. I wonder if the House members know this—not only that their action and inaction imprison themselves, but also that consciously or unconsciously they have concurrently caved their Senate counterparts and the entire nation.”

Voices of Citizens Rising

Those who are schooled in public governance have been speaking loudly against the internal wranglings taking place in the House of Representatives, particularly its distressing impact on national harmony and smooth state governance.

“This is in effect a coup against the state, and let’s be clear and forceful about this,” Shelton Z. Crayton, Jr., an activist and political science student said. “A coup d’état that targets the head of the Executive Branch is no less out of order and destabilizing than the one that targets the head of the Legislature or head of any of its wings. Whether it is the Executive, or the Judiciary or the Legislature that is decapitated or rendered ineffective to conduct its constitutional responsibilities, the fact is that it crumbles the entire government and the nation. It is an overstatement for one to say that the disruption of the activities of the Legislature is more treasonable and criminal in nature since the nation’s political, social and economic life hangs on this branch of Government.”

He added: “It is unfortunate that the larger Liberian society, including the smarms of nongovernmental advocacy organizations, the religious community, constituencies of concerned lawmakers and all other relevant forces are treating the Capitol Hill debacle with demonstrated carelessness. Don’t they know and realize that Liberia is paralyzed so long the Legislature or even a single wing thereof is paralyzed? Who’s policing the acts of the Executive in these last months of the fiscal year? Who’s keeping check on the Executive regarding its operations including but not limited to foreign, security, fiscal and monetary policies and operations? What’s the fate of citizens whose representatives have abandoned their offices and relationships with them and are sleeping in hotels?”

The student activist also said as he spoke during a local radio live talk show “These are critical issues to consider but it appears the nation is snoring on them. Already, civil servants are not taking pay regularly. Already, there is not a single groundbreaking, let alone dedication, of a single government-sponsored project. Millions of offshore monies are generated daily. In fact, the LRA has reported huge revenue intakes, surpassing targets, more than this same period of last year. Who knows and who is checking the Executive Branch on what’s being done to the nation’s huge revenue collection particularly during these last weeks – last minute expenditures – at the end of the 2024 fiscal period?”

So far, however, the only Liberian group on record for planning confrontation with the House of Representatives, particularly the 43 mutinous lawmakers, is the student community.

Spokespersons of the University of Liberia’s student leaderships and other young people in Monrovia have announced a series of actions to compel the lawmakers return to normal duties.

Two of the campus-based spokespersons were heard on a local radio station yesterday as announcing the mobilization of thousands of students and ordinary likeminded citizens to join them in protest against the virtual halt of legislative business in the country.

“Our lawmakers are making fools out of us and it’s time we showed them the people’s power,” said one of the students.

“They are being paid taxpayers money—their monthly salaries and benefits are running unhindered while they are not doing the job for which they were elected and being paid lavishly by the Liberian people. This is criminal. It is labor theft. Secondly, why are these guys who are lawmakers refusing to abide by lawful precepts; why are they running away from the rule of law; why are they becoming breakers of laws?

The other student activist heard saying during the talk show: “But we have a message for the 43 lawmakers: return to business; return to work and you will be hooked out. If you don’t want to work, if you don’t know the importance of the job for which you were elected, quit. We are ready to mobilize as many Liberians as possible, and we will invade their offices, flush them outside and take over their seats. Lawlessness begets lawlessness. It is a revolution. It is the people’s power.”

He continued: “Chapter I, Article I of our organic law, the 1986 Constitution, states and I quote: ‘All power is inherent in the people. All free governments are instituted by their authority and for their benefit and they have the right to alter and reform the same when their safety and happiness so require. In order to ensure democratic government which responds to the wishes of the governed, the people shall have the right at such period, and in such manner as provided for under this Constitution, to cause their public servants to leave office and to fill vacancies…’ We will fill those vacancies at the House of Representatives that are made void and dormant consciously by those lawmakers who voluntarily abandoned job, who refused High Court order to return to work, and who are using force and coercion to oust a colleague.

“If 43 of them think they have power to arbitrary kick out a duly elected colleague, then it is appropriate and more honorable for thousands of Liberians to exercise a higher and more forceful power by kicking them out too.”

All is left to be seen in the coming days.