The Most Experienced, Credible Candidate? -John Morlu Endorses JNB

MONROVIA : Former Liberia Auditor General John S. Morlu who was recently handpicked by Unity Party (UP) standard bearer Joseph Nyuma Boakai to coordinate the Rescue Campaign Fundraising activities says, although almost all of the candidates running for the nation’s highest office have integrity, Ambassador Boakai represents the most pragmatic leadership that captures the essence of capability, competence and the necessary skills set needed to drive Liberia out of its current leadership deficit.

Speaking as a guest on the Spoon Talk show late Monday evening, former AG Morlu said Ambassador Boakai reached out to him almost six months ago to coordinate the Unity Party Campaign fundraising drive, his decision to join the Unity Party bandwagon came from his heart.

“I have my own criteria and values, like every other Liberian who decides to support their respective leader. But there were certain things I was looking at. Things like integrity. Everyone running in the opposition has integrity. I can’t question Cummings, Gongloe, Moniba. Any one of those people, they are pretty good people.

“The second thing I was looking at was, who among those people is more capable in the opposition? One of the other things I was looking at was capability or competency. Whether the candidate has the skills set, do they have the relevant experience. And I will emphasize relevance, because you can’t take somebody who is in Fintech and go tell them to do a manufacturing job.

“So, I settled on Joe Boakai among all of the candidates, who actually has 40 years’ experience in government operation. No matter what we do, we can talk about his other personality, but you can’t deny that. And then I looked at his compassion for the country, commitment, somebody with the right temperament; and somebody who will restore confidence, stability in Liberia; all of them have that. But for me, what Joseph Boakai has over all of them, it’s about who is most likely to beat George Weah.

“We can disagree on that. Mathematically, we can disagree. But that’s how I get about deciding. I spoke to Tiawon Gongloe; I’ve spoken to almost all of the candidates. But I decided that at this point in 2023, in my judgment, Joe Boakai is the best suited candidate to beat George Weah. That’s how I decided to go for Joe Boakai. It took me six months to arrive at that decision,” Mr. Morlu said.

Synchronizing the Unity Party fundraising processes

According to Mr. Morlu, his affiliation with the Unity Party for now is to primarily provide Ambassador Boakai with the requisite financial advice on how to arrange in a transparent way funds received from donors, and to ensure that the funds are placed in a bank account or a platform by creating a dashboard that everyone can know who donated to the campaign and how the campaign fund was used.

“The second issue is we need some level of security and confidentiality. People want to give, but they don’t also want to be punished. In our Liberia situation, when it is found out that someone is giving money out to Joe Boakai, and that person works with the Government, he has the chance of losing his support.

“My job is to put together a platform as a CPA that creates an environment of security and confidentiality. To put together such a platform takes an incredible amount of time, technology, and infrastructure. You have to build the website, and a formal platform. You can’t stop from trying to raise money when you haven’t put together the infrastructure. Now that the infrastructure is up, we are going to coordinate, standardize and centralize and control on www.joeboakai.com all of the fundraising effort.

“So, I will be going back to those who have raised money. There are people raising money in North Carolina, there are some people raising money in Maryland, there are people raising money everywhere. And they are doing that out of the goodness of their heart. But the challenge is, we don’t want it to be suspicious, whether someone raised money, how much did they raise, who gave that money, whether the entire amount got to the candidate,” Mr. Morlu said.

Explaining further, Morlu said one of the main challenges facing the fund raising initiative is to find the requisite manpower to monitor the transparency of every fund that will be raised.

“I was appointed by Hon. Joseph Nyuma Boakai to do this as the only person. But I also told the Ambassador that no one individual can build a platform, monitor the platform, and raise money in a way that is needed to run the campaign. So, what I did beginning this Thursday, was to talk to other well-meaning Liberians, people who have already started raising funding, so we can come together as a team. So, we are meeting again this Wednesday. Hopefully after this Wednesday, we will have a team of up to 25 to 50 people that will be helping this effort,” Morlu intoned.

He said a lot of Liberians are now testing the system and they are satisfied with what has been created. It was done prior to this program.

“I am a transparent person. I am not going to mislead you. I have not talked to the party about their fundraising, but we were testing this system. Sometimes, when you put stuff out in technology, if there are one or two glitches, people complain that the stuff doesn’t even work. So, we have tested this. Even as of today, we were testing a mobile money platform in Liberia, to see how that mobile money transaction is going to work; and there were some glitches. We just finished it today. But I see your concern. I think we should have moved faster, quicker.

Yes, I heard of the fundraising that took place in Minnesota, but it’s never too late. I am an accountant; I am an auditor. I believe in transparency. I will try to go back to make sure that that process is also accounted for, and there was transparency, and we collected some of the money.

Regarding the issue of the Unity Party raising a little over US$25,000 at the Minnesota fundraiser, and another US$100,000 that was raised under Senator Lawrence, and whether those funds were ever captured under AG Morlu’s platform, AG Morlu said while he was not informed as to what was collected, he was sure that whatever has been collected, whether by Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence or the Minnesota fundraising group, “we will try to make sure that everything is transparent and accounted for. “

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