Monrovia – President-elect George Weah is yet to start the formation of his government, in fact, he’s yet to be sworn into office, but FrontPageAfrica has reliably learned that the Senate has already decided to reject nominations of persons with dual citizenship.
Report by Henry Karmo, [email protected]
The Senate’s decision, according to sources within the Capitol, is intended to avoid people who have sworn oath of allegiance to other countries from holding positions of trust in the new government.
“We cannot continue to confirm people whose loyalty is to America; this was a mistake we have made over the years and we want to correct those wrongs. We will write the President-elect and inform him of this decision so he can take the necessary measures.
“You appoint and confirm people who have dual citizenship and at the end of the day we realize serious austerity – people taking money to pay for their mortgages in America. They don’t have loyalty to country,” our legislative source said.
According to him, the Senate is taking very seriously like never before the scrutiny of presidential nominations for positions in government.
FrontPageAfrica gathered that the Senate was embarrassed by series of query over the nationality of the Chairman of the National Elections Commission, Cllr. Jerome Korkoya, when many protests were staged for his resignation before the conduct of the elections.
The Senate, according to the source, also referenced the appointment of Ellen Corkrum who once served as Managing Director of the Liberia Airport Authority (LAA) and her fiance, Melvin Johnson.
The pair were allegedly involved in squandering thousands of dollars of Liberian tax payers money and absconded to the United States.
Corkrum, one of the diaspora Liberians brought in the country by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf under the canopy of contributing her quota to the national revival drive, mysteriously left the country in a bid to escape the Liberian government indictment against her in July 2013.
She was indicted for theft of property and economic sabotage in line with a deal that was intended to revamp the country’s lone international airport (Robert International Airport) devastated by the civil war.
The government mounted sustained and relentless efforts to have Madam Corkrum and her boyfriend (Johnson) extradited to Liberia, relying on a reported extradition treaty with the US, to face trial.
Bringing the alleged culprits back to Liberia on the strength of the ‘extradition treaty’ became a hotly debated issue across the country, with the Liberian justice authorities publicly stating that they had filed an extradition request to the US government through the Department of State and that negotiations were in the advanced stage to consummate the arrangement.
However, legal minds counter-argued the government’s claims and questioned the veracity of any existing treaty between the two nations.
To date, Corkrum is yet to face justice for her alleged act.