Monrovia – River Cess County Senator Dallas Gueh says corruption remains entrenched in Liberia, which it makes combatting the menace very difficult.
He added the fight against corruption in Liberia has been a total “lip service” over the years.
The lawmaker was speaking on Wednesday, December 4, when he appeared as guest on a local television show in Monrovia.
“Corruption has become so much entrenched in our society that our country bleeds. So we need to have a kind of robust system that will fight corruption not by lip service; not by what we are doing now,” he said.
“It needs to be institutionalized; it needs to be system. Without a system that any man or woman can fight in all of what we are talking about fighting against corruption will just be lip service.”
Senator Gueh maintains that “the country is bleeding” as a result of the entrenchment of corruption, adding that combating corruption, which is “eating every fabric of the Liberian society”, must be “robust and systemic”.
Senator Gueh added that more efforts need to be applied if Liberia is to become victorious in the fight against the “national cancer”.
At the same time, he cautioned citizens against scolding members of the Legislature for not making decisions their way most of the times.
According to him, legislative decisions are made based on numbers, and as such, timing and situations at the time drive legislative actions.
“The Legislature has to do with numbers and building consensus. You may have the view, position or one vote, but it depends on the combination of votes. Politics is conditioned by time and the situations,” he said.
Meanwhile, Senator Gueh has also given his take on the planned December 30 mass protest against the government terming it as “unnecessary.”
He said although it is the right of citizens to peacefully assemble to petition their government, protesting for the resignation is unconstitutional.
“Any step outside of the constitution to unseat or remove the President is illegal; we will call on our citizens to take only constitutional means for the change of government,” he noted.
“The constitution calls for impeachment, if the constitutional provision will be taken by the citizens for impeachment, I will support that provision. We want our citizens to take only constitutional means or actions to demand a change of government”.
The controversial issue regarding this campaign is not the protest to demand the government to take actions but to demand the government to step down, he added.
“The protest is unnecessary because there are means to dialogue and there are means that the issues can be raised. To ask the President to step down is not a protest, but a campaign,” Senator Gueh maintained.
The Council of Patriots (COP), organizers of the June 7 protest, has vowed to stage a ‘Weah Step Down’ protest beginning December 30.
Executives of COP disclosed that the protest is intended to draw international attention to bad governance, rampant corruption, abuse of power, and the harsh economic constraints that continue to improve the already impoverished conditions of Liberians under the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) led-government of President George Manneh Weah.
But the Government of Liberia (GOL), through Justice Minister Frank Musa Dean, has rejected the request made by COP to provide security for the would-be protesters on grounds that their quest is ‘treasonable’ and it has no constitutional backing.