Monrovia – Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine insists he would cut salaries of government officials including his and his vice president by 30 percent, if he is elected President.
Report by Lennart Dodoo, [email protected]
The move, he said, would help his government create equality and cut government’s spending.
He spoke thousands of supporters from across the capital who had gathered at the party headquarters in Congo Town for the launch of the election campaign.
“I will cut my salary by 30%, I will cut the salary of the vice president by 30 percent, I will cut the salary of cabinet ministers by 30 percent; but I will need your support to get the representatives and the senators, especially those people who support Joe Boakai
“I need to have them agree to cut their salaries so that our children can go to school, so that our old people can have retirement benefits, that the disabled people can be taken care of in this country; so come election I need you to vote for Liberty Party emblem.
I need you to vote for everybody who is from Liberty Party,” he said.
According to Cllr. Brumskine, his party is determined to bring about change in Liberia, but claimed that the ruling party does not want to see such change happen.
Cllr. Brumskine who had his wife by his said it his high time the monies be taken out of the capital, Monrovia, and invest it throughout the country.
“It is time to take government money from the big shots and invest it in the average Liberian. It is time for free education for all our children. It is time give retirement benefits for our old people who live in the interior,” he said.
He boasted of not being a new comer to Liberian politics recalling back in 2007 when he served as President Pro-Tempore of the Liberian Senate.
The Liberty Party presidential candidate also bragged of having the academic qualification that would make him a better president compared to the remaining 19 in the race.
Cllr. Brumskine is making his third quest for the Liberian presidency.
When Charles Taylor became President in 1997, Cllr. Brumskine served as President Pro Temp of the Senate.
The pair fell apart in 1999 forcing Cllr. Brumskineto flee the country after being threatened by Taylor’s supporters. He returned to Liberia in 2003 with plans to run in the scheduled 2003 Presidential election.
However, Taylor’s resignation that year and the installment of a two-year transitional government led to the elections being cancelled.
In 2004, Brumskine campaigned for the Presidency as a member of the Liberty Party, pledging to reconcile the country after years of civil war.
He received nearly 14% of the vote, 6% less than the second-place candidate, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, forcing him out of the runoff.
Brumskine contested the 2011 elections, but failed to match his performance in 2005, finishing a distant fourth with only five percent of the vote.
This time around, the party appears confident of a much better performance following the selection of Harrison Karnwea, former head of the Forestry Development Authority as Cllr. Brumskine’s running mate.