Monrovia – The lead campaigner for the establishment of War and Economic Crime Court in Liberia has described both the EBOMAF and Eton Financing loans as “bad loans” for Liberia.
Report by Edwin G. Genoway, Jr., [email protected]
Fubbi Henries said the loans are not in the interest of the Liberian people and do not meet the requirement of the Public Procurement Concession Commission (PPCC) laws.
Since the signing of the two loans, there have been heated debates among Liberians with some criticizing the agreements, while others hail President Weah and government for the agreements.
“My point on the two agreement is to heavily criticize the lawmakers for not doing due diligence, for not doing the Liberian people justice and they went ahead to sign faulty agreements,” he said.
Speaking in an interview with FrontPage Africa, Fubbi described Liberian lawmakers as “curse” to the nation. “They are the curse of the nation because there were genuine concerns raised by many Liberians from different quarters and we expected our lawmakers to take those concerns and act upon them instead of rushing to pass an agreement into law when Liberians on the general note have not understood obligations.”
He continued “The government is putting Liberians into obligation because at the end of the day, it is the average Liberian that will pay that loan through their taxes without government officials’ contribution,” he said.
He noted that Liberians and foreign business people are the ones expected to pay for the said loans through their taxes.
He said taxes deducted from officials of government are peanuts for those officials, saying, “most of the government officials I can say do not pay taxes because they are paid by taxes; so whatever tax deduction taken from them is just for formality unless for those who are operating private businesses,” he noted.
He said the government needs to answer all of the questions coming from Liberians involving the two loans. “We have to know how are we going to pay back those loans or what is government giving in return for the loans,” he noted.
He noted that the lawmakers shouldn’t have signed the EBOMAF agreement due to what he (Fubbi) calls conflict of interest and failure to follow the PPCC laws.
“There have been news in the media that he was renting an aircraft, but he later confirmed that it was his friend from Burkina Faso who borrowed him (President Weah) the plane; now it is the same friend who has surfaced with his company and got contract from the Liberian government without the PPCC laws being followed,” he said.
He noted that due to the friendship between both the Liberian leader and the owner of the EBOMAF company, the law should had refused the to sign the contract.
“The lawmakers needed not to endorse the EBOMAF contract because of conflict of interest and the PPCC laws were not followed, that alone is a corruption, conflict of interest and it shows a link of friendship between our President and his friend. The president promised to fight corruption and this action by the President and the lawmakers is a clear promotion of corruption,” said.
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