Monrovia – The Legislature is incompetent in performing its oversight responsibility, according to Nimba County Senator Prince Y. Johnson, and that’s why the economy has become messy.
Report by Henry Karmo, [email protected]
Senator Johnson refused to agree with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Bhofal Chambers, who, over the weekend, accused former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of adopting a Soviet-style and military-fashioned leadership to compel economic compliance.
The Speaker said Madam Sirleaf printed huge unspecified amount of new Liberian dollar banknotes that have gone loose in circulation.
But Senator Johnson, the controversial lawmaker, slammed that argument, insisting that members of the 53rd Legislature failed to properly inquire about the printing of the new banknotes before authorizing the printing.
“The situation is tense and will continue to get tense. The picture out there is bad. I blame the Legislature because we are responsible for the minting of coins. When we gave the instructions, we did not tell them how much to print,” he said.
Senator Johnson made the assertions on Monday, July 9, during a special open session held by the Senate to discuss the troubling state of the economy.
The Nimba lawmaker made the comments at the open door session of a Senate special session to discuss the country drowning economy.
Those who were invited to appear before the full plenary of Senate in an Executive Session to address the State of the Economy are: Finance and Development Planning Minister Samuel Tweah, Commerce Minister Prof. Wilson Tarpeh, Acting Central Bank Governor (CBL), the Officer In Charge at the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) Decontee King Sackey and the former LRA Director General Madam Alfreda Tamba.
The session was, however, held behind closed door.
Deputy Finance Minister Samora Wolokollie, Decontee King Sackie of the Liberia Revenue Authority, and Minister Wilson Tarpeh of the Commerce Ministry represented the Executive.
In a related development, the Senate has invited Acting Central Bank Governor Charles Sirleaf to state reasons why he should not be held in contempt for failing to honor their request to appear along with other government officials of the Executive.
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