Monrovia – Group of aggrieved members of the House of Representatives has formed themselves into a group called Independent Legislative Caucus.
Report by Henry Karmo, [email protected]
The group’s chair, Representative Larry Nyounquoi, Nimba County, said the group aims at bringing about independence and credibility to the House of Representatives.
According to him, they are not going to fight against the interests of the Executive or hatch a plan to remove House Speaker Bhofal Chamber. Adding: “We intend to resurrect the Legislature from its current state of partisanship Legislature.”
“This group is intended to bring back credibility and sanity to the House of Representatives. We have observed that the House of Representatives has become a partisan place and we think this is wrong in the tripartite arrangement of our governing system.
“We are not established to fight the Executive or remove the Speaker. We feel when it is about party, it should be and when it is about the Legislature and representation it should be about the interests of the people we represent.”
Since he assumed the Speakership, Bhofal Chambers has always been in the line of fire from over either the way he is proceeding as the Presiding Officer or his intolerant posture against his colleagues, who criticize him.
Chambers, as an opposition lawmaker during the administration of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, saw nothing positive in what Madam Sirleaf did. He is on record for drafting an impeachment bill against the former President because he felt she was wrongly proceeding with the leadership of the state. His impeachment bill never made it to the floor.
Fast forward, under his leadership of the House of Representatives, many of his colleagues have been placed under investigation for speaking boldly against what they see as wrong leadership style and bad governance.
Acting on a recent communication from Rep. Munah Pelham-Youngblood, Chair on the House’s Committee on Executive, Speaker Chambers placed two lawmakers under probe, a decision that has agitated many of his colleagues.
During the second day sitting after their constitutional agriculture break, several lawmakers were placed under investigation for calling on the leadership of the House of Representatives to probe into a barrage of allegations of malpractices perpetrated by House Speaker Bhofal Chambers and associates.
The lawmakers, Reps. Jay Nagbe Sloh (CDC, Sinoe County Dist. #2), Adolph Lawrence (CDC, Montserrado Dist. #15) and Yekeh Kolubah (Montserrado Dist. #10, NPP) are being investigated by the Committee on Rules, Order and Administration, whose Chairperson is being implicated, too.
The CDC, Montserrado Dist. #9 Representative craved the Speaker and colleagues’ indulgence to refer the concerned lawmakers to the Committee on Rules, Order and Administration to provide proof or be punished.
In a scathing attack on Speaker Chambers following the first-day sitting of the Second Session, Rep. Sloh revealed that they have in their possession documents, which show that some lawmakers, with the consent of the Speaker, have over the months received and disposed personally “huge quantity” of duty-free gasoline that was intended for the entire body.
Sloh’s allegations were backed by Rep. Yekeh Kolubah, when addressing reporters. Rep. Kolubah displayed documents allegedly signed by Rep. Mariamu Fofana, Chair of the House Rules, Order and Administration Committee, which showed that she received a consignment of duty-free gasoline on behalf of the House.