Montserrado County Senator, Abraham Darius Dillon, is fighting tooth and nail plus his last breath to salvage his political image – or whatever’s left of it – over his receipt of US$6,000 from the Executive over the passage of the state of emergency and the economic stimulus package for the COVID-19 outbreak.
By Gboko Stewart, Contributing Writer
Calling it “operational funds” to fight COVID-19, Senator Dillon and the band of forty thieves – oops, I meant 29 senators – in the Liberian Senate received a whopping US$180,000 from the Executive to be shared equally for doing their constitutionally assigned job which they are supposedly paid US$9,000 monthly.
The money, according to Senator Dillon, was not a bribe, inducement – or whatever euphemism he may want to call it – by the Executive, and that it had gone through all the necessary processes.
“A voucher was raised and sent to the Ministry of Finance and a check was raised by the Central Bank of Liberia under the Senate operational fund budget,” he said.
And this was all done, it seems, to make it appear legit and that Senator Dillon indeed has truth-telling as one of his many sterling qualities and as such, he must be canonized for sainthood.
But barely has his candidacy for canonization been placed forward, it appears that Senator Dillon and his colleagues on Capitol Hill are nothing more than heartless and insensitive pecuniary searching hounds, seeking their interests, not the country’s.
For example, rather than advocating and seeing the importance of US$180,000 going to the Liberian Disaster Management Agency (LDMA) to help ensure victims and would-be victims of the rainy season storm and the COVID-19 outbreak get all the help they would need, Senator Dillon and his colleagues chose to pocket the “operational funds” and engaged in acts of false magnanimity.
“We received that money and have made an intervention in the county by helping storm victims reroof their homes after they were destroyed by the storm.”
And rather than using the “operational funds” to buy ventilators and other equipment needed in hospitals across the country, Senator Dillon and colleagues, whose only skill set in fighting Corona is having their pictures emblazoned on buckets, chose to ignore the existing reality of the peril the country faces.
His admittance comes in the wake of an imminent protest by health workers battling the COVID-19 over lack of payment of their salary and a lack of bump in their wages for hazard.
Over a fortnight ago, Senator Dillon, in a post on his official Facebook page, called for public officials to half their salaries to fund the fight against COVID-19 if the government of Liberia cannot gather the resources.
This post, plus many more bandied, has often been the subterfuge used by Senator Dillon and it was on this crest of social media wave he swam his way into the Senate.
For example, Senator Dillon, prior to entering the Senate often decried the splurging of huge sums on SUVs every year for members of the Legislature, saying he wouldn’t ride and accept any vehicle costing more than US$9k and it would be bought from a local Liberian dealer in order to boost local empowerment.
But barely before the dawn of the rising sun, Senator Dillon, with light, camera and small action, took receipt of an SUV which costs a staggering US$35,000. He would remain deaf and insouciant to the cries of the public that he returned the vehicle as it went against his espoused values, even if it were bought for his predecessor, Senator Geraldine Doe-Sheriff.
This was just the first of many more to come.
Fulfilling a campaign promise to half his salary and donate it to the county he represents, Senator Dillon, in an elaborate press conference at his office on Capitol Hill, announced a fulfillment of that pledge.
Rather than having the Superintendent of Montserrado County and the General Auditing Commission present to donate the money with an instruction to furnish the GAC with an expenditure report, he announced the setting up of an account at a local bank, where the money was allegedly deposited, to be overseen by his chief of office staff.
So much more for the touted and espoused values of transparency and accountability by ‘The Light.’
And as if that wasn’t enough, Senator Dillon, who promised not to accept an extra dime for doing the job he’s being paid handsomely for, took receipt of US$6k and would go on to euphemistically termed it as “operational funds”, whatever that meant.
All of this meant to prove that Senator Dillon is nothing more than those he criticized prior to entering the Legislature and far less than his social media values he espouses daily.
The Liberian Legislature needs change from top to bottom. But such change truly cannot emanate from Senator Dillon and those trying to whitewash his actions on social media.
Under the watchful but sleepy eyes of the Liberian Legislature, 66 bogus concession agreements were passed during the Sirleaf’s administration, according to international anti-corruption watchdogs.
During this period, Senator Dillon served as chief of office staff to former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Edwin Melvin Snowe, Jr. and later to then Bong County Senator, now Vice President, Jewel Howard Taylor.
For his supporters and ardent lovers to insinuate that he does not know and understand the inner dealings of the Legislature and is still a rookie lawmaker learning the ropes is indeed boggling.
Where were they when Senator Dillon, as then chief of office staff to former Speaker Snowe, was instrumental in making sure Arcelor Mittal, donated 100 Mitsubishi pick-ups to members of the Legislature to induce them for favorable ratification of the concession agreement?
But Senator Dillon is clever – a credit which is due him. From being special assistant to a former Solicitor General, prodigal political son to the late Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine and rolling with the high and mighty of the Sirleaf clan, he sure has learnt a lot in the game of politricks, oops I meant politics, along the way.
It has better armed and morphed him, thanks to social media, to present himself angelic.
Angelic as he is, he’s not immune to the sickness in the Legislature as he’s trying desperately to makes us believe. Neither is he the panacea to virus hovering in the Legislature.
In the fullness of time…