President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf needs to lead by example. And you know this won’t bypass me without telling you what is on my mind.
With all the real estate assets Ellen “declared” last month, missing from her disclosures was how much did she pay in taxes for the hundreds of acres of land she listed and houses as hers?
Now, let us compare both assets: the assets she declared before taking office did not come near, not even close to the assets she has declared 12 years later.
How did she acquire all the extra assets while President?
In 2005, she listed her debt to include US$120,000.00 owed to Lebanese people. 12 years later she is a multi-millionaire. Only in Liberia.
Equally so, how much tax did Ellen pay each year from 2006 to the present on her income–salary of US$72,000.00-plus yearly perks including her Nobel Peace Prize money?
But we want to know how much did she pay for all the properties she listed including the 500 acres of land in Bong County?
So why cry now about little tax revenue when you wasted 12 years in office but was conspicuously silent?
Thus, there is more the reason to audit Ellen.
And then the over US$30 million wasted on fixing the Executive Mansion that is still not fixed and is unoccupied and the money that disappeared into corruption.
And whatever became of her “war on corruption, Liberia’s number one enemy?”
“Puah-puah, says the Kru and Grebo people, meaning that talk is cheap.
Hence, why we need assurances from our presidential candidates that they will act on all the dormant GAC audits and Presidential Task Forces findings and a promise to revisit all the bogus US$20 billion of so-called foreign “investment agreements” that sucked away our natural resources with nothing in return.
Then there is the need to audit our once promising offshore oil bust, and the now bankrupt National Oil Company of Liberia, NOCAL; thanks to Ellen’s son, Robert Sirleaf who ran the company into bankruptcy.
Ellen refuses to audit her Golden Boy son and to even audit NOCAL, but she is crying about low revenue intake.
Some Harvard economics? No, it is rather “Ellenomics” or voodoo economics.
More to come because we are going untangle your web of corruption for the last 12 years.
If Mr. Joseph Boakai wins, bet you Mr. John Morlu, the no nonsense former Auditor General of the General Auditing Commission of Liberia will resurface to continue where he left off. Nightmare postulation for many.
Jerry Wehtee Wion,
Journalist and Political Commentator
Washington, DC, USA