Monrovia – The Alternative National Congress (ANC), an opposition political party in Liberia, has described as appalling the seizure of some of its vehicles by the Special Task Force commissioned by President George Weah for the retrieval of government-owned vehicles.
Report by Lennart Dodoo, [email protected]
According to the chairman of the party, the Task Force “commandeered the ANC vehicles and is refusing to release them despite showing solid proof that it’s our party’s property with no trace to government.”
“This might be the beginning of a long journey.”
Chairman Lafayette Gould called on other opposition parties to join the ranks in condemning the government’s actions.
The ANC in a statement said the seizure was impeding their party work.
“We call on the government to immediately release our vehicles and weed out from its ranks individuals that intend to cause unrest in the country.”
“We also call on the opposition community to join ranks to tackle what appear to be vices of the ugly past.”
“We call on President Weah to act now,” the statement noted.
The secretariat of the Special Task Force admitted to FrontPageAfrica Friday that vehicles belonging to the party were impounded, but said upon verification of the documents, it was realized that the vehicles had no link to government and has therefore ordered the return of the vehicles to the party.
Last week, the special taskforce told FrontPageAfrica it was launching “Operation Get It By Force” to retrieve state-owned vehicles, noting that the President Weah’s two-week ultimatum issued on February 23, 2018 for the return of the vehicles had expired.
President Weah mandated that former officials in possession of the cars belonging to the government to relinquish them to the taskforce while those claiming to have bought state-owned vehicles under the government’s buyback policy should submit the documents to the taskforce for verification.
The taskforce has since been taking into its custody cars suspected of belonging to government or purchased from government with the help of armed police officers.
Despite being aware of the government’s payback policy, Lawrence Fahnbulleh, communication officer of the Task Force , told FrontPageAfrica that the Task Force realized that not all the former officials who claimed to have bought vehicles from the government were sincere to the laid out procedure for such purchases.
He said the taskforce was not taking lightly its mandate as it has become worrisome that some officials of the current government who have duties to perform would have to face inconveniences due to lack of adequate logistics, including vehicles.
