Africa-Press – Liberia. Presidential aspirant Cllr. Tiawan Gongloe has described as scandalous the appropriation of hefty salaries by Liberian Legislature while the people they represent live in abject poverty.
Cllr. Gongloe said it is shameful that the annual salaries of the heads of the Liberian Legislature – the Speaker and President Pro Tempore are by far higher than their United States counterparts.
“In four years, the President Pro Tempore earns more than a million dollars, even business people are not making money like that in Liberia,” he said.
“The Speaker probably makes US$1million dollars in five to six years while the people are suffering. This is scandalous.”
Cllr. Gongloe said he researched and did a comparative analysis of the annual salaries between the two top officials of the Liberian Legislature: The Speaker and President Pro Tempore of the Liberian Senate on one side, and their U.S. counterparts in Congress.
And what he gathered was startling, he said.
Speaker Bhofal Chambers, he said makes US$245,000 per annually as compared to his counterpart who earns US$223,500. The President Pro Tempore of the Senate in Liberia, gets more than US$250,000 annually [even more than the Liberian Speaker who is the head of the Legislature] as compared to his American counterpart who receives $193,400 per year.
Lawmakers of Liberia, one of the poorest countries of the world- whose average citizen lives on just US$570 a year, as per the World Bank report, are surprisingly among the world’s highest paid.
These allocations, he added, are unfair and unjustifiable and robbing the citizens of basic social services including healthcare, education and road. On top of it all, he added, is the huge salary disparity between these officials and civil servants – nurses, doctors, police and soldiers.
Liberia Lawmakers making more money than German, Polish counterparts
In Germany, with the world’s fourth biggest economy, lawmakers make a little over $10,000 per month, two-thirds of the $15,000 Liberian lawmakers are believed to take home, according to an investigation conducted by the New Republic Newspaper and its partner media development institution, New Narratives.
But while the average German lives on US$4,250 a month, the average Liberian lives on less than $US50. In the middle-income European country of Poland, legislators make about $US4000 a month while the average Polish citizen lives on $1500 a month, the report added.
‘I agree with Amb. McCarthy’
Cllr. Gongloe made the assertions in an interview with a team of reporters a day after U.S. Ambassador Michael McCarthy blamed the Legislature, Ministries of Health, and Internal Affairs of depriving rural Liberians and public facilities including hospitals and service centers approved allotted budgets to operate smoothly due to their silence.
“The blocking of resources is so complete that it must be institutional: and the lack of any alarm being raised indicates a syndicate involving players at the legislature, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” he said.
Amb. McCarthy’s made the statement at the end of his county tour that took him to Bomi, Gbarpolu, and four counties in the Southeast [which completes his visit to all 15 counties.
He said life for rural dwellers is so appalling that should the U.S. Congress ask him how the elite in Monrovia are treating destitute citizens in the leeward counties, his honest response would be, “those citizens are treated with a neglect that borders on contempt.”
Speaking to reporters, Cllr. Gongloe, who himself completed his tour of the counties recently, said he agreed with the Ambassador.
A clear example of what Ambassador McCarthy alluded to, he added, is the hefty salary and luxurious lifestyle of public officials, while ignoring the plights of the citizens.
The LPP political leader vowed to wiped out the pervasive corruption in government if elected and called on voters to reject these “corrupt public officials” at polls on October 10, 2023.
‘Government multiplying poverty’
He said in the 2022 budget, US$4.3 million was allotted and approved for the President, along with an additional US$700,000 for outreach program.
In this election year, the standard bearer of the Liberian People’s Party (LPP) said the budget of the President and all of the elected public officials have increased, opening a floodgate to wasteful spending that will lead to inflation and increasing hardship on ordinary citizens.
This is shameful and disgraceful. They are increasing the hardship all over Liberia, especially in southeastern Liberia. Last year during the raining season, Grand Geded were paying L$40,000 per individual to get to Ganta.”
He continued: “This year will increase because the CDC and the officials in power are dumping Liberian dollars on the market, which is really pay-for play – L$9 million in each of the southeastern county and L$15 million for Nimba and spreading all over. The Liberian dollars they are dumping is not being paired with any US dollars, because we are an exporting country. There will be so much Liberian dollars on the market chasing the US dollars, which mean the exchange rate will be high. Already it’s climbing at ‘68 [L$168 for US$1].”
“So, it will go up and prices will be high. Because people want Liberian dollars to import good and they might increase the price. It will be difficult for the poorest of the poor, because those of us that are being generous will not be generous again. In southeastern Liberia, it will be hell. Life will be harder and prices of rice and gasoline will go up. This government is multiplying poverty by bad road and pay-for-play.”
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