Africa-Press – Liberia. Monrovia City Mayor Jefferson Koijee has appealed to President George Weah to see the reason and increase the overall budget of the Liberia National Police for better and effective policing service.
The police, as per the 2022 fiscal year budget, is allotted US$5,073,376, from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning for operation and salary obligation and this is expected to be the same until 2024.
This amount, Koijee believes, is not enough to allow the police to focus on neighborhoods that are especially infiltrated with drug use and other crimes and, at the same time, responding to it numerous tasks at once.
“I used the occasion to plead with the President to increase budgetary allotment for the LNP as they move towards more democratic efforts,” said Koijee, in a speech over the weekend on Center Street at the CEIO intellectual center. “Raising the overall budgetary support to the police is a step in the right direction, and would be a source of motivation for the work they continue to do in maintaining peace and stability in the country.”
“[I am also appealing to] the US to support the police building its capacity and help them move more into democratic policing,” he said. “Capacity building would be so paramount for the police, especially heading to the 2023 presidential and legislative elections. This is another effort in maintaining the peace and stability in Liberia.”
Koijee, who is a high ranking member of ruling Coalition for Democratic Change, took time during his speech to praise the Student Unification Party (SUP) and the police working relationship during its August 24 protest, calling for the government “to fix the country” in light of bad governance and corruption, among others.
The protest ended peacefully and recorded video has shown the police and protesters having a friendly exchange. This comes after the police was accused of negligence on July 26, when it watched the CDC-COP violently bruatizing protesters from SUP.
One of the protesting students, Christopher Walter Sisulu Sivili, was beaten and tortured by the CDC-COP members. The assault was live streamed on Facebook.
However, the police on August 24, conducted themselves differently. SUP protesters had rights and, in the end, they were fed and given water by the police — a gesture that took many by surprise including Koijee, who is now hailing the police for such a level of professionalism.
The Mayor added that the level of professionalism exhibited by police showed that the country has moved from its ugly past where protesters were tear-gassed, shot at or hurt and imprisoned.
“For the August 24 protesters, we understand your disagreement and respect your different calls for shifts in our governance structure as well as your magnanimity to accept meals from the police; such coexistence is rare and commendable,” he said.
Meanwhile, Koijee has also called on the recently sanctioned government officials to exonerate themselves from the charges leveled against them by the US Treasury Department.
Recently, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office sanctioned three top government officials: Nathaniel McGill, Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Sayma Syrenius Cephus, Solicitor General and Bill Twehway, Managing Director of the National Port Authority (NPA) for their involvement in ongoing public corruption in Liberia.
The sanctioned officials, according to the US, were being designated in line with Executive Order (E.O.) 13818, which builds upon and implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world.
And a day after the sanction on August 16, the three officials were suspended by the President and forwarded for investigation. However, such an investigation is yet to start and the President’s decision to merely suspend the sanctioned officials has come under serious criticism by the public with a call that the officials be outrightly dismissed.
Koijee however expressed support for the President’s decision to immediately suspend the trio based on the US government’s action.
“We are convinced by the President’s decision and we highly support,” he said. A lot of them have spoken and say they are innocent. I hope an opportunity will be given to them so that they can be able to exonerate themselves,” he said. “They are Liberians. This party –the Coalition for Democratic Change has a fundamental principle that it is enshrined and they are the ideologies of non-corruption ideology and non-violence. So we do not in any way encourage any of our partisans to be involved in acts of corruption.”
However, Major Kojee did not clarify how the sanctioned government officials are to exonerate themselves.
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