Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The recent negotiations carried out by the Liberian government’s delegation in Washington was not all that rosy, FrontPageAfrica has learned. Issues of the past came haunting at them. The L$16 million saga, the deaths of the LRA employees and other mysterious deaths, among others, were all issues they had to grapple with.
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has seen a leaked chat from the cabinet chatroom in which Finance Minister, Samuel Tweah, expressed his frustration over the situation they were faced with in Washington and termed most of the references as “negative narratives”.
“A congressman referenced this 16 billion to us in Washington and we had to kill it. We are supplying the Kroll report and other documents to his office as proof. This is the damage that has been done by the CPP. This is why they are paying US$180,000.00 yearly. That same Congressman referenced the myth that ‘four auditors may have been politically killed,” Min. Tweah wrote as part of a lengthy narrative in the chatroom.
In his narrative, Min. Tweah accused the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) of pushing the false narratives within the international community and that’s the reason they’ve hired a lobbyist and paying an annual fee of US$160,000, he said.
“As the government ventures out internationally to tell the story of Liberia’s transformation under President George Manneh Weah and to push back on false narratives that have purported to define our governance, the Government cannot and should not sit and allow the Opposition CPP to define Liberia as a fearful country under President Weah,” he warned.
He urged his colleagues that it is time for voices in government to work towards portraying Liberia as a safe place and change the narrative that has been ‘propagated by the CPP’ within the international circles.
He further expressed, “We need voices in Government and society to come out and say ‘Liberia is a safe place’. That ‘ No four auditors were ever politically murdered’ as the facts have shown. That one of the ‘auditors’died in accident on SKD Boulevard Road and that his family confessed to the Minister of justice that they don’t want to be part of the ‘ politicization of auditors death’ because ‘they know their family member died of a pure accident.’ I know this because the Minister of Justice said this to me. But the public does not know this same information and they need to hear it. It was Henry Costa who lied that the man was being pursued. We have never pushed back seriously on this mendacity!”
The Washington experience seems to be a major trigger leading to the Finance Minister urging his colleagues for a major rebranding of the government through effective communication and public relations.
According to him, the national security budget has increased in the 2022 budget, however, it is not being trumpeted. Such lack of effective communication to the public is leading to the CPP’s ability to buy public sentiment with ‘false narratives’, he stated.
Tweah believes the CDC massively lost the December 2020 Special Senatorial Elections due to the public sentiment that eclipsed the ‘reality’ that no L$16 billion got missing.
“The public bought 16 billion lie; one of the reasons we lost recent by-and mid-term elections, even though no 16 billion was ever missing. Let’s stop the CPP from constructing false narratives and selling them to the Liberian people. Let’s intentionally and deliberately disrupt this CPP-built marketplace of false narratives!” he stated.
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recently published a US$180,000 lobbying and public relations contract aiming to gain US support for the opposition in Liberia. It was registered in the name of Alan White and Jeffrey Birrell under the banner of the Liberian Renaissance Office Inc.(LIROI).
The Lobbying Report stated that LIROI’s office in Monrovia is being run by Mr. Sylvester Grigsby, a Minister of State for Presidential Affairs under former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
According to the Foreign Agents Registration Act document, BW’s goal is to “promote good governance and rule of law in Liberia,” according to the contract with Grigsby, in particular through the U.S. promotion of whichever candidate the Liberia Renaissance Office ends up endorsing for the 2023 presidential election.
Grigsby’s group supports the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP). As part of the deal, LIROI may try to arrange Washington visits for their leaders ahead of the December selection of a united opposition ticket to take on President George Weah and the ruling Coaltion for Democratic Change.
The Finance Minister who is one of the major faces of the Weah-led government intimated that the essence of the opposition hiring a lobbying firm in the United States is to distract the government’s international gains and from their current crisis.
The deaths of the Liberia Revenue Authority employees remain scripted on the minds of the public as mysterious. Albert Peters and Gifty Asmah Lama were found dead in a vehicle near Cathedral on Broad Street in October 2020.
According to the autopsy report, the pair died of carbon monoxide. However, this report has not resonated with the public and continues to be a major embarrassment for the Weah administration within the international community.
Tweah admitted that the government would continue to experience glitches when negotiating with foreign governments like the United States when the ‘true narratives’ concerning these incidents are not known the Liberian public and the international community.
“We will not and should NOT sit to allow this false narrative to continue. We also know that the two persons in the LRA incident died of carbon monoxide poisoning as the police investigation shows and we also do know that they had a close relationship. Does the public know these things? Why are we not pushing back on this false narrative that they were killed? Are we protecting their privacy at the detriment of the Government’s or the country’s reputation? Let’s never be afraid to say that which is the fact and the truth. Truth crushed to the ground must rise. That is what motivated me to say “no 16 billion was ever missing’ when others were afraid to say so,” he stated.
He added, “We want to see action beginning today. The Minister of Justice, I am told is planning a lot in this direction. The Police Director, I am told is going to take charge. The government I am told is going to find some resources to move police in all communities. Let’s stop this fakery. Liberia is too safe for this. We know some people are dumping bodies to paint the Government negatively. We have to arrest these people. The world does not know Liberia to be a place of crime. An American can walk alone in the streets of sinker at 02:00 AM and roving bands of ‘criminals’ who encounter him will deliver him to safety. He cannot dare try that in Johannesburg! Let’s not allow our CPP people who are desperate for power to destroy our country’s image. Journalists are challenged to be more responsible in reporting these things. Let’s have a conversation with journalists about this kind of fake reporting.”
