15 October 2008
The Standard Bearer of the opposition Liberty Party (LP), Cllr. Charles Brumskine, shocked the public recently when he claimed in a position statement that corruption has pervaded the Liberian society more during the Sirleaf Administration than in any previous administration.
He backed the assertion by recounting unproven media accounts of alleged corrupt practices involving yet-to-be identified administration officials.
While some observers hailed the LP Standard, who is also a legal practitioner, for a "brilliant piece", many say the so-called brilliant piece was a political charade that is nothing but a disservice to the Liberian people and the international community.
"But why; how come?" is the question analysts say leads the issue. The Analyst Staff Writer has been fining out.
LP Standard Bearer Cllr. Charles Brumskine may have had an easy ride recently when he alleged that corruption was on the increase despite international statistics stating otherwise, but he did not escape the radar of critics who said he was simply playing the "blame game" for attention, The Analyst has learnt.
The counselor made the allegations against recent reports - and thereby earning critics' scrutiny - that Liberia did not only improve in controlling corruption, but that it also took unparalleled strides in governance and in the ease of doing business.
Barrage of corruption allegations
In the statement issued on October 6, 2008 titled, "Remarks On The Corruption In Liberia" the LP Standard Bearer accused the Liberian government of not only leaving chunks of corruption cases unresolved, but that it was also pampering and rewarding corrupt officials and friends with higher positions and incentives.
For instance, he said, eight well-known incidents of public corruption, the email bribery scandal, and the recent apparent involvement of some government officials in compromising the Western Cluster Iron Ore bidding process, indicated that corruption was on the rise in Liberia.
The eight well-known incidents of public corruption, he said, were the issue of the Nigerian Oil deal, local government officials in Bassa on LAC's payroll, rewarding a non-Liberian who worked on the President's campaign with an LPRC contract, and the unlawful granting of duty free/tax exempt privileges to Buchanan Renewable Energy Company.
Others, he said, were corruption at the National Port Authority and the Ministry of Lands, Mines & Energy, as announced by the President; the awarding of rice importation contract to political allies of the President without a public bidding process, contrary to the law; government's failure to use the rice stabilization fund to offset the high cost of rice, or otherwise account for the funds from that account, and million dollars paid by the Finance Ministry to a purported vendor who suddenly disappeared, among others.
"In each and every case the perpetrators, suspects, or accused have gone unpunished, remained in government with impunity, transferred horizontally or promoted.
Because no action has been taken by the government in all these cases of corruption and lack of transparency, not even by way of a credible investigation, corruption now permeates our society like never before," Cllr. Brumskine said in a statement that many expected would have aimed at casting the past litany of corruption allegations in new light in order to have substance and make a meaningful difference.
During the last two and half years, according to him, allegations of corruption in the Unity Party-led government have been plentiful.
The counselor then added in a more frontal sweep, "Corruption has become so pervasive that its cancerous effect has metastasized all over our body politic. It now seems like almost every interaction with our government has become transactional, with personal graft becoming more important than raising our national revenue; and, individual interests superseding the common good.
By any measure, corruption is today, more than ever in the history of our country, unrestrained and persistent, as average Liberians struggle to survive."
He blamed Liberia's growing poverty on corruption and wondered what had become of the promises President Sirleaf made upon taking the oath of office to part with the past and make corruption a thing of history.
"Corruption denies average Liberians the kind of good jobs from foreign investment that they need to survive, and maybe prosper. It is because of this corruption that many Liberians are beginning to feel that today they are worse off economically than they were three years ago. It is corruption that has us watching the peace dividend evaporates right before our eyes under the resurgent notion that corruption is a trade off for peace," he alleged.
He then ended his raving by calling for the ditching of the Eddie Dunn Commission President Sirleaf set up recently to probe the email bribery scandal and replace it with an international jurist investigation to be appointed by the International Contact Group on Liberia (ICGL).
He did not say where such call leaves the nation's obligation to resolve its own legal obstacles as a respected member of the comity of nations.
Ignoring independent statistics
In the view of critics and political observers, the learned counselor who is also a former senate president pro tempore in Charles Taylor's proportional representative parliament, made these claims against international indicators reporting the actual reduction of corruption in Liberia since 2004 and the establishment of high governance performance in Liberia.
Just last week, the latest edition of the Ibrahim Index of Africa Governance rated Liberia the "most improved" countries coming out of conflict, indicating that the country ranked 38th amongst sub-Saharan Africa in governance performance.
Observers say the rating affirmed earlier World Bank "Doing Business" report released in September this year in which Liberia's performance in improving the investment climate was described as "modest but encouraging".
Still yet and most importantly, they said, the July 2008 survey report of the Worldwide Governance Indicators Institute (WGI) of the World Bank World Bank Institute rated Liberia the most improved country across the globe on the issue of corruption control.
The institute's report said the indicators, which represented assessment findings covering the period January 2004 to July 2008, ranked Liberia 113th out of 206 countries surveyed as compared with 190th place amongst the same number in 2004.
It said Liberia declined by 10% in corruption incidents in the last four years, especially the last two years since the establishment of civil rule.
On the other hand, the World Bank "Doing Business" Report indicated that from an upward of more than three months to register a new business in Liberia due to corruption and bureaucratic red tapes, it now takes as fewer as 27 days to do so.
The reports credited these improvements to what they called "a testament of the progress the country continues to make in improving the business climate".
Facts or charade
Political observers and critics say while these statistics may not describe incident by incident the living standard of the Liberian people and how their government approaches the issue of corruption to their liking, it acknowledges efforts being made to reconstruct the country and to fight corruption.
They said unlike Cllr. Brumskine's view of the issue, the statistics showed that government was not showing less concern for corruption and corrupt officials even though, as the President admitted recently, corruption still remains a major obstacle to national reconstruction.
But that is not all that concerned them in what they called the counselor's dismal failure to distinguish himself - by addressing the issue of corruption from a more credible perspective - from the reckless allegation culture, which they claimed is the mainstay of opposition politics in Liberia,
The political observers and critics, who responded to The Analyst's weekend opinion survey as respondents, say the learned counselor-at-law missed the issue at bay when he chose to dwell on public sentiments about how corruption has affected the standard of living rather than presenting independent probe findings that will force the government to conduct criminal investigations.
For instance, they accused the counselor of repeating jaded allegations of corruption and calls for immediate investigation while neglecting do the most thing the Liberian people and the international community had expected - provide new and authentic insight into the issue of corruption in Liberia such that will make mandatory the investigation he was opting for on behalf of the Liberian people.
They said a new insight into the issue of corruption was crucial to the validity of the October 6, 2008 "Remarks On The Corruption In Liberia" which he started with what they called "solemn words" - "Today, I am constrained to speak about an issue, of which the Liberian people would rather not be bothered; an evil that I hoped would just go away."
"Cllr. Brumskine is a respected lawyer and politician. He should not make statements as frustrated ordinary Liberians would. When he speaks on corruption, which he said is close to his heart, he must move the debate forward by offering facts, not charades that are only inciting," said Rev. Sylvester Thomas of Brewerville.
He said as the head of a viable political institution, the counselor should have launched an independent probe into the allegations he listed and published his findings to prove to the public that criminal malevolence has surged in Liberia in recent years but that the government chose to ignore it.
He can't say he is making remarks on corruption only to tell us about the Nigerian-LPRC oil deal that had been debated months on end without head or tail because those making the allegation of wrongdoing have no more proof than the public," Rev. Thomas said.
According to him, when people make sweeping allegations of corruption without providing proof, they only help to put government on the defensive and to dismiss such allegation as the "detractor's hallucination".
"You don't say corruption has increased, provide no proof, accuse the government of complicity, and then turn around and tell the government to prove your allegation by conducting investigations through your choice of investigators.
This is absurd; it is not going to help the cause of the Liberian people," said Liberia Action Party (LAP) activist Barry N. Toe.
Toe said the LP Standard Bearer's remarks lack substance and relevance as far as the suffering people of Liberia were concerned even though it helped to put corruption back on the table, lest the government of Liberia, having had its head swollen by international approbations, begin to believe that corruption is a thing of the past.
"We need facts that will help the prosecution or even force its holding and choice of prosecutors, not run-of-the-mill allegations. The counselor should know better than just issuing a press statement to repeat unproven allegations and expect the government and the international community to do the rest to save Liberians," said another respondent, Steven Peterson of the Methodist University in Monrovia.
Peterson said corruption is a national cancer that would not go away by political leaders simply waving a magic wand.
"It needs the efforts of the government, number one; the political opposition and civil society, number two; and the international community, number three, all acting together or at different angles and converging at the center. It doesn't help anyone by standing on the partisan balcony and pointing accusing fingers. Fighting corruption is a patriotic duty that all sincere Liberians need to take part in, not a political act set aside for those in power," he said.
According to him, those fond of pointing fingers in order to make a political score were pretending to stand for the people when the fact is they are buying cheap popularity in anticipation of winning political dividends in coming elections.
Analyst say in the wake of President Sirleaf's recent concession that corruption existed at all levels of Liberia's political and social strata, it is not clear whether Brumskine's allegations were intended to score political points.
They however noted that the critics' and observers' suggestion that the statement was vain and lack substance could not be dismissed outright without contradiction.
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