The Inquirer (Monrovia)
27 November 2008
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says the government is not just seeking to cancel its over US$3billion dollars debts but it would pay the domestic debt as well.
The President's assurance comes at a time when there is growing concerns in some quarters that not much attention is being given by the government to settle the areas.
But President Sirleaf made it clear that while her government intends to pay these debts, it would make sure that these debts are genuine and all claims concerning them are real as some of these debts were being made up just to get money from the government.
President Sirleaf told Executive Mansion reporters that these domestic debts are subject to audit by a major local auditing firm and are being categorized in three categories. She named these categories as confirmed, questionable and denied domestic debts.
The President said for those debts that are questionable, the government are seeking additional clarification and information from claimants and Lessers before it can proceed further to settle them.
According to the President, most of the smaller domestic debts between US$1,000 or a little above have been paid while an audit of bigger debts was questionable.
Meanwhile, the Secretary General of the Clements of Domestic Areas (CODA) Mr. Smith D. Kumeh confided in this paper yesterday that some one is not telling the truth about the arrears to the President.
He noted that a foreign firm only identified as "KPMG" which conducted a vetting exercises on a little over 250 names and intuitions of claimants and lesser early this year failed to publish the names of those qualified for payment.
The CODA Secretary General added that most of its members have legitimate documents to authenticate their claims against government. Mr. Kumeh said he concords with President Sirleaf that there exist some fake vouchers in the system which is subject to scrutiny.
Concluding he added that Clements and Lesser are dying slowly due to the delayed in getting their money.
He lamented that seven of its members have died while awaiting payment from government. Mr. Kumeh noted that if nothing is done to save the situation the story might likely be different in the shortest time as more persons are expected to die of extreme frustration.
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