Finance Minister Augustine Ngafuan is warning legislators not to disclose the contents of the Maritime contract and its budget to the public. He told a legislative hearing Tuesday on the draft fiscal budget for 2009/10 budget that doing so would reveal Liberia's maritime secrets to competitors and therefore hard the country.

The Minister's warnings come after unsuccessful requests from the Bureau of Maritime Affairs, excluded from the fiscal budget, for its operational budget and other related documents. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had promised to instruct BMA officials to release the budget, which, she added, she approved.

The President was direct and convincing after she was told that despite requests, officials at the Bureau of Maritime Affairs (BMA), perhaps now the most lucrative of state jackpots, had refused to provide its operational budget. She had been wrongly informed that the BMA was in the fiscal budget when only its projected revenue, unchanged for 2 years and standing US16m, was inserted in the draft budget.

At a press conference, she vowed that she would instruct the BMA's Commissioner, Mr. Beyan Kesselley, son of the Unity Party's founder Dr. Edward Beyan Kesselley, to provide the budget.

"I don't see why he shouldn't", the President said.

Falling this, this paper intensified its requests for the budget and added two other relevant documents-the BMA's scholarship list containing Liberians in the US in school on BMA money over the past years, and the BMA insurance beneficiaries list, containing top and influential political actors who, according to reports, are on the entity's insurance policy list.

After hours of waiting at the BMA offices, our staff was told that the person responsible for providing the documents was not in the office. But in normal circumstances, these documents would be computer generated, in that they are readily available on the computer by push of a button if there is nothing to hide. But it was evident that the BMA had no plan of making the documents public for obvious reasons.

Some of these reasons came from the Minister of Finance, Mr. Augustine Ngafuan, when he appeared at the legislative hearing committee on the budget. The exchanges amongst the officials, including Deputy Finance Minister for Revenue Alfreda Tama, and legislators, are instructive:

Minister Ngafuan: "On the issue of the Maritime and why they are not in the budget, I remember almost a year or two ago that in the Maritime law or the contract with LISCR it shall have been the responsibility of the agent to take care of the operational cost of the Maritime Bureau and that all along the government was shouldering the responsibility that it should not have been shouldering.

It was a way to give us fiscal space because they were on the expenditure side there by reducing the space for us to accommodate others. The new authority at the Bureau of Maritime brought that to our attention and that was the basis upon which the agent was required to implement its obligation under the contract. So far, this has been the reality the maritime contract is now being renegotiated.

The interaction of the Maritime Bureau and the Executive is now being studied to ensure that there is necessary accountability "

The Minister's narrative certainly contradicts the President's position that the BMA is in the budget. Moreover, his Deputy for Revenue, Mrs. Tamba, saw no problem in providing the requested information when she interrupted:

" I'll just like to comment with respect to the information you need on Maritime. We will do our best to give that information when we come here next week "

Apparently caught off guard, the Minister issued his warning against making the Maritime documents public after an exchange with Rep. Nuquah who said:

"With respect to the minister's comments, the contract you are talking about was not ratified by this legislature; so we will not give it credence. That is not reason enough to give the Executive the right to unilaterally exclude Maritime from the budget.

Minister Ngafuan: The Maritime contract for which we are operating was ratified by the legislature in 1999; so it is still valid "

Then he issued his secret society caveat on why businesses should keep their contracts secret from their people for higher profits that only selected members of the secret society know:

"But one thing I want to clear to honorable members here... I will support that we all get to the roots of everything when it comes to the issue of the public corporations, but I will caution the extent to which we make public certain information especially in market sensitive areas. The Maritime Bureau, especially, is competing with Panama and the Marshall Island. Liberia was the premier Maritime entity. The budget of any institution shows the operation plan and strategy. There are strategies in market and if we are not careful as we try to do due diligence, we will make our competitors to get certain sensitive market intelligence that they don't need.

I will want you all members of the Ways and Means Committee to get the information, use the information with the care it deserves. Other wise, we shoot ourselves in the legs.

In clear language, the Minister is saying that if the legislators get the information as required by law, they should keep it behind lock and key so that the public stupid and dangerous on whose behalf they are paid to think, is left in the dark. "Don't let them see it. It is for your eyes only", his words indicate.

There is no specific freedom of information law that compels government officials to provide information upon request for public information. But the Constitution, in Article 15, Section C clearly states

In pursuance of this right (to inform or be informed), there shall be no limitation on the public right to be informed about the government and its functionaries "

This provision has not been tested in court to see if it applies to clearly public documents, such as budgets and financial statements of state entities running on the backs of taxpayers' money.

In the absence of failure to provide information, the intent cannot be killing the information once and for all. Hence, reports based on insider sources suffice. This is certainly the case with the BMA.

Reports say top government officials and their an array of family members are the BMA insurance list amounting to several hundred thousands dollars. This allows to travel to America and seek expensive medical treatments while children here die in their droves of simple illnesses such as malaria, with the maternal mortality increasingly climbing. If the insurance list is made public, the backlash is understandable, and perhaps this why the Minister of Finance is warning against. Keep them in the dark.

The request for the BMA scholarship has also been turned down for obvious reason. It shows the gross inequitable distribution of wealth and so much for the declared poverty reduction strategy. BMA sources say for over the decades, children and other family members of the political elite have been educated in the US on the backs of the BMA. Some of these, reports say, drive the most expensive cars that American students cannot dream of affording. The BMA scholarship program is not competitive. It is kept under lock and key for the privileged, whether or not they deserve the scholarships.

All these make the BMA budget a national security document that the Finance Minister is alluding to. This is why the BMA Commissioner must a confidant, a game player, because he or she is the custodian of the secrets of the jackpot form, which the political elite in this country constantly feed. That its budget, that is a document revealing who gets what and why, is regarded as a national security document, a concept that defies on reasoning in today's business world, is all too understandable.

Squabble over Maritime money is nothing new because, as the UN Panel of Experts has described it, it's a "cash extraction box" for corrupt politicians. In his letter to his boss former Maritime Commissioner under Charles Taylor Benoni Urey, Deputy Commissioner Louis B. Roberts wrote:

There is an ardent need to begin to implement the cardinal provisions of the GOL/LISCR (Liberia International Shipping And Corporate Registry) Agreement because as we see it, when these necessary steps are not taken, the distant future will become history for us all regarding the implementation process. The lack of adherence of some provisions of the GOL/LISCR Agreement must be documented at all times for correction in the future. The fact that we cite breaches in the GOL/LISCAR. Agreement only increases our propensity for discoveries and not confrontation as is being promoted by many in the inner circle.

It is most disheartening, frustrating and down right wrong when our efforts to maximize GOL revenue base are being undermined, railroaded and high-jacked by criminally minded, selfish and greedy individuals who serve as dc facto advisors to the Bureau in Monrovia and Vienna, and by the same thinking are being paid very handsomely by L1SCR to promote LISCR's interests, term our action as being confrontational. What is most disgusting is the fact that some of these individuals who were in the positions to correct the ills, emanating from the previous Maritime Agreement of yester yews did not have the guts and willpower to do an inch of what you have accomplished, but prefer to ill advise you selfishly, for their own benefits.

And finally, it really docs not serve us well, when the cardinal reasons for which we were asked to take on LISCR responsibilities are being circumvented.

Research and reports on how the maritime funds have been misused over the years are many, mainly from international groups. The International Coalition for Justice, in its May 2005 report. Said:

"When he assumed the presidency of Liberia in 1997, Taylor supplemented his existing income through his access to state levers of revenue generation. For example, he

was able to register aircraft from around the world by offering call numbers and certification for aircraft that were never inspected. Although the official national budget

of Liberia fluctuated between $80 million and $87 million a year from 1997 to 2003, the public budget figures were essentially meaningless. They reflected neither real government revenues nor real expenditures. Most years, virtually none of the money budgeted for infrastructure, health, education or rebuilding was spent on the designated activities. As a result, the country, including the capital, Monrovia, still has no electrical service, no public education systems, and only two functioning hospitals. Official revenue was largely derived from taxes on businesses, and, from 1999 on, USD $18-$22 million per year generated by the Liberian International Shipping and Corporate Registry.

LISCR), the state-owned enterprise that sells permission to use the Liberian flag to international ships, which could thereby circumvent the more stringent regulations of

their home countries. UN investigators found that on at least three occasions, LISCR funds totaling about $1 million were deposited in non-governmental accounts for the purchase of weapons. A final source of revenue was foreign aid. While this only totaled a few million dollars a year over time, Taylor routinely received money from Taiwan that he was able to appropriate for his own purposes. When he flew into exile, Taylor took several million dollars by simply emptying the central bank of dollars and other currencies. Included in the money was more than $2 million, recently donated by

Taiwan "

The Maritime millions may no longer be targeted for war, but they remain secret, for eyes only, just like before.