Photo: The New Dawn

Police patrol the streets.

The ruling Unity Party government in Liberia must see the latest Transparency International Report for what it is, a wake-up call long in the making with the potential to ruined everything that this president worked for her entire life, everything Liberians have hoped for and everything the international community have been yearning to see. We as a nation have come to far not to see the light and not to see the damage this is doing to our nation.

THE BIG 'C' word continues to haunt the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf administration.

THE LATEST ranking from the watchdog group, Transparency International puts the post-war nation at the top of the pile as the "Most Corrupt" nation on the face of planet earth.

THIS CANNOT BE GOOD news for a government which came to power pledging zero tolerance against corruption.

ON JANUARY 6, 2006, Sirleaf while delivering her inaugural address declared: "We must take on forcibly and effectively the debilitating cancer of corruption. Corruption erodes faith in government because of the mismanagement and misapplication of public resources. It weakens accountability, transparency and justice. Corruption short changes and undermines key decision and policy making processes. It stifles private investments which create jobs and assures support from our partners. Corruption is a national cancer that creates hostility, distrust, and anger."

SIRLEAF REMINDED Liberians of her campaign promises: "Throughout the campaign, I assured our people that, if elected, we would wage war against corruption regardless of where it exists, or by whom it is practiced. Today, I renew this pledge. Corruption, under my Administration, will be the major public enemy. We will confront it. We will fight it. Any member of my Administration who sees this affirmation as mere posturing, or yet another attempt by yet another Liberian leader to play to the gallery on this grave issue should think twice. Anyone who desires to challenge us in this regard will do so at his or her personal disadvantage. In this respect, I will lead by example. I will expect and demand that everyone serving in my Administration leads by example. The first testament of how my Administration will tackle public service corruption will be that everyone appointed to high positions of public trust such as in the Cabinet and heads of public corporations will be required to declare their assets, not as part of a confirmation requirement, but as a matter of policy. I will be the first to comply by declaring my assets. My Administration will also accord high priority to the formulation and passage into law of a National Code of Conduct, to which all public servants will be subjected."

SADLY, SIRLEAF'S first term was marred by numerous cases of public officials misusing government funds, issues of conflict of interests and the aura of a lack of governance and political will to curb the cancer eating away at Liberia's soul.

THIS IS WHY we hope that the Sirleaf administration will take the latest Transparency International rankings more seriously than it has taken other international reports holding the government responsible for the level of corruption in the country.

WHAT THE REPORT has made emphatically clear is that "Liberia is the most corrupt country in the world, according to a survey of citizens. In the survey, 94% of Liberians recorded that the police are corrupt. Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer surveyed residents in 107 countries. That Liberia tops them all speaks volumes and suggests that Liberians have not learned anything from the April 14, 1979 rice riots, the April 12, 1980 coup and more than a decade of civil war which killed scores of Liberians and sent countless others into exile.

ACCORDING TO THE TI report, 86 percent of those polled labeled corruption as very serious: 86%, 67 percent labeled public officials as corrupt: 67% and 94 percent said the police are corrupt.

ACCORDING TO THE report, the vast majority of Liberians surveyed said they believed the country was run either largely or entirely by a few entities acting in their own self-interest. "A world-leading 86% of residents who spoke to Transparency International claimed their government had been either ineffective or very ineffective at fighting corruption, while 96% of residents claimed Liberia's legislature was corrupt, also the highest percentage of any nation. A stunning 75% of residents surveyed claimed they had paid a bribe to secure some service, trailing only Sierra Leone. In all, 80% of the population had at one point been asked to pay a bribe. Recently, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf fired the country's auditor general for corruption."

THIS REPORT COMES amid a slew of recent corruption scandals linking several senior government officials to issues of corruption, nepotism and conflict of interest.

THE SIRLEAF government must see this for what it is, a wake-up call long in the making with the potential to ruined everything that this president worked for her entire life, everything Liberians have hoped for and everything the international community have been yearning to see. We as a nation have come to far not to see the light and not to see the damage this is doing to our nation. We as a people must set the tone for our destiny, our survival and seriously begin to process of working to curb the cancer and wake up to the damning reality that if we do not nip this cancer in the butt, it could take us back to where many have dared and countless have died. We must not let the efforts of those who paved the way for us and sacrificed their lives go in vain.