— Applause SN Brussels For Restoring Flights
IPNEWS: Liberians are calling for recently sanctioned officials to declare their assets to ensure accountability.
According to callers on the famous Gbarnga Youth Radio, stated they want the US government and the United Nations to impress upon the sanctioned individuals to restitute funds reportedly stolen from Liberia.
According to them, when this is done, it will further serve as deterrence to future and current public officials to ensure accountability after resignations.
Former governments officially sanctioned by the US Treasury Department are Nathaniel Falo McGill, NPA’s Bill Twehway, and Sayma Syrenius Cephus for massive public corruption in Liberia.
The three were designated pursuant to Executive Order 13818, which builds upon and implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world.
The sanctions, according to the US, came after a rigorous inter-agency investigation, which determined that these three former public officials engaged in corrupt acts, and they are “now subject to US financial sanctions and visa restrictions.
According to United States under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian E. Nelson, “Through their corruption these officials have undermined democracy in Liberia for their own personal benefit.”
Unlike Bill Twehway who was mute prior to his resignation, Nathaniel McGill and Serena Cephus maintained their innocence.
Particularly for Cephus, he accused Justice Minister, Cllr. Frank Musa Dean for being the ‘master minder’ while McGill told Liberians that the US government reported on the “wrong person.”
On Thursday, September 15, 2022, the Better Future Foundation in collaboration with other key civil society organizations presented an 18-count petition to diplomatic missions in Liberia to assist in tracing, recovering and repatriating Liberia’s stolen money by some Government officials.
Presenting the petition statement to the UN in Monrovia, the head of Better Future Foundation, Augustine Arkoi claimed that the Liberian ruling elites secretly secured the stolen money in some Western, African and other leading banks globally over the years.
BFF, in collaboration with its CSO Partners, expressed strongly believes in a holistic probe toward widespread acts of corruption and abuses.
Flights’ restoration praises
At the same time, many Bong County Citizens have lauded the management of SN Brussels for their emphatic restoration of flights to Liberia.
Over the weekend, SN Brussels announced plans to ban flights to Liberia over poor Navigation System (GPS) at the Robert’s International Airport. The airline is the only Western airline flying into Liberia and connects Europe to America.
An earlier statement from SN Brussels disclosed that it is forced to cancel its flights between Brussels and Monrovia because the Roberts International Airport is suffering from certain deficiencies that do not allow them to dispatch their aircraft and have them perform an approach and landing in accordance with their operating procedures.
Belgium’s Aviation laws prevent its aircraft from landing without a functioning navigation system.
Following that, the airline later reported that it had reached discussions with the government to restore flights back to Liberia.
In February, Royal Air Maroc aborted the landing for the same reason and subsequently suspended flights to Monrovia. Upon its return, the airline rescheduled all its early morning flights to and from Monrovia.
Also, Africa World Airlines- a regional airline based in Accra, Ghana announced the suspension of flights to Monrovia and Freetown citing high operation costs.
Similarly, in April of this year, Air France which connects Monrovia to Europe closed its offices citing economic performance, geo-political situation, and overall profitability.
It can be recalled that at the height of the crisis at the airport, the former Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Nathaniel McGill, told Journalists that the government would need up to US$20 million to fix all problems at the airport.
Speaking to our Bong County reporter over the weekend in Gbarnga, the citizens described the news as “very welcoming”.
“If this would continue, it was going to affect us badly” they noted.
Earlier, some Liberians blamed the government for not rightly handling the only International airport in the country.
They want the government of President George Manneh Weah to address the situation to avoid future shame. By: J. Peter S. Dennis
