Amid public speculation as well as political pundits’ condemnation that President George Weah, and his delegation attending the COP27 climate change summit in Egypt, have traveled with huge sum of money in the tone of US$ 1.5 million just for merry making, instead of government’s purpose, Deputy Press Secretary Smith Toby has refuted the claim.
Smith said “every movement made by the President from the Roberts International Airport to Morocco and Egypt so far, is being sponsored and paid for by the Government of Egypt while organizers of the MEDays Forum handled the financial details of the president’s trip to Morocco, including accommodation”.
The Deputy Press Secretary intimated that “we as Liberians are responsible to the global community, and the summit in Egypt, is a government to government kind of conversation and world leaders are there, as such we should expect our president to be there.”
He revealed that this is one of the trips of the President where he is traveling with less than nine (9) persons, and he however wondered how will President Weah be traveling with a million dollar plus to spent on nine Liberians and take a billion dollar out of the country money to pass around, something attributed to those who he claimed as ‘people who traveled with four thousand, one million dollars in their briefcases and enjoyed themselves’, and ‘so they thinking that this is what president Weah is doing, I think they should rather think on something different to convince the Liberian people.’
Making the assertion on Monday, November 7, 2022 via mobile phone on a local radio, OK FM Afternoon Conversation, Mr. Toby, also averred that after the President’s participation in the summit in Egypt, he will also travel to Paris to honor an invitation from president Emmanuel Macron, where the president will put lot of things on the table of President Macron for the betterment of the Liberians people, and he will likewise travel to Qatar to witness the opener of the 2022 World Cup at the invitation of Federation of the International Football Associations (FIFA), the organizers. Writes James Lehmer Hiama, Jr. 0770-334857; hiamajames@gmail.com
