IPNEWS – The political leader of the Movement for Progressive Change (MPC), Mr. Simeon Freeman, has reacted to President George Weah’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) that was delivered to members of the legislature last Monday, January 30th, in the Joint Chambers of Legislature in Monrovia.
Freeman said much had not been done by the Weah-led Administration in terms of security, rule of law, economy, health and others social basic services since President Weah took over the affairs of the country in 2018.
According to him, Pres. Weah has failed to foster peace among members of the opposition’s community for the past years; adding, “the non-resolution of unexplained deaths by this government had put fear in many Liberians. Peace is a fundamental rights of all citizens but is seen to be that this government has failed to protect its citizens.”
The MPC political leader said the President spoke at the Legislature and said the upcoming Presidential and Legislative Elections will be the first election that will be organized by him.
“The conduct of a peaceful and general elections is you, Mr. President. Recently a huge consignment of arms was arrested at the Freeport of Monrovia, up to this time no news has not hear anything of that arms. The silence of the investigators is more scarring. We, in the opposition community, are uneasy about the seizure of such cache of arms.”
“Who are the importers? What is the quantity? What is their intent?”
He said President Weah said when he took over the state of Affair in 2018, the Liberian Economy was in a state of major distressed.
He quoted the President as saying, ‘The micro economy was weak; the country’s net reserved which was kept to maintain the rates was very low. The exchange rates was plunged into mess; the than government did not have the tools to repair the economy. Inflation was at an alarming rate while domestic revenue and development was on low level.’
“The declaration above are untrue and we encourage the President to call a major press conference to apologize to the Liberian people for lying. Here are the facts below:
‘’The Central Bank of Liberia reports of 2017 clearly show that page five gross foreign reserved position excluding SDR holding reserved of the CBL at the end of November 2017 grew from 8.3% to $222.8 Million USD from USD 205 Million reported during the previous month due mainly to a 28% in the CBL balances and also the IMF 2017 reports says Liberia Foreign reserved was 587,997,777 according to the IMF AND CBL reports but rose from 340 Million.”
Touching on the deaths of the auditors, he stated, “The legislature should encourage the justice system to re-examine and verify the causes of the mysterious deaths in our society.”
Meanwhile, the MPC leader used his press conference to admonish the Weah Administration to empower and prioritize Liberian-own businesses in other to have a balanced economy. Mr. Freeman himself is a renowned Liberian businessman.
Mr. Freeman thinks that the government should handover to local businesspeople some state’s assets, including Liberia Petroleum Refining Company, Liberia Water and Sewer Cooperation and Liberia Electricity Cooperation, to run; adding that such move will reduce the high poverty rate in the country.
He challenged the President and his economic management team to revisit the portion of his address in which he said he has dropped inflation in the economy. He maintained that the prices of basic goods and services still remain high on the Liberia local markets.
According to Freeman, Liberians have endured more hardship due to poor economic management ability of the Weah regime.
Freeman encouraged the government to invest in Liberia’s technical-educational system to boost qualified graduates for the market for a better industrialized competitive private sector.
