President Joseph Boakai ended his 100 days in office on May 1st, with little to show for the $22 million spending package the Legislature had handed him on a silver platter. NAYMOTE reports Boakai has met just 10 out of 100 commitments for the period (I link the article below). This is a little better than former President George Weah’s 100 Days performance in 2018, which President Boakai’s Unity Party considered a dismal failure.
This represents a failure on three fronts: Liberia’s post-Weah reset required: 1) building domestic, regional, and international support for our new President and the country; 2) taking stock of the country’s financial position, before the inauguration, and shoring up that funding with international support; and 3) forming an inclusive government comprising rigorously vetted professionals, irrespective of political persuasion or closeness to the Executive.
Instead, insiders of the Boakai-Koung administration have spent their time gatekeeping, securing jobs for themselves and their friends, and sidelining those intent on rigorous and effective governance. Some of the same friends who cheered us when we fearlessly spoke out against former President Weah’s failed policies are the ones paying starving journalists to launch scurrilous attacks on my integrity for holding our government accountable for the change we promised the Liberian people. They want to brand me as angry and bitter. I am not. I am disappointed in the many false starts in our government. And I am loyal enough to them and to the Liberian people that I will keep speaking the truth, no matter what. Failure is not an option for this Government.
Read my op-ed in the Daily Observer reflecting on President Boakai’s 100 days here. I hope President Biakai and my friends in the UP read my reflections objectively and absorb them in good faith.
Let me know your thoughts.