MONROVIA – When a throng of lawmakers belonging to the House of Representatives wing entered the revered premises of Liberia’s National Legislature, the spectacle understandably was greeted with mixed reactions. Some simply laughed their hearts out seeing honorable people in kekehs. They think it is something comical. Others made demeaning characterization of the commuters. Perhaps only very few of all who watch the footages of lawmakers in tricycles may have considered it an unprecedented disgrace and utter shame, not only for the protesting lawmakers, but also for the whole of Liberia, especially the incumbent administration that caused those embarrassing images to spread across the world. The debate generated after all this continues to intensify and widen by the day, as pundits have begun to theorize possible reasons why such a first-of-the-kind protest in Liberia’s history has jumped onto the political landscape. THE ANALYST reports.
Liberians, particularly those in the capital Monrovia, and people watching from the internet, must have been stunned when at least a dozen members of the House of Representatives this week began attending legislative duties at the Capitol Building, using tricycles or kekehs as they are known in Liberia to commute.
This rare undertaking of Liberian lawmakers that started Monday is expected to continue for unspecified time, though the lawmakers themselves say they would keep using this unfortunate mood of transportation as long as they are not supplied official vehicles by the Government.
Superior Executive/Imperial Presidency
The National Legislature, both the House of Representatives and the Senate, have enormous power bequeathed onto it by the 1986 Constitution, even including money or budgetary matters. In part, Article 34 of the Constitution grants authority to lawmakers, “to levy taxes, duties, imports, exercise and other revenues, to borrow money, issue currency, mint coins, and to make appropriations for the fiscal governance of the Republic, subject to the following qualifications”.
It further states that “no monies shall be drawn from the treasure except in consequence of appropriations made by legislative enactment and upon warrant of the President; and no coin shall be minted or national currency issued except by the expressed authority of the Legislature. An annual statement and account of the expenditure of all public monies shall be submitted by the office of the President to the Legislature and published once a year;
“no loans shall be raised by the Government on behalf of the Republic or guarantees given for any public institutions or authority otherwise than by or under the authority of a legislative enactment…”
Such enormously awful powers, but from time immemorial, from one political administration to another, those vital powers of the Liberian Legislature, fondly and legally called the “first branch of government” are either usurped by the “imperial presidency” or sold out to the presidency by the leniency or ignorance of the Legislature.
Not only do presidents draft national budgets and subtly impose its will on the ratification of the national budget, they also use state resources at will, sprinkle a few drops of allotments over the Legislature and Judiciary, without much or any serious scrutiny.
Apparently emboldened by the long tradition of unspoken imperial presidency in the country, the Joseph N. Boakai administration is seemingly maximizing the advantage, and lawmakers, particularly those at the House, are feeling the pinched.
Apartheid at 55th Legislature
More often than not, the Executive which has actual expenditure powers weaponizes the budget to exalt and exert its supremacy and keep the Legislature under tacit control. The Unity Party, some observers say, is good at the power play of all the three branches of government.
During its first term (2006 to 2017), the UP under Liberia and Africa’s first democratically elect president rocked the Legislature at will, orchestrated the ouster of heads of the first branch of government by weaponizing the national budget against perceived enemies.
While cabinet or members of the Executive Branch were handsomely paid in salaries and emoluments, some making as high as US$20,000 per month, lawmakers were left to scavenge on woefully demeaning pay, and where there was a dissent, that dissent was quickly removed with a bribery, coercion through the use of the budget.
In less than six months of its second epoch incumbency, the Unity Party stands accused again, this time, as one pundit put it, “in broad-day incarnation of apartheid system—the use of divide and rule at the national legislature, or pick and choose in how the administration dispenses allotments between the Senate and House of Representatives.”
“See how we are being treated. Right now, the Government has provided every cent and has positively funded all vouchers from the Senate wing,” said one of the protesting lawmakers who have been taking tricycles to work at the Capitol Building.
“That Senate you see right there has received their vehicles provided by the new government. Their allowances and benefits are in time provided,” he continued. “Coming to us, members of the House of Representatives, everything is zero. Every disbursement requested by the House is ignored and tabled. “Why? Are we not lawmakers too. The last time I checked, we are all equal. We all have constituents to visit, some of us representing people from distant regions and counties. We all make laws. We all have oversight responsibilities to undertake. Why all this evil action against us.”
The lawmakers described their action of going to work on tricycles not as a protest but a warning.
“This is not a protest; it is a warning,” said one of the lawmakers. “We are alerting our people about this discrimination that we are going through. We hold them explanation.”
One said upon their election, they took loans, including car loans, and have been unable to pay.
“As we speak, some of our colleagues’ vehicles taken on loan have been taken away from them by vendors. They have been unable to keep the terms of the borrow,” another lawmaker said. “And there is the Senate. They have received all their benefits, including new cars.”
Debating the Reasons
Many observers have been figuring out the root cause of the woes being endured by members of the House, reasoning unitedly though that the plight of the lawmakers is unfortunate and needing urgent redress.
While some contend that the Boakai administration has been facing serious fiscal challenges which they might be embarrassed to relate publicly, others say the treatment against the “Lower House” is intentional and deliberate.
A well-known lawmaker, a member of the Senate, who does not want to be named, told The Analyst in an interview: “What is happening to our House colleagues is not unique to them. We are also experiencing problems. The only difference is we are the ‘House of Elders’. We would not come public to make noise in such matters. Doing so, will bring not only embarrassment to ourselves but will also embarrass the entire government and the country. The problem, which our colleagues don’t see or don’t care to accept is that this is a new government. It is still finding its bearing fiscally. International budget support is yet to materialize as foreign funders have to first accept the new government into its programs if we meet their benchmarks.”
According to this Senator, whose version of the cause of problem is also buttressed by other Liberians, the current government is simply fiscally unable to buy vehicles for all lawmakers, both senators and representatives, and it would be a disservice to so progressively or one by one.
He senator argued that buying vehicles for all 103 lawmakers at once, at the average cost of between US$35,000 to US$60,000 for now is impossible and undoable as far as the current fiscal environment and condition are concerned.
However, there are other Liberians who see it differently, saying that the Boakai government is on a revenge spree against the House of Representatives which is a composite of both opposition leadership and also contain the highest and loudest cynical voices in the 55th Legislature.
The leadership of the House of Representatives is drawn from the fiercest of political rival of the ruling Unity Party. The Speaker and Deputy Speaker and other influential posts at the House are occupied by the erstwhile ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) and ranking officials of other opposition parties.
“Beneath the surface of all the noise, is one undisputed fact: vendetta,” said a CDC Senator who clashed with the previously anonymously quoted Senator when both were interviewed together at the Capitol. He also asked not to be named like his colleague.
He continued: “We are not surprised by the way the Boakai government is treating our colleagues at the Lower House. The same way they retrenched and sacked thousands of civil servants and retrenched all tenured officials, whom the government perceived to be CDCians, it is the same way, without an iota of fear, this government is also treating lawmakers. The only reason, the only crime, for which the Boakai administration is withholding up legitimate funding to the Lower House is because a CDC Speaker, a CDC Deputy Speaker, and other prominent CDCians are holding top position in the House leadership. It is because viciously critical folks like their own Yekeh Kolubah and others are at the House of Representatives holding them to account and do those things they themselves voluntarily promised the Liberian people.”
The opposition senator also said: “Let me tell you, journalists, and my colleague sitting right here whom you just interviewed. And me tell all Liberians the truth of the matter. The Unity Party has come to this leadership of their second epoch with much bravery and callousness to unleash political malice, cruelty and toxins at any opposition person that stand their way. Perhaps they think Boakai does not need a second term and most UPists think since their party’s second-term possibility is elusive, they are resolved to callously, intentionally and barefacedly do evil to the people of Liberia.”
When further asked, the Senator added: “I agree with those who are saying the Boakai administration is practicing quasi apartheid policy. And I say ‘quasi’ because this version of apartheid is not based on the pigmentation or the color of the skin, along the divide. And Liberia is not South Africa. But it is all the same in a respect. And let’s be clear, the UP apartheid is not only here that the Legislature. The UP-led apartheid government is a government in which only Unity Party members, their affiliates, families and friends are considered bona fide citizens of Liberia fit to have a job or be treated fairly. Non-Unity Party people are not. And this is sad—terrible history for Liberia, bad legacy.”