Monrovia — The Nimba County chapter of national civil society (CSOs) and other Nimba citizens are calling for an immediate halt of its pending County Council sitting until ‘their obligations of a legitimate County Council is established.
The group on Monday through a press conference in Monrovia termed the county pending county council as “illegal” and said the county council should include a full nine-member that constitutes every sectoral balance as enshrined in the Local Governance Act of 2018 and in line with the recent Supreme Court instructions. It must be done in the next 15 working days before the sitting can be conducted in other to avoid chaos and resistance from the people of Nimba.
The group chairperson John Alexander Nyahn Sr. speaking on behalf of the group said: “We, therefore, seize this opportunity to rally our citizens of Nimba County, fellow CSOs inclusive of our leaders, youth, women, Chief, and elders, disabled Community, the media, the government of Liberia, and diplomatic missions to prevail on the Nimba County leadership to do the needful before any County sitting is held. Any attempt will be resisted at all fronts”.
“The Nimba Chapter of the National Civil Society Council of Liberia (N-NCSCL), and the citizens of Nimba are taking this opportunity to duly inform the people of Nimba, the National Government, our CSO colleagues, and our development partners (who have invested hugely in our peace and security) that the pending Nimba County Council Sitting that is being organized by a few handfuls of the County Leadership is grossly unconstitutional and that the purported Sitting has the recipe to breed corruption, violence, and exclusion,” he said.
According to John Nyahn, the group is calling for a full-scale forensic audit and social audit to be conducted by independent groups including; the Civil Society proposed social audit, General Auditing Commission, and Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission for the past and present Project Management Committee (PMC) with the said report being submitted at a well-organized and inclusive County Council sitting.
He said all-district sitting should be conducted in the next 14 days before any county sitting can be held as it is enshrined in the law and all such sitting should include CSOs representatives, and in the absence of the above; “we cannot guarantee any County sitting because such sitting is deemed illegal, suppressive, none inclusive and undermines the tenets of transparency and accountability”.
“The proposed County Sitting is grossly unconstitutional given that the Republic of Liberia Supreme Court, Justice in Chamber Jamesetta Howard Wolokollie ruled in favor of the Bong County Chapter of the NCSCL that any County Council Sitting conducted using the budget law is illegal and that County Council Sitting should be under the guidance of the Local Government Act of 2018 (LGA-2018) and the LGA-2018 requires that a Nine (9) men County Council to include youth, women, disabled, and Civil Society representatives and amongst others are established to function”.
According to him, delegates to the County Sitting should be nominated by their respective institutions and not by the County leadership or individual politicians and a joint physical inventory of the County’s major assets, mainly the 21 pieces of the Nimba County Earthmoving equipment be conducted in the next 14 days as well.
He further called on President George Manneh Weah to intervene in the “hijack of our County by unpatriotic persons in power and prevent this beautiful County of Nimba from descending into violence and chaos”.