There are reports that some local and foreign domestic debt claimants in Liberia are holding secret meetings in Monrovia in preparation for a well-organized, simultaneous protest against the World Bank Liberia Office and at the offices of the International Monetary Funds (IMF) in a bid to prevail on the Government of Liberia (GOL) to settle all domestic debts to several claimants.
In a tip off to the Hot Pepper yesterday, a sizable number of surviving claimants who preferred anonymity indicated that during the administration of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf she came out with an agreement with the World Bank and IMF to help erase Liberia’s billion-dollar debt owed the world’s two major financial bodies, and was satisfied by the world body. At the same time, the World Bank did not hesitate to instruct President Sirleaf to settle all domestic debt payments, which began on a dismal performance to the annoyance of some of the claimants who were allegedly paid in local currency, with a 30% slice in different categories of their respective payment.
But while the payment was going on, all of a sudden the process came to a momentary halt, thereby denying major businesses from receiving their payments.
In the conversation with the claimants, they lamented that most of their partners are strangulated, to the extent that they owe their workers for more than ten years now.
Meanwhile, speaking about the protests, they said they would move on to the World Bank and later to the IMF to present their last statement for payment. “We are tired. We are tired and dying slowly,” the claimants stated. Investigation continues.