Critics of the Unity Party (UP) and the Joseph Boakai/Jeremiah Koung ticket have descended on the Nimba County Senator and the running mate of the UP Standard Bearer, Jeremiah K. Koung, describing him as a powerful symbol of the rotten sweetness of democratized corruption in Liberia.
Senator Koung has been a member of the National Legislature since the beginning of post-war democracy, serving two six-year terms as a representative and now senator. However, the National Legislature, which is the first branch of government, has been identified by many local and international antigraft institutions as the most corrupt of the three branches of the Liberian government. With Koung allegedly being a major player in the organized corruption at the Legislature and being hooked in a number of corruption reports, critics are wondering how Ambassador Boakai came to the conclusion of selecting him as his running mate.
According to the Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia (CENTAL) 2021 State of Corruption Report, several members of the National Legislature were involved in high-level corruption. The two-year CENTAL investigation linked then Nimba County Representative, Jeremiah Koung, Montserrado County Senator, Saah Joseph, and district #6 Representative, Samuel Enders, and others to massive corruption.
According to the CENTAL report, between 2012 to 2021 Representative Koung received nearly US$1 million to run his privately owned hospital, Esther and Geraldine Hospital, in Nimba County.
Also, in the 2020/2021 budget Jeremiah Koung and his colleagues at the Legislature awarded themselves US$3.6 million in the name of legislative engagement and public accessibility fund, with each legislator taking US$30,000.
Again in the 2022 budget, Senator Koung and his colleagues at the Legislature awarded themselves an additional US$3.6 million, with each legislator taking US$30,000 in the name of legislative engagement and public accessibility funds, while public institutions, including hospitals and schools, were hugely underfunded. At the same time, Senator Koung and his colleagues are busy diverting funds through budget paddling and redirecting those funds among themselves, as was recently disclosed by the United States Ambassador, Michael McCarthy.
“Is Joseph Nyumah Boakai complicit in encouraging the democratization of corruption in Liberia by choosing Jeremiah Koung as his running mate? Is it a major, general mistake for Mr. Boakai to be romancing corrupt individuals while pretending to be a rescuer? The on-going caricature is simply a case of democratization of corruption; a case of birds of the same feathers flocking together, literally,” the critics maintained.
According to them, to say Senator Koung, along with his political godfather, Senator Prince Yomie Johnson, are the most potent political operatives is not an overstatement. They say even before Koung rose to power he was highly connected by virtue of his political godfather, ex-warlord, and current Senator Prince Yormie Johnson– the strong man of Nimba politics.
Senator Prince Johnson, who founded the Movement for Democracy and Reconstruction (MDR), which Senator Koung is now Standard Bearer of, has been sanctioned by the United States government for corruption under the Global Magnitsky Act.
On December 9, 2021, Prince Yomie Johnson was placed under sanctions by the US Treasury under the Global Magnitsky Act. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), “as a Senator, Johnson has been involved in pay-for-play funding with government ministries and organizations for personal enrichment. As part of the scheme, upon receiving funding from the Government of Liberia (GOL) the involved government ministries and organizations launder a portion of the funding for the return to the involved participants. The pay-for-play funding scheme involves millions of U.S. dollars. Johnson has also offered the sale of votes in multiple Liberian elections in exchange for money.”
Evidently, Prince Yomie Johnson recently broke ties with the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change government, headed by President George Weah, alleging that the Weah-led government refused to incorporate its members of his MDR into key government positions, thereby authenticating the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s sanction on him (pay-for-play).
After publicly falling out with President Weah and his CDC, Senator Johnson, the founder of MDR, gave his blessing to Senator Jeremiah Koung to assume the position of Standard Bearer of the MDR and lead the party’s operations in preparation for the 2023 general and presidential elections as he battle for his senatorial seat in the 2023 elections.
After successfully turning over the MDR to Senator Koung, Johnson then held talks with Ambassador Boakai and a few months later Koung was announced running mate to the UP Standard Bearer.
The critics argue that Ambassador Boakai has limited the anti-corruption fight with his collaboration with the likes of Jeremiah Koung, Prince Johnson, etc., and that until the cabals around him can summon the courage to point a real surgical anti-corruption knife at the crocodiles at the National Legislature, including Jeremiah Koung, Prince Johnson, and others, and stay far away from these unscrupulous individuals that are involved in multi-million dollar corruption schemes involving fraud, misappropriation and abuse of authority, Joseph Nyumah Boakai will not be seen as a rescuer for Liberia.