LIBERIA: Leaders of transitional parliament suspended for corruption

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

MONROVIA, 14 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - Members of Liberia's transitional parliament voted on Monday to indefinitely suspend their parliamentary speaker, George Dweh, for corruption along with his deputy and two other members of the house.

A report by a special parliamentary committee, published last week, concluded that the four men had spent US$92,000 of government money without authorisation.

The money had been intended as resettlement allowances for some members of transitional parliament, set up with representatives from the Liberia's three former armed groups, political parties and civil society, under the 2003 peace deal that ended 14 years of civil war.

The committee's findings also showed that the parliament's US dollar bank account, with an estimated $80,000 deposited, had been closed "without any accounting for the use of funds." And claims worth some $250,000 were put in for renovating and repairing the parliament building without any supporting documentation.

A no-confidence vote had been initially scheduled for Thursday but was delayed by two days of closed-door talks between parliamentarians, Liberia's interim leader, Gyude Bryant, and ambassadors from other West African nations who are monitoring the war-scarred country's peace process.

Monday's suspensions came almost a month after a World Bank team visited the timber-rich West African country and told the transitional leadership to crack down harder on corruption and make its books more transparent if it wanted to secure funding from international donors.

UN peacekeepers stepped up security around the parliamentary building in a leafy neighbourhood of the capital Monrovia as the vote took place.

Dweh, who before the peace deal was a leading light in the main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), was not present for the vote. Neither was his deputy, Eddington Varmah, who served as justice minister under former president Charles Taylor.

The other two suspended men founded guilty of corruption and financial malpractice were Tapple Doe and Edward Kpulon, the former from the rebel Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), the latter from LURD.

In addition to these four men, the parliamentary probe named and shamed other parliamentarians for more abuses that included wildly inflated stationery and fuel bills and medical expenses claims to which parliamentarians were not eligible.

Many of those identified in the report as benefiting from this racket were among the 45 out of 76 parliamentarians who voted to suspend the top two leaders of the assembly on Monday.

Government sources said elections to choose their replacements would be held on Thursday.

Liberia is due to hold its first post-war elections on 11 October. War weary Liberians hope this will mark a new era of accountability and development for the battered country.

[ENDS]