The Standard Bearer of the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), Alexander Cummings, applauds the resilience of Liberians in the face of difficult economic challenges as they commemorate Christmas and transition into the New year, 2023.
“For the last five years under President George Weah, living conditions have worsened, every year. Things have become harder and harder that there is hardly anything with which to celebrate,” Mr. Cummings stated. He further noted that the year is ending just as it began in hardship.
The statements were contained in the CPP’s Standard Bearer’s Christmas message delivered at a major press conference held at the CPP Headquarters on Thursday, December 22, 2022.
He said, for the fifth Christmas under President Weah, “too many children will go to bed hungry, families are still grieving the mysterious deaths of loved ones, because their deaths cannot be reasonably explained or properly investigated.
Cummings said although, the President has ordered investigations into these cases, he has not bothered to follow up, because he hopes the public will forget, but the grieving families cannot and will not forget.
He said as we celebrate Christmas under President Weah, elderly citizens will be forced to beg, because in their retirement, government has abandoned them.
According to the CPP Standard Bearer, during this Christmas the streets remain unsafe, communities overtaken by ghettos and drugs. He indicated that joblessness, disappointments, and frustration continue to be the story of many people, and the rising cost of living, including food, rent and transportation, while salaries keep lowering.
Mr. Cummings said in the face of the massive suffering and extreme poverty, the President and five top officials have all increased their budgetary allocations, and wickedly cut the pay of civil servants.
Mr. Cummings rebuked President Weah for continuously shifting blame for his failures and his claims of fixing what past governments spoiled. “Certainly, past governments paved the Monrovia-Ganta Road, repaved the Robertsfield Road that Mr. Weah and his cronies have turned into death trap by giving bogus contract to a company without proper vetting,” Mr. Cummings said.
He also made reference to fund secured by past government for the Gbarnga-Voinjama Road, which President Weah has failed to complete in five years.
Cummings branded Mr. Weah as a playboy and “feecee President” without vision and leadership ability. He said Liberians made the worst mistake by electing Weah, making Liberia the laughing stock and a joke of the international community.
He recalled the President’s recent 48 days foreign visits trip during which Weah “wasted the country’s money jumping from place to place, watching his son play football and enjoying himself and came back to his “Miami” with more lies and pictures for his Facebook album,” Cummings said.
The CPP Standard Bearer warned that “no serious investor will come to invest in a country with a play-play leader who is doing nothing to stop stealing from the people because he is himself stealing or benefitting from the stealing of the Liberian people money.”
Cummings cautioned Liberians against accepting to be fooled by deceptions and allowing the President to get away with it.
“The Presidency is for serious people, and too important to have it placed in the hands of someone so irresponsible, indiscipline, incompetent and unfit to lead a home or a business,” noting that when the President fails or cannot perform, everyone pays the price, Cummings said.
He said unlike other Liberian leaders, it took President Weah five years to get an invitation to the United States, a traditional ally, which only came through a general invitation to 50 other African Heads of State to attend the US Africa Leadership Summit in Washington this month.
“Even at that, President Weah could not get space for one-on-one bilateral discussion. Instead he was in a group of six other heads of state whose countries are facing elections and were called in to be told that America expects them to conduct free and fair elections,” Cummings averred.
The CPP Standard Bearer said while other African leaders held bilateral meetings and signed huge investment and aid packages including awards of MCC Compacts, it was embarrassingly shameful that Weah requested and got selfie photos with the American President.
“From Bali Island to investors coming, for five years we have heard the same lies, propaganda and deception,” Cummings said, noting that Liberia needs an honest and hardworking leader sincerely committed to help transform the poor living conditions of the Liberian people.
