By Alex Yomah
The Joint legislative Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday rejected proxies of the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) who had reportedly gone to represent the City Mayor, Jefferson Koijee, at the General Auditing Commission’s (GAC) audit report hearing at the Capitol Building.
The GAC is an institution responsible to audit all government spending entities including donor’s remittances and according to its report submitted to that body, the MCC received a huge sum of grant intended for the city with impugning allegation that Koijee needed to respond to.
The GAC failed to disclosed the full amount that is to be accounted for by MCC but lingering reports have it that, that fund remitted to the MCC was intended for the City and due to the reported shadiness in accounting for it, Koijee is said to constantly refuse PAC’s calls to address that portion of the report.
Due to Koijee’s failure to appear for the public hearing, the MCC’S delegation headed by his principle Deputy, Franco Grant, was rejected as the invitation was intended for Koijee therefore the committee’s contention was that for any reason he wanted Grant to have represented him, he should have sent an authorization note informing the committee.
Prior to the committee’s decision, Grant conveyed that his boss could not attend the public hearing because he contracted malaria while returning from Lofa and apparently, it was Grant’s message that exasperated the situation thereby putting a daunt into the entire hearing.
In a fuming mood, the chairperson of the committee, Emmanuel Nuquay out rightly rejected the delegation and described Koijee’s action as a constant disrespect to the committee, stressing, “This is the fourth time this committee has invited Jefferson Koijee and has failed to come. We are doing this not to hurt anybody but to help our government which we are all a part of. We will send you guys back and reschedule this hearing.”