New Money, Other Issues High On Lawmakers’ Return

House Speaker, Dr. Bhofal Chambers, has confirmed report that the members of the 54th Legislature will return to an extraordinary sessions beginning this Monday, November, 18, 2019.The Speaker said President George Weah has written the Liberian Legislature requesting that august-body to commence sessions with an objective to pass key legislations that are topmost vital to the development of the State and its people.
He made the validation on Monday to legislative reporters following a visit of the China delegation of the National People’s Congress to members of the 54th National Legislature.
Even-though, Speaker Chambers has ever since failed to outline those legislative instruments to be acted upon during the extraordinary sessions, but reports say, key amongst issues propelling the Legislature’s return is to expedite the approval of new banknotes and secondly, act on key financing instruments intended to buttress government’s Pro-poor Agenda.
The issue of printing new money has taken center stage in every political discussion-with government stressing the need to print the new banknotes as pre-requisite for Civil Servants to take pay for this season.
Recently, Representative Moses Acarous Gray posted on his personal Facebook saying “that it’s important that the government prints new banknotes to enable Government pay civil servants” but this statement has been greeted with harsh responses from the public.
Some lawmakers have expressed disapprovals to Representative Gray’s assertions that government must print new money to enable her pay Civil Servants.
One of those lawmakers that has expressed opposition to this paper yesterday was Maryland County Senator Gblebo Brown.
Senator Brown described as a wrong notion for Liberia to print extra banknotes on account of paying Civil Servants as insinuated by his legislative colleague, Rep. Gray.
He said the essence of printing new banknotes in any country should not only be to pay government’s employees like in the case of Liberia but should be done for a proven cause not that government should pay its employees from revenue collected.
The lawmaker, however asserted, in order for him to affix his signature to any document in support of the printing of new banknotes, other conditions must be met.
“For new banknotes to be printed, the legislature must sign a joint Resolution instructing the Central Bank to do; as far as I’m concerned, the legislature has not done,” Sen.Brown averred.
Senator Brown also noted that before the Legislature approves of the printing of the new banknotes, recommendations from both kroll and the Presidential Investigative Team (PIT) which said the printing of the LR$16 billion was marred by flaw should be addressed.