The Executive Chairperson of the Liberia Anti-corruption Commission (LACC), Alexandra Zoe has revealed that there will be no business as usual in prosecuting corrupt officials in Liberia.
She said it is now time to hold public officials accountable for their stewardship in public offices.
She made the statement in Gbarnga, Bong County recently when the LACC organized a three-day Anti-corruption training aimed as empowering citizens and communities to foster social accountability and transparency in governance and public service delivery with support from the United Nations Development Program.
“It is now time to just basically educate our entire population about the issue of corruption, because corruption is something that hinders development and so this should not be a culture of impunity or culture of acceptance because if we do not hold our public officials or people who are in top offices or if we do not even hold ourselves accountable, then where are we heading as a nation and people?” She wondered.
The LACC Chairperson debunked rumors that the LACC is targeting special groups of people especially those from the immediate past regime adding, “So, this exercise is not targeting anyone group of people.”
“What we are doing now is, we are acting on the audit reports that the General Auditing Commission submitted to the Legislature and then next thing we are going to do, we have reports coming up for incumbents officials. There are reports of alleged acts of corruption on current government officials and we are also going to delve into that,” the LACC Executive Chairperson assured.
The Liberia Anti-corruption Commission Executive boss said they are going to look at the issues of corruption holistically reiterating, “We are going to deal with corruption from every area; be it past or current government. So this is a movement and that is why we are calling on everyone to join us; we cannot do it on our own. We rely on the public for intelligence and we rely on them for their support too,” Cllr. Zoe noted.
She said the LACC is institution that is void of politics, adding “Even though, we are not perfect, we will try as much as possible to be independent.”
The three-day workshop which seeks to equip youth and women with the knowledge and skill to participate in youth and women-oriented service delivery at the county and District levels was held under the theme: “Improving public knowledge through enabling anti-corruption legislation,” with funding from the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund.
