Audit Blockades Un-justify Transparency Credential

IF THERE IS any behavior of the current Government that bewilders Liberians, probably including external friends, it is persistent reports that officials of ministries and agencies are blocking efforts by the General Auditing Commission (GAC) to conduct forensic routine audits. And the wilderment is not only because the government claims, and held in high esteem, to be a macrocosm of good governance and international best practice, but also because it is prosecuting former government officials for allegedly acting contrary to the precepts of good governance and international best practice.

MORE SO, LIBERIANS had thought that with the advent of the new post-conflict government comprising esteemed bureaucrats and international civil servants would witness the end to behaviors and practices that patronize and fan corruption, graft and poverty. The nation's hope, now apparently lying in tatters, was built by President Sirleaf when she vowed and swore during her inauguration that she would work towards extinguishing the Grand Old national enemy, corruption. But as if the vow and oath to fight and defeat corruption were a mere bluff and toothless posturing, the nation's Number One Enemy, as the President besmirched it, has blossomed and triumphing with little or no resistance. The President and her allies only sit, stretch out their feet forward, raise their hands over their heads and weep.

THERE IS FORTUNATELY a fortress but which the President and her Government in the fight against the common enemy have unfortunately forgotten: the General Auditing Commission, which has got an arsenal from the international community, principally the European Union. So much offshore monies have been committed to the GAC to help the President and her government not only to resist the keptocratic enemy forces, but to take the war to their doorsteps. And without any shrink and waiver, the GAC has so far demonstrated the resolve and gallantry of a warrior, standing up to all odds in defense of the nation and in support of the vow and oath of the President against corruption.

ALL THE RHETORIC and pleasantries of good governance and international best practice aside, and at the end of the day, audit has no substitute as the prism and barometer by which the genuineness of this Government's political and natural commitment and traits toward national transformation will be measured. By and large, it is by the GAC's routine audit of government ministries and agencies that Liberians can rest assure that the resources of this long backward country entrusted in the care of a modicum of the population are judiciously managed and applied. This kind of public assurance not only gives Liberians hope for liberation from the claws of poverty, but also undercuts, if not obliterates, the pretext for future political upheavals.

THERE IS NO gainsaying about the fact that the evasion or blocking of audit hugely contradicts the assumed nature and expressed promise of this post-conflict political leadership. And many are bewildered, despairing not merely because another self-proclaimed saintly regime is failing, but also because the future and the hope of the people lie in ruins again.