Liberia History & Information

[Baltimore, MD, January 20, 2002] — One week after a 12-hour hearing of allegations that could have permanently destroyed the Liberian Community in the Washington, DC metro area, the fact-finding team, commissioned by the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA), submitted its findings and recommendations to the Karpeh-Reeves administration. The Union’s board will have the final say on the report.

Left-right: Leslie A. Cole, Toe Blamo Gbi and Yvonne Nelson. Other commissioners not on this picture are Drs. Joseph Korto and Jesse Cooper.

According to the team, the recent elections conducted in the Liberian community in Washington, DC were “unfair and illegal,” and that outgoing president John Lloyd overruled the electoral laws without consulting the community membership.

Based on evidence presented in Beltsville, MD a week ago by witnesses, the fact finders also reported many irregularities over the years. Some of those issues were said to be constitutional, financial and social in scope.

Interim Prez Patrick Tuon in Baltimore, MD while report was being delivered.

The commission suggests that ULAA should recognize the “Liberian Community Association of the Washington Metropolitan Area” headed by interim president Patrick Nimely-Tuon and that the “Liberia Community Association, Inc.” led by David Garnett “be dissolved immediately.”

The commission also recommended a transitional administration to comprise members of the New Vision Organization, the Glay-Zawolo Camp and the would-be defunct Liberian Community Association, Inc. headed by Garnett.

Meanwhile, new free and fair elections will be scheduled by a five-man committee. That committee will be selected by the community’s general assembly. A new board to represent the greater Washington, DC metro area will also be elected. But before any of those actions occurs, new electoral laws will be drawn and adopted by Liberians who pay their monthly dues in the Washington, DC metro area.

On financial matters, two audits — one by a certified public accountant to be commissioned by the chapter’s general assembly and another by the Union — were advised to help expunge John Lloyd’s reputation as being fiscally irresponsible and unaccountable as charged, when he presided over the affairs of a community bitterly divided allegedly along ethnic lines at the dawn of a new century.

Says Commissioner Leslie Cole: “During the hearing, no evidence of financial impropriety that creates a cloud of doubt was submitted, so it is better that the audits be conducted to help establish proof of innocence or guilt of the Lloyd administration.”

Continued here