Monrovia-Liberia, Tuesday, June 25, 2024 – The Executive Vice Chairman of the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) wants the public armed itself with useful information that will help the LACC fight against corruption.
Mr. Ernest Hughes said public education on the enabling anti-corruption legislations, remains crucial to the overall success of the LACC’s work.
Mr. Hughes believes, if the public is well informed about those anti-corruption laws, it makes it easier to report corruption, using the laws as guiding tool.
He named the laws as Whistleblower Act, the LACC Act of 2022 and the Witness Protection Act.
The LACC Vice Chair was speaking recently at the climax of phase one of the Commission’s nationwide anti-corruption education and awareness campaign in Monrovia.
He expressed the hope that knowledge gained from the exercise will open new horizons of sustainable partnership between the public and the LACC in preventing, investigating and prosecuting corruption.
“A lot of people didn’t even know about the Whistleblower and the Witness Protection Acts. People became excited about the ‘five percent’ as the discussion went on” Mr. Hughes told ELBC in an interview after the closing program at the National Archive Events Hall on 12 street, Friday, June 21, 2024.
It can be recalled that the Whistleblower Act allows a five percent allocation to a Whistleblower if money recovered or restituted after he or she raised alarm about suspected corruption.
Earlier, Montserrado County Superintendent Whroway Bryant at the closing program described corruption as entrenched in the Liberian society, urging Liberians to push for an honest living.
Superintendent Bryant said as the biggest County, Montserrado itself has been on the receiving end of the negative impact of corruption and also ‘disadvantaged’ by corruption.
Also speaking, the Officer-In-Change of the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency, Christopher Peters rallied the audience and Liberians to ‘say something, whenever they hear or see something’, a typical reference to reporting corruption, a menace that has plagued the country and deprived it of much needed development over the years.
Mr. Peters also called for an inter-agency collaboration among the LDEA, LACC and other Law Enforcement agencies in the fight against corruption.
Phase one of the Nationwide Anti-Corruption Education and Awareness Campaign reached out to over eight thousand people in Montserrado, Bomi, Grand Bassa, Nimba and Grand Gedeh Counties.
It is sponsored by the United Nations Development Program, with funding from the Governments of Luxemburg and Republic of Korea.