Concrete Evidence demanded from Dismissed LISGIS Official

Several Liberians, mainly university students have demanded what they call concrete evidence from the dismissed Deputy Director General for Statistics and Data Processing at the Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS), Alex M. Williams on claims that the Minister of the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning(MFDP), Samuel D. Tweah, Jr. allegedly threatened his life after he(Mr. Williams) publicly exposed what he referred to as massive corruption within the ongoing 2022 National Housing and Population Census.

Mr. Williams, who made the claims without providing evidence when he spoke on Spoon Talk Monday night, November 14, 2022, averred that the census will not be held within the time frame due to massive corruption, lack of technical knowledge and unpreparedness of the team at LISGIS.

“You are doing Digital Census, and no contract signed with enumerators, no gadgets distributed, no household listing, no sitting fees paid to enumerators, there are protest actions around the country, so tell me how do you expect to do census when the process is marred by fraud , complete chaos and disaster,” the dismissed LISGIS Deputy Director for Data Processing, among other things, asserted.

It can be recalled that early this week, President Dr. George Manneh Weah sacked with immediate effect the Acting Director General of LISGIS, Wilmot Smith, and the Deputy Director General for Statistics and Data Processing, Alex M. Williams.

The decision, the Liberian Leader said, was based on administrative reasons. Both men have since been ordered to turn over all properties belonging to the institution in their possession.

Accordingly, the Liberians, speaking on a radio program on Thursday, November 17, 2022 in Monrovia, demanded that Mr. Williams provide incontestable evidence to substantiate his claims of death threat and massive corruption within the ongoing census process if he must be taken seriously.

The callers voiced out that it would be prudent for the dismissed LISGIS official to produce the evidence if what he said against Minister Tweah is true.

‘‘If he wants the Liberian People to believe what he said about Minister Tweah when he appeared on Spoon Talk, let him provide the evidence,’’ John Wilson, a student of the state owned University of Liberia(UL) stated.

Student Wilson’s assertion was buttressed by several other callers, including Joe Toe, Martha Konneh, Sara Brownell and Chris Toe all of the United Methodist University(UMU) in Monrovia, who opined that the burden of proof lies on the accuser(s). Against this backdrop, they contended that the accuser must convince the Liberia People with concrete evidence and not just mere claims

Some of the callers, who questioned the truthfulness of the dismissed LISGIS official claims, wondered why he did not raise the necessary red flag of massive corruption within the ongoing census process and only came out to do so when he was dismissed by President Weah.

They described his claims as baseless and untrue, saying Mr. Williams is crying foul over his dismissal just to gain public sympathy.

Meanwhile, there have been no official comments from Minister Tweah regarding the claims made against him by Mr. Williams.

However, the Heritage reliably learnt that Minister Tweah has so far decided not to comment on the claims as doing so he will be dignifying the dismissed LISGIS official’s claims, as the burden of proof lies on the accuser(s).