Grand Bassa Leadership threatened with Lawsuit

The head of the Civil Society Organization in Grand Bassa County has announced the COS intention to take the leadership of the county to court for failing to uphold the laws of the country-particularly the Local Government Act.
Addressing a press conference on Saturday, February 18, 2023, K. M. Barley Togba, Grand Bassa COS Head, then rallied the support of the suffering masses of Grand Bassa County and believers of transparency and accountability to stand with them in these very important times of our struggle.
‘‘Today, we will focus our attention on a couple of trending issue in our beloved County-Grand Bassa. As you are aware, the success of every nation is based on upholding the rule of law-this is a fundamental principle for national development and national unity. This is why, we have always spoken regularly and continuously on these grave issues of concern to our county,’’ Mr. Togba told the press conference.
‘‘Our attention is drawn to the failure of our county leadership to implement the 2018 approved Local Government Law of the country. The full implementation of this very important law, is cardinal to transparency and accountability, will increase people participation, thus, will also cause the acceleration national development especially at the local level. Our main focus is on the implementation of the Local Government Act with specific reference to section 2, which speaks about the establishment of the County Council,’’ Mr. Togba further told the press conference.
He reminded that one key functions of the Civil Society Council in Grand Bassa County is to make sure their laws are upheld irrespective of who you are. However, he pointed out that they are worried that they continued to witness the blatant violation of these laws by people at the helm of power in the county.
According to the Head of COS in Grand Bassa County, this is very concerning because people who are not respecters of the law cannot continue to lead, stressing that this is because public officials are role model of the society.
‘‘We want to use today’s conference to call on the county leadership for the full establishment of the County Council; which is the engine for county development, transparency and accountability. The Local Government Act supersedes the budget law as ruled by the Justice-In-Chambers, Jamesetta Wollokollie in the case filed by Bong County Civil Society against their county’s leadership,’’ Mr. Togba asserted.
‘‘In Bassa, we are mainly concerned because this is election year; and with information that our own Superintendent will be contesting a legislative seat in the county makes the establishment of the County Council even more imperative. Five years now, there has been no audit of our finances in the county in violation of the PFM Law. This therefore makes the formation of the County Council more demanding. The new Local Government Act, particularly section 2, abolishes the National Budget Law, Section 10. This presupposes that the leadership of the county lacks legal authority to expend county funds without the full establishment of the County Council,’’ he continued.
‘‘In view of the above, the Civil Society Council of Grand Bassa County will not sit idly and allow local government officials who are supposed to be protectors and upholders of the laws of the nation, to continuously violate. We remained unbending and unrelenting in protecting the rights of the people of Grand Bassa County,’’ he added.