FALSE ALARM: Marketers explained that while carrying on their normal marketing activities on the day of the protest, Mrs. Comfort Bedell Marshall, a friend of Gender and Development Minister, Varbah Gayflor visited the market and told them that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf wanted to meet with all market women at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monrovia -

isappointed and frustrated, angry marketers at the populated New Georgia Estate market outside Monrovia Thursday lamented Thursday that they are frustrated over the manner in which they were misled to form part of an organized demonstration against Auditor General John S. Morlu during which a group of women presented a statement to the European Union (EU) office in Monrovia calling for the termination of the Auditor-General’s contract.

Pepper Ma

The marketers explained that while carrying on their normal marketing activities on the day of the protest, Mrs. Comfort Bedell Marshall, a friend of Gender and Development Minister, Varbah Gayflor visited the market and told them that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf wanted to meet with all market women at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to the women buses were brought in my Mrs. Marshall to commute them to the office of President Sirleaf but they said after boarding the buses, when they reached Central Monrovia, they were taken to the office of the European Union where other women had already gathered protesting the resignation of Auditor General Morlu.

Mary T. Sando, one of the marketers told journalists they were shocked at the slogans the other women they met on the ground were chanting “Morlu must come down” and they decided to leave.

“They lied to us, they told us we were going to meet Ma Ellen only to see them carrying us for different politics thing, me I am not a politician. That is very bad, they want to use us for their own thing”, Madam Sando lamented.

The marketer continued: “I was not informed about what was going to transpire, but when I got there I only saw people with placard telling us to say that we should move John Morlu, John Morlu should step down. So I say oh but dey thing da different thin because the superintendent called us and say the president sent for us, but when we get there we see the whole thing change around. We never even went to the president office instead went to European Union office, so I say Madam Superintendent,  is this what you brought us here for, she say I myself I don’t know , so I say but then if that was anything to sign our own death warrant this morning, we were going to sign our own death warrant, we were misled, our superintendent told us that the president wanted to see us and we were happy to meet the president”.

Sando said they were about 18 women from the New Georgia market that boarded the buses for Central Monrovia.

Julia Bracewell

“We reach there before they give us the placards; we met some women already in front of European Union office.  I tell the superintendent I don’t support the   idea if they da what they were carrying us for the superintendent supposed to tell us but they did not tell us anything before we reach on the ground. I regretted the hour and minute I left from here to get to where I went”, the angry marketer further narrated.

Women from around Monrovia early Monday morning moved on the European Union Office in Monrovia calling for the removal of Auditor General John Morlu though the women statement was read by pro-Ellen Johnson Sirleaf youth Adolphus Kawa who normally calls on radio talk shows to flower praises on government and is also said to be close senior aid to Mrs. Medina Wesseh, former Director of cabinet.

Another lady who only preferred to be identify as Pepper Ma said the action of those who carried them was very wicked and an attempt to force them into politics.

“Soon in the morning when I left from to my house, my superintendent told me we were going to the mansion, so I sent my son to go bring my clothes because the way I come like this, I cannot go like that in town, surprisingly we went to the American Embassy, we met the women with their placard, they said Morlu mon come down, I say ahh, what thing I know they say Morlu mon come down.  I regretted the hour, the second, Morlu mon stay because I know about their thing”, angry Pepper Ma told a team of journalists at the New Georgia Market outside Monrovia.

Still at the New Georgia market other women explained how the entire market was fooled into an unwarranted protest action against the country’s Auditor-General through the use of their superintendent Madam Julia Bracewell.

The women explained that some of them were forced to remain at the European Union office because the organizers of the event had threatened that they will not transport them back to New Georgia unless they remain and implement the protest against the Auditor-General.

“we wanted to come to our market place but no transportation to come, we tell the people they say they will not bring us back until we finish demonstrating against Morlu”, one market woman told the journalists in an angry mood.

Exploiting the Ignorance of mothers

'WHOLE THING CHANGE'

“I was not informed about what was going to transpire, but when I got there I only saw people with placard telling us to say that we should move John Morlu, John Morlu should step down. So I say oh but dey thing da different thin because the superintendent called us and say the president sent for us, but when we get there we see the whole thing change around. Mary T. Sando, Marketer

Many of the women did not even know the name of the European Union where they presented their petition.

They referred to the European Union as the American Embassy the notable office on Mamba Point known by many unprivileged Liberians.

The inability of the market women to even identify the European Union office further corroborates facts that they did not really know where they were going.

Over the years many ‘educated’ Liberians used market women into staging protest in which they had little or no understanding resulting to chaos into country.

The 1979 riot and the 1990 demonstrations are strategic examples of how market women were dragged by politicians into taking decisions that were counter-productive to the survival of their very being.

I was Fooled Too- Market Superintendent

The head of the New Georgia Market Madam Bracewell who is blamed for the situation is also crying foul at the hands of Madam Marshall whom she said was responsible for the misinformation between she and the women of New Georgia Market.

Madam Bracewell said she has already apologized to her colleagues in the market explaining that all of them were misled my Madam Marshall into staging a protest that did not meet their approval.

She told Journalists that she relayed the information to her colleagues just as it was given to her by Comfort Bedell that they were going to meet the President of Liberia Ellen-Johnson Sirleaf.

I am not Responsible Marshall Hit Back

Comfort Bedell Marshall

Madam Marshall told journalists at her privately run school in the same area that she is not responsible for the mis-understanding among the Women at the New Georgia Market.

Marshall revealed that she informed the superintendent about the meeting at the European Union office but said the marketers were in her words too scary.

She reiterated calls for the country’s Auditor-General to step down maintaining that he has failed to do a good job in Liberia.

Marshall also refuted claims that her action was stage-managed and sponsor by Madam Varbah Gayflor.

In any case the revelations by the women of New Georgia Estate Market send signals of a deliberate attempt to bring the Auditor-General in conflict with his employers.

The women protest comes as the GAC is carrying on an audit of the Ministry of Gender and Development.

Of late there have been series of ‘stage-managed’ protest action against the GAC and its head.

At the close of last year, men believed to be sponsored by elements in government staged a protest denouncing the report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission.

The stage-managed protestors threw insults at commissioners of the TRC and sang praises to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who is key culprit in the TRC recommendation for public sanction.

Many in Monrovia questioned the recent protest action against the Auditor General just days after a draft audit report detailed chilling experience of how the country’s Information Minister, Laurence K. Bropleh siphoned money intended to push government communications agenda to another level.

The General Auditing Commission itself has from time to time said attacks on the Auditor General are politically motivated and intended to divert the work of the commission.

The points raised by the market women in their petition according to one source are some of the points raised by officials of the Ministry of Finance against the Auditor General.

The source said it was strange for market women to know about Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) audit.

Over the past two years, ghost groups have been organized according by senior officials in government to discredit the work of the GAC.

Prominent amongst them was the Movement for the Defense of the Downtrodden Masses which focused its advocacy only on the GAC and Auditor General Morlu.

The Downtrodden group has since ceased to continue its advocacy after a check was uncovered where the Ministry of Public Works paid the group for public relations purpose.

There were no justifications for the payment to the group but since media publications of the payment to the group over seven months ago, the group has ceased to exist.