Claim: Finance and Development Planning Minister Samuel Tweah and Liberia Maritime Authority Commissioner Eugene Lenn Nagbe claimed: “the Invincible Sports Park was constructed by President Weah and his friends.”
Verdict: Misleading! Checks by DUBAWA show that a portion of the funds used to construct the Invincible Sports Park was budgeted for in the 2022 national budget, while other state institutions contributed financially to the project.
Full Text
Liberia is expected to go to polls on October 10 this year to elect new leaders, including the president, vice president, 73 representatives and 15 senators whose tenures are about to end.
The elections will most likely be won or lost based on the opposition’s promises and credibility or the track record, achievements or failures of the incumbent. As the campaign heats up, two senior officials of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) led administration headed by soccer icon George Weah took to the national radio to outline the gains made by the CDC government in the last six years.
Finance and development planning Minister Samuel Tweah and the Liberia Maritime Authority Commissioner Eugene Lenn Nagbe appeared on the state-owned media outlet, the Liberia Broadcasting System or ELBC, to talk about progress made by the CDC government.
The show carried on the LBS online radio and Television, LNTV, was also covered by several media institutions, including Front Page Africa and D-TV online.
During the show, the Liberia Maritime Authority Commissioner, Eugene Lenn Nagbe, claimed that President George Weah built the Invincible Sports Park with support from his friends.
Commissioner Nagbe was responding to a question asked by one of the journalists on the show about whether some of the projects undertaken by the Liberian leader were executed with his personal or government funds.
Nagbe said, “The Pro-Poor housing and the market structure the president is building are direct results of what the people asked for when the president made his most recent counties tours. There are some projects that the president is undertaking by himself, like the Invincible Sports Park. He funded it with some support from his friends.”
He made this claim over the four hours show from 2:25:57 to 2:26:05 hours.
Commissioner Nagbe’s claim was also buttressed by his colleague, Minister Samuel Tweah, during the show.
Minister Tweah said, “To be clear and honest with you, the Invincible Sports Park was funded by the president because people have tried to bring this president down on the basis of lies, and we are here to fight falsehood. I am happy that the Liberian people no longer believe the lie, so they are flat-footed. They are still bent on spreading lies on their Facebook pages saying that the Invincible Park was built from the government budget, no it was [not], and we are very clear on that one.”
Minister Tweah’s comments came around the 2:35:35 – 2:36:14 hours of the over four-hour show on Monday, June 19, 2023.
The interview has garnered over 7,000 views with over 615 comments. DUBAWA decided to verify the claim due to controversy and the interest the claim generated.
Verification
To start with, DUBAWA sighted a February 9, 2021, video in which President George Weah broke grounds for the construction of the Invincible Sports Park, located in Sinkor, Fish Market, directly opposite the home of ex-Liberian President Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
At the program, President Weah said that he felt obligated to the people of the area where the park is constructed because, according to him, it was where he used to play when he started his footballing career.
The Liberian leader said, “I, therefore, want you to know that I am developing this public park as my personal contribution to the people of this area.”
President Weah made the remarks at 35:24-36:00 minutes/seconds of his speech during the groundbreaking ceremony.
But was the Invincible Park built solely with funds from the president?
The Minister of State without Portfolio, Trokon Kpui, appeared to have contradicted the claim that the president built the Park from his own and friends’ funds. He said on the Spoon Talk programme on April 5, 2022, that part of the funding for the project came from state institutions.
Minister Kpui said, “This is the president’s project, but we also have funds coming from the National Port Authority (NPA), National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASCRP) and the Liberia Maritime Authority (LiMA).”
Minister Kpui appeared on the show in his official capacity as chief administrator of the project and made the claim on the show between 1:19:53 to 1:20:20 hours. The show was carried live on the institution’s official Facebook page.
According to him, the president funded 60% of the budget for the Invincible Park, and the remaining 40% came from state coffers.
Despite this contradiction, DUBAWA contacted the two senior Liberian government officials through WhatsApp to provide evidence in support of their claims that the park was built solely with funds from the president.
However, the two men did not reply to DUBAWA’s questions posed to them.
Here are screenshots of DUBAWA’s questions to Minister Samuel Tweah and Commissioner Lenn Eugene Nagbe.
DUBAWA didn’t stop there. The researcher then visited the 2022 national budget of Liberia since the project was launched in 2021. DUBAWA discovered on page 10, under the summary of the Public Sector Investment Plan (PSIP), that the government of Liberia funded the construction of the Invincible Sports Park Project under code 0720.
The allotment for this Invincible Sports Park project is US$ 500,000 for 2022 and projected for under the 2023 and 2024 national budget at 400,000 and 320,000, respectively.
Here is a screenshot from the 2022 budget of Liberia:
Conclusion
Based on the concessions made by the Administrator of the Invincible Park project and the facts available within the 2022 national budget of Liberia, the claim made by Minister Samuel Toweah and Commissioner Lenn Eugene Nagbe is misleading.
