Liberia: Liberian President Instructed ‘Lobbying Fees’ to Lawmaker

Apr 9, 2015 | Kennedy L. Yangian, Front Page Africa
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Barely two weeks after losing a motion to dismiss the indictment that charged him with multiple criminal offences, Clemenceau Urey former Board Chair of the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL), has asked the court for a separate trial. After losing the motion to dismiss the indictment against them, lawyers representing former Board Chairman Urey on April 8, 2015 filed a motion, requesting for a severance adding that he and former NOCAL’s President Dr. Fodee Kromah were instructed by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to pay lobbying fees to members of the 52nd Legislature, for the ratification oil contracts. Defendant Urey’s lawyers stated in the motion for severance that as former board chairman of NOCAL, he was only permitted to vote in cases, when there was a tie and could not and did not vote to approve any payment to the Legislature for oil contracts to be ratified. Urey said that he did not authorize or approve any payment and there was no legal or factual basis for him to have been indicted along with the other nine defendants.