Reckless, Disgraceful and Dangerous: A rejoinder to the Solicitor General’s falsehoods and vague threat proffered under a pseudo name, Arthur Pierce Jartue, with the heading “Metal Steel spread Fake news Unconstitutional & Illegal”
Reckless, Disgraceful and Dangerous: A rejoinder to the Solicitor General’s falsehoods and vague threat proffered under a pseudo name, Arthur Pierce Jartue, with the heading “Metal Steel spread Fake news Unconstitutional & Illegal”
By Joseph Kollie
This morning I woke up to a villainous article, which I credibly found was written and personally circulated by the Solicitor General of the Republic of Liberia, under the pen name, Arthur Pierce Jartue. I delved into the article and immediately realized it is fraught with misinterpretation of the law, incoherence, run-on sentences, and lies only intended to misinform the public and vaguely threaten Liberia’s largest investment and taxpayer, ArcelorMittal.
This activity of the Solicitor General is deeply concerning, unfortunate and unheard of in any thriving democracy and civilized society. A devious activity of such nature, particularly coming personally from the nation’s SG is worrisome as to how low he has dragged the reputation of a once highly respected office to the ground. In case the SG has either forgotten or perhaps, not even aware of the weight and honor his office carries, I can give him a free tutorial that the crux of his job is to protect the public interest, utilizing the power of truthfulness and transparency. If the SG is genuinely concerned about AML disseminating false information, he could easily seek clarification from the company to validate the information. On the contrary, he chose to do what he knows best, reverting to his notorious “henchman tactics”, under the cover of darkness to dishonestly disseminate threats on Liberia’s private sector leader that has in its employ over 3,000 Liberians, on whose incomes about 21,000 dependents obtain livelihoods. This is unprecedentedly shameful!
SABOTAGING FOREIGN INVESTMENT
This is economic sabotage, and it should not go unnoticed by the countries where Mittal has raised its capital to implement a first-rated mining operation in Liberia aimed at taking Liberia back to its glory days of being a global leader in the iron ore industry while making sure that there is equity in the distribution of the wealth to be generated. AML has in the last 16 years served as a catalyst, a model investor, and one of Liberia’s most responsible corporate citizens. This is why the write-up by the Solicitor General under the fake name Arthur Pierce which has proof of him distributing with newspapers and local media chatrooms is shocking and alarming.
UNSUPPORTED CLAIMS
From the opening paragraph to the last word in the uninformed piece, the Solicitor General is making a threat to AML that government can twist Liberian law to prosecute the company for claiming to have spent $500 Million to rehabilitate the Yekepa-Buchanan railway, even though the facts are undisputed and available.
Without submitting evidence of that; (i), the claim was made by the company he alleged, (i) that such claim is untrue as proven by an authoritative source, calculations of assessment, the hasty and confused Solicitor General on an extortion mission jumps to the conclusion that Mittal has spread false information. What kind of reasoning is this? You make a claim and substantiate such a claim with more allegations and speculative statements? Sad!
In his opening paragraph, the Solicitor General of the Republic, purporting to be Arthur Pierce Jartue, alleged wildly and without any source or evidence that “……The actual estimated cost of construction of the Yakepa – Buchanan rail was between $70 – 90 million dollars in the 50s and 60s when steel was precious. “Today Steel is no longer a precious commodity!” But of course, this claim is without basis and lacks any technical foundation. Logically speaking, the Solicitor General is asserting that steel is the only thing required to rehabilitate.
