Presidential candidate Clarence Moniba appeared in a one-hour radio interview on OK Fm on September 1, 2023 to promote his political agenda made claims about the the country’s demographic and the fight against corruption.
Dr. Clarence Moniba, who is running on the ticket of Liberia National Union, at around 2:09 (two hour nine minutes) of the nearly three hours Facebook livestream radio claimed that
Claim #1: “85% of the population in Liberia are under the age of 45”.
Verdict: Mostly Correct
To verify the claim, we checked publicly available statistics on age groupings of Liberia’s population.
We found the Liberia Health and Demography Survey for 2019-2020 which has the percent distribution of the de facto household population by various age groups according to sex and residence.
The percent distribution of the Liberian population in the LDHS on page 29 is as follows:
14.7% of the population is less than 5 years, while 5-9 years is 15.1%, 10-14 years is 15%, 15-19 years is 9.5%. Also, 20-24 years is 7.7%, 25-29 years is 7%, 30-34 years is 5.8%, 35-39 years is also 5.8%, 40-44 years is 4.3%, amongst others.
We then found the sum of all the percentage in LHDS of age categories under 45 years and total is 84.9%.
Therefore, we conclude that the claim by Mr. Moniba that 85% of Liberia’s population is under 45 years is mostly correct.
Claim #2: “No one has gone to jail for corruption in the last 5 years, 10 years, 15 years”.
Verdict: Incorrect
Also, Mr. Moniba, at around 2:19 (two hours nineteen minutes) of the same interview attempted to describe the tackling of corruption in the Liberia by governments and claimed that “no one has gone to jail for corruption in the last 5 years, 10 years, 15 years”.
By calculation, 15 years back dates from 2009 to current.
To verify this claim, we conducted multiple search on “Corruption in Liberia” and the fight against corruption in Liberia.
Our search found news publications of many instances where officials of government were charged and jailed for corruption.
We found a Voice of America news publication which shows that in 2009, former Transitional Leader Gyude Bryant went to jail on “charges of embezzlement”.
We also found a July 11, 2011 f FrontPage Africa Facebook post with a news article link with a headline Albert Bropleh Disgrace: Ex LTA Chair Handcuffed and Whisked to Prison.
Fox News on February 22, 2014 published an article which quoted former Information Minister Lewis Brown as saying that Moses Wogbeh, the former Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority, was held at the Monrovia Central Prison for defrauding Liberia of millions of dollars.
The story quotes Minister Brown as saying that the “lawyer of the FDA has also been arrested and seven other officials are being sought on the same charges”. He said the “illegal permits defrauded the government of 12 to 15 million dollars”.
In 2019, three officials of the Sirleaf administration were sent to the Monrovia Central Prison in ongoing trail of Criminal Conspiracy, Economic Sabotage, Misuse of Public Money, Property or Records and Illegal Disbursement and Expenditure of Public Money.
A FrontPage Africa news article published on March 14, 2019 list the three men as Charles Sirleaf, Milton Weeks and Dorbor Hagba – all were top offcials of the Central Bank of Liberia. They were later acquitted.
We, therefore, conclude that the claim by Mr. Moniba that “no one has gone to jail for corruption in the last 15 years in Liberia” is incorrect.
Conclusion
Based on the facts gathered from our research, it is established that the LINU Presidential candidate is mostly correct that 85% of Liberia population is under 45. Data from Liberia Demography and Health Survey 2019-2020 (which is the only authoritative publicly available data) shows that 84.9% of the Liberian population is under 45 years.
Meanwhile, Dr. Moniba second claim that “no one has gone to jail for corruption in the last 5 years, 10 years, 15 years is incorrect”. We found news media report of instances where people were sent to jail with charges of corruption.
Local Voices Liberia, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, has implemented the iVerify Liberia system with the objective of strengthening capacities to address threats to information integrity, especially in view of the upcoming 2023 elections, to ensure all Liberian citizens have access to credible, reliable and verified information, everywhere and at all times.
This initiative is funded by Irish Aid, Embassy of Sweden in Monrovia, European Union Delegation in Liberia and the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund. The donors have no say in the production of this fact check report.