On November 13 Daily Watch News website published an article claiming that it received information that the US State Department has issued visa restriction on top officials of the Gorge Weah administration.
Those the article claimed were sanctioned by the US government are Finance and Development Planning Minister Samuel Tweah, Justice Minister Frank Musa Dean, Chief of Protocol Finda Bundo, and Lands and Mines Minister Gessler Murray, among others.
The article did not give any reason for the visa restriction but it added that the government officials are “key players in the sale of Solway Mining to Arcelor Mittal”.
Rating Justification
To fact check this claim, we first checked the contact section of the website and made a telephone call to one of the numbers on the site.
A gentleman answered but refused to call his name. When asked about the source of the claims in the article, he referenced us to the US State Department website or the US Embassy in Monrovia.
So, we did a search on the US State Department website and found that the last publication on Liberia was a press release issued on November 17 2023 congratulating President elect Joseph Boakai and thanking President George Weah for conceding defeat in the 2023 presidential run-off election.
Our review of Liberia’s archive on the US State Department website shows that the last time Liberian Government officials were sanctioned was on August 15, 2022 when Nathaniel McGill, Bill Twehway and Sayma Syrenius Cephus were designated for their “contributions to worsening corruption in Liberia”.
On September 27, 2023, US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinke warned that there would be a visa restriction policy for people undermining democracy in Liberia.
Since this announcement, there has no visa restriction announced as of yet on anyone for undermining democracy in Liberia.
In March 14, 2023, Richard Nephew, U.S. Coordinator on Global Anti-Corruption Appeared in a radio interview on Ok FM and when asked about process of sanctioning officials government, he said sanctions are not pre-disclosed. This means, the US Government does not disclose names of individuals before sanctioning them.
We also contacted the US Embassy in Liberia via email. The Embassy through its Public Affairs Officer Sean Broda wrote that the US government sanctions are announce publicly and the US government do that share information about prospective sanctions.
Mr. Boda furthered that “visa records are confidential and only visa applicant can answer questions about whether a visa application was made, or a visa was issued or denied.”
Conclusion
Based on these facts, we, therefore, conclude that the November 13, 2023, publication of the Daily Watch News website that visa restriction has been imposed on top officials of the Weah administration is misleading.
The US Secretary State Antony J. Blinken on September 27, 2023 issued a visa restriction policy for people undermining democracy in Liberia, but there has been no one affected by this policy as of the production of this fact check report.
This report was developed with the support of Internews through the USAID Media Activity project. The funder has no say in the editorial decision leading to the production of this content
