Deputy Finance Minister for Economic Management, Augustus J. Flomo has clarified that purported information trending on the social media about a 37.8M stimulus package being processed by the Ministry of Finance and Development for businesses is false and misleading.
Flomo made the clarification on behalf of the government of Liberia on Monday, during a press conference in Monrovia.
Deputy Minister Flomo stated that the issue of fake information being posted is becoming a pattern of groups or individuals who have the interest of confusing the public by distracting the public from the good work of what the current government is doing.
According to him, the Government of Liberia, under the leadership of President George M. Weah, is making all efforts and has made efforts for stimulus packages in different forms for the people of Liberia and in the case of those particular packages; the government has announced it officially through press conference, and through media engagement.
‘’We did that on our official website page and we have placed it on our MFDP website which represents the Ministry of Finance and the Government of Liberia. For instance, sometime in May of last year, we talked about a stimulus package, and that was worked on by the government to support small business people, and the market women for example”, he said.
The Deputy Finance Minister revealed that during the COVID-19 period, the President of Liberia proposed to the National Legislature through the National Budget for allocation to support the small business and market people that were affected by COVID 19.
He added that during that process, the pronouncement gained momentum and the government was able to raise additional resources from partners which included up to twelve million (US$12M) funding by the United States Government to support the small market people.
‘’So that resource was public and we had a big press conference and as we speak that disbursement is ongoing to the public to those small business and market women who got affected by covid-19 situation ’’ he added.
However, the Ministry of Finance and Development is warning groups or individuals engaged with such to immediately desist or be prepared to face the full weight of the law.
The Ministry of Finance and Development calls on the public to verify and authenticate any information of such kind with the Communication Unit of the ministry.
