“Contradiction”

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U.P Characterizes  NAYMOTE’s Report 

Unity Party Rejoinder to NAYMOTE’s “comprehensive report on the Unity Party’s  campaign promises” during the 2023 campaign. We read through their report and provided clarity in a manner that encourages healthy debates, dissent and freedom of expression. While we remain very committed to the principles of accountable government and transparency, we urge the media, CSOs and other critical voices contributing to the nation’s democratic consolidation and overall development efforts to act within the ambit of fairness and truth telling. NAYMOTE partners for Democracy has been a strong voice for accountable government, Unity Party looks forward to a strong partnership in the consolidation of democracy and national development. 

Take a read!

Mr. Eddie Jarwolo 

CEO/Founder & Executive Director

NAYMOTE-Partners

Paynesville, Liberia

Ref: A Rejoinder to NAYMOTE’s Report on Unity Party Commitments

Dear Mr. Jarwolo,

The Unity Party has received the NAYMOTE report titled “COMPREHENSIVE REPORT ON UNITY PARTY’S COMMITMENTS IN THE WAKE OF PRESIDENT-ELECT BOAKAI’S VICTORY”. As a democratic institution, the Unity Party appreciates your organization’s commitment to enhance transparency and accountability in government. But as an institution which put premium on professionalism, the UP is concerned about some misrepresentation or what appears to be inadvertent embellishment contained in your ‘comprehensive report’ on the Unity Party’s commitment during the 2023 Presidential and Legislative campaign.   

Part of the UP’s struggle history has been to encourage the enabling environment for the unhindered participation of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in governance, while independently holding government accountability to the people. However, we strongly believe that this must be done with high degree of fairness, lack of bias and a sense of patriotism and professionalism. 

In the report, released on November 30, 2023, NAYMOTE indicated that the “promises or commitments” were derived from the Unity Party’s manifesto, campaign rallies, media engagements, and public statements. Your report however failed to tell the listening public how many of the promises came from:

• Unity Party’s manifesto;

• Campaign rallies; 

• Media engagements;

• Public statements and where these statements were delivered; 

In addition, your organization again became self-contradictory when you aligned all the promises under the pillar of the ARREST’s document, which suggests that all promises was teased out of the UP’s manifesto. 

Contrary to your institution’s claim that Pillar One has 58 promises/commitments, the pillar actually has nine (9) commitments across the following sub-sectors-:

• Improve Economic and Financial Governance to Spur Economic Growth and Development (3 commitments)

• Promote Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Development to Support Wealth Creation (2 commitments), 

• Promote Sustainable Job Creation and Ensure Job Security (1 commitment); 

• Improve Commerce and Industry to Support Wealth Creation (1 commitment); 

• Develop Economic Infrastructures to Support Growth (2 commitments) 

• Improve Mineral and Natural Resource Management 

Our analysis of your report also shows that NAYMOTE was unable to disaggregate or distinguish between the Commitments and the Agenda/pathways/strategies within the manifesto. In the UP Manifesto, the commitments are crystal clear, and below the commitments are pathways/strategies which the document called Agenda; they are ways and means on how the commitments would be achieved.

 In the report, sadly, NAYMOTE is mistakenly adding up the agenda items to the commitments- which is not the case, and shouldn’t be. This erroneous endeavor goes across all of the pillars as indicated by the NAYMOTE’s Report. 

All of these would have been sorted out had your organization shared copies or reached out to the Unity Party before the publication of your comprehensive report. This would have given the opportunity to those quoted in the report to clarify or provide necessary feedbacks as is done by many reporting institutions to help get the facts straight.

As a major electoral stakeholder in our democracy, we value the contribution of NAMOTE and others in safe guarding our democracy, but doing so with misrepresented facts jeopardizes the true intent of the program and undermines overall governance. 

The Unity Party strongly advise NAYMOTE to make the necessary corrections in its report, and moving forward, to engage the relevant authorities in the Unity Party for necessary feedbacks prior to the publication of  any report quoting the Party or its Standard Bearer.

This will help reinforce our collaborative and inclusive efforts in advancing our democratic culture. 

As we prepare to officially receive the gavel of the Liberian Presidency on January 22, 2024, the Unity Party reiterates the commitment of the President-elect, Amb. Jospeh Nyuma Boakai to accountable and democratic governance, in which freedom of speech and the protection of alternative views will be the hallmark of the UP administration.  

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