Parliamentary Oversight of Liberia's Security Sector Reform

[00:00:13]since the end of liberal civil conflict in 2003 following the signing of the accra comprehensive peace accord liberia has achieved significant progress towards security sector reform and governance key institutions such as the liberal national police and the armed forces of liberia have been reformed with support from the international community and several security related legislation have been enacted to promote effective governance of the security sector including the development of liberia's national security strategy the government has also developed policies to foster national reconciliation decentralization higher degree of civil liberties land reform and the inclusion of women in decision making process at all levels [Applause] the peaceful presidential and legislative elections in 2011 2014 and 2017 with the recent election of george ware as president and the 54th legislature taking off in january 2018 could not some level of democratic maturity liberia needs to build upon this positive momentum especially since the country is still faced with numerous security challenges such as corruption human rights violations armed robbery mob violence ethnic tensions and land-related conflicts drug trafficking threats of terrorism and protests over government's handling of the economy the national legislature plays a central role in effectively tackling these issues through its main functions of law making oversight and representation it is responsible for shaping public policy and promoting good security sector governance by ensuring a transparent and accountable security sector the efficient use of public funds and the effective monitoring of key security institutions liberian have however been prevented from fully exercising these core functions due to various shortcomings this particularly applies to the security related committee's weak infrastructure and budget lack of dedicated support staff and training in security sector governance to tackle this issue undp requested d-cap's assistance in developing and implementing a project to support the 54th liberian legislature in performing its core functions one of the key aspects the project is focusing on is to prevent institutional memory loss unlike the practice within the executive branch wearing handover mechanisms have been developed to ensure that the outgoing president provides detailed handover notes to the incoming president the legislature does not have in place handover mechanisms facilitate the transmission of critical information from outgoing to incoming legislators handover mechanisms are essential as they provide incoming legislators with valuable information regarding issues progress and challenges faced by committee members during their term in office in an effort to address this challenge former committee members have agreed to take part in a lesson sharing process with newly elected members including collecting key tips for incumbents and documenting good practices to the short interviews that are compiled in this short film i think people need to pay more attention to ensuring that people are given training regularly that will be able to serve the various committees in order to make the legislature effective at the end of the day for the good of the country so i think training is a key um if the members of the committees do not understand what they ought to do will be difficult to effectively exercise oversight for example take what we call defense budgeting if you don't understand the sector you cannot access our oversight because people are telling you terminology you're not familiar with blanket terminology like military hardware and we're having x amount how do you how do you you know go into your oversight we don't even understand the sector so it's very key that people with some expertise should be able to mend those committees in order to have effective oversight well the legislature itself needs to be trained in terms of the way it can go about exercising is oversight i think if individual members of the legislature get that training then they will know what exactly to do and how to go about doing that i think that's where some of the problem was so it would be a good thing if the security sector those that are having oversight responsibilities have some training package to help them understand the security sector reform processes first and foremost those sent to committee to a specific committee for example the committee on security defense intelligence will be knowledgeable it will be knowledgeable in the law they should know the laws of you should have prior knowledge in the area you see you cannot exercise oversight on an agency or apparatus that you have no knowledge of it will be like you're there and just there to okay part of the space every month you know every month or so we we are we have breathing i don't know the deputy minister of defense or the chief of police or their destinies always came why are the challenges what is status of the security sector how many persons have you trained because you know we started with the training the recruitment and the training and as the ssr the law the the the the different legislations that govern the security sector we were very very busy because labia's problem from the onset was that the security center was not democratized it was executive driven so i want i want i was i was centric concentration the 52nd the committing significance was on the laws that would govern the army the law that would govern the police the law of government security sector should be democratic that pre-cardinal is illegal or no when you're elected that pre-east the first is your authority one hour later one one rule in that role is the authority giving you by the legislative election by the constitution that authority is what you use in extension of the authority you do rules your ability their work you know what comes in you gotta have the uh the ability you have to have the the attitude because you were sitting on people from the executive actors are all very educated people and then the last air is your attitude but you might have some expertise you will try to read the law read the constitution you get one thing that gave you the only power you guys that constitution and the authority you get to deal with executive in a and the judiciary comes from that constitution you must be able to read it that's understand it to be able to oversight a particular situation it must be knowledgeable all right here we are we were done security personnel but we were placed according to maybe our status you know and not basically having the knowledge as to how you can oversight parliamentarially others will fight for community because of what they will get in on the national security committee you're not going to get anything okay what you're going to do is ensure that laws or the activities of that sector benefit the people to search to be able to sustain the peace so our advice uh current committees to remain engaged with all the security sectors whether it is the army the police the immigration the drug agency remain engaged with them draw a periodic plan okay for you to interact it shouldn't be at a budget time you know the most annoying communities work with sectors that they have business with is when around the budgetary period where they'll be coming to them for budgetary support but i think it should be periodic you know maybe you can say every two months you'll meet and review those and then give you an update on what is the brazilian situation security was in the country one thing i think they need to do in terms of canvassing most of our people don't understand the real appreciators and some of us when we go to the campaigns we do promises things are also of our control that we do this will do this we do this and the only thing that you have is your oversight responsibility and your loving power to ensure sometimes your salary yeah you will do scholarships but yes there's no money and one of your salary can you can do quota rules but sometimes we go to canvas we say we'll do rows we'll show this we'll ensure that and now if we we don't do those things they have effects on us a lot of challenges on the oversight the uh the non-cooperation from government ministries and agencies people don't like you reviewing their budgets people don't like you reviewing how they travel put it like you're reviewing the experience you're probably like reviewing that their employment some people employ family people and all the kind of nepotism to overcome the constraint the respective committee will write the speaker dear speaker in the essence of our function we are experiencing difficulty with ministry xyz below are the following blah blah blah blah blah so then you still minister health is not disclosing their budget ministry of defense is not telling us the amount of how many people they have the military strength they did it then the speaker now will follow your communication to a plenary because they speak up to the strain of the speaker explainery the speaker may do two things either of them either you write the minister directly that my committee is complaining on your non-cooperation or you follow the complaint of the committee to plan the replenisher will now invite the minister to stand before all of the lawmakers we constitute the liberian people my advice is they have first you must you must open a room for engagement and and let them let them see like they like the darkness let the national security agency see you a partner okay but if you exercise if you try to exercise a strong authority like you want to uh present you you must the mercy you are contributing to the well-being of the of the sector by encouraging encouraging budgetary allocation for the sector once you see you doing that and they see you actively engaged engaging them and making sure those laws are attempt to improve they feel the uh the sector i refuse definitely so you can you get to work and look [Music] i think as a member of the committee first you bring the attention of the committee chair that this is what i'm observing and the committee chair will do the honorable thing to like i say inform the actors in the executives that would believe that this is clutter in secrecy could you please clarify and the issue of secrecy even besides the um national security committee if you don't have people who are experienced even in the national budget you could have a situation that you may not even understand and it could pass that may not even be secret in terms of your sophistication or the lack thereof so if you don't understand the committee you're working on and the function will be difficult to access our effective oversight once they were they were they were appropriated for instance for intelligence we have to call you and tell you what intelligence domestic intelligence or counter intelligence or international interest you have to tell us uh don't forget uh for instance nsa uh the nsa work in secrecy because they are they are our country intelligence agency so most times they meet the chair and select memos and give us breathing in camera and then we can brief the entire plenary but it was it was such that when everyone is not supposed to know we will not allow that so we have both our hearings in camera and out of camera that is the sticky part in liberia because the budget is in you know is crafted in secrecy you will come they will come to you but they want to give you details as to how they you know they they explain uh the monies that are being allocated to them because for them uh they shouldn't be to probably know so most times we are images we are closer we try to get some information out of them but it is difficult but we have to keep pushing because the thing is our laws don't give that privilege or that right to see that the secretary must tell you what to do with the budget if you were to go to that level the president you and the executive will have some problems it is the way that nothing's really is descriptive it doesn't give us the right to have access to the entire body as to how money's unlocked for security sector are explained especially agency maybe you can travel defense okay like the ministry of defense could be able to give you something and it will be authentic because it will take a few days a month when it comes to nsa that's not good you can say that is the difficult the budget is done in two twofolds one open session and one in secret session but secret session is is primarily for security matters security related issues but the rest of the issues that help education you know popular wires they should all be done in in open session and then sometimes the law makers will go to a secret session to discuss their benefits yeah the lord lawmakers go signal just cause that because you don't want sometimes the majority would not want their salaries to be on the streets the the amount of gasoline the amount of gasoline sleep they scratch cars you don't want the proper yearing other men getting 200 gallons of gas every month so there will be a motion that issues of the benefit issues surrounding the benefit of lawmakers should go to secret session now you will go back to article 108 on our rules a majority of the of the of the lawmakers can revert to executive session if they so deemed [Music] you have to also remember you have to be in morovia to represent them at the same time you have to remain engaged you don't have to physically be on the ground you have to have your people from your district office to engage them regularly that will help you understand as to the pressing issues i personally i every every 90 days every three every three months i meet my constituents i want to locations in the constituency and brief their own what will happen on the capital have voted on issues on the budget how much how much money were raised for the county for the district and so forth and so on i visited the constituency almost every time i had a chance like every weekend but i mean officially to gather everybody it has to be done because you have to you have to take into consideration they don't leave them at one place they have to be transported they have to be fed whenever you call them meetings and so forth so based on the amiga resources we have we we made an official meeting every three months i met my constituents on a very regular basis because i realized that they were my employers and one thing i want to say that you know as much we are politicians when our people elect us and we go there we should not go with patent land interest we should look at the country interest but most often you will see sometimes lawmakers will sway decision based on their party votes are based on selling interest not in the interests of the people the representation here is in twofold one to hear from the people on how you should make laws to benefit them and also to hear from them on their problems because our people are and you can't blame them because they got problems so because of the second component of representation most lawmakers run from their constituencies they run from their people they don't they don't they don't effectively execute that portion of representation representation in my mind or summarily is the actual engagement with your people right that's representation to hear from them understand their problem and solve their problems but if you're representing the people that are poor most time representative people confront you with problems so because the lawmaker is aware that he committed a year problem resources limited sometimes whole year he only misses he misses people one time sometimes six months some people go there only one time a lot of money earned by lawmakers they go back to to community initiative they said you want to be very unpopular but if you have somewhere in your heart to be popular then you have to prioritize representation you have to keep engaging the people even if it will cost you your allowance got to keep you guys with them [Music] i think people have to be up to the tax in order to meet in the middle because if you just sit by and say the executive is not cooperating there's no political will i don't think it's enough yes at times people in executive work sometimes not cooperate but it depends on the way we engage them it depends so i think political will should be on both sides to ensure that you are convinced the writing should be done the right thing will be done you don't be a spineless legislature anything the president brings you accept it without looking at it critically that's not good for the democracy we're talking about but at the same time i wouldn't encourage them to be reconciled anything the president brings because coming from the president you oppose it and that's the extent that some legislatures legislators like to to take anything the president will bring they will oppose it because they are opposition and they want to be seen as strong will people and i think that's not correct yeah so you you have to seek a balance la bira kind of culture where the security sector was executed driven the president controls the security sector it was it was the presidential thing so to get leaving to take the executive out of it based on the new laws on a new dispensation you couldn't get ultimately 100 corporation there were terms they tried to push all around but we we compared compliance sometimes when they say they want us to do something we will say to do it you have to answer these questions i will ask you you hold them because the constitution has separation of powers for instance they said i want you to pass the project quickly do what you want they got to spend and before they spend you have to pass the project so you deliver the budget even though delaying the project it will be looking like you installing development of the country but but you have to you have to have something to bargain on what i really recommend is that in the oversight responsibility of the legislation that you ensure periodic interaction with the executive do not wait until you have a situation okay because you have oversight responsibility the exaggeration will make reported you quarterly on expenditures it's in the fm pfm law you know the financial management i love so if if you have if you just follow the laws the right community follow the law and go after what they need to do i'm sure that we can always you know seal smoothly but if you sleep on issues and they come to the limit where it's going out of hand and you want to come then it becomes and you can become a situation wherever i want to see face if i should use the ozymaron it was bittersweet you know or there were times that i we battled with the executive to ensure that certain things were done and our time will also uh work with the executive to ensure certain things were done take for example when i was a member of the legislature with when the international community with the the depth liberal of 4.5 billion or 4 billion debt to waive that debt in order to have debt waiver we needed to meet the epic condition highly indebted poor countries now in order to meet the happy condition for the debt to have been with the legislature work with the executive to ensure that certain strategic things were done that will elevate the image of the country and promote a level of integrity and transparency that will yield to the waiver of the country's debt we work with the executive to establish the proper procurement and concession commission we work with the executive to establish a liberal anti-corruption commission we work with the executive to establish a lot of commissions regulatory agencies the lra and many of them to meet up with certain benchmarks that the international community demanded in order to wave the death so honor ellie johnson said the government when i was a lawmaker in the first term of ailing government we succeeded in waiving more than four billion dollars that'll be all many many years of accrual four point something billion dollar bro you talk about cooperation with executive those are technical areas that will work with the executive to ensure that our country move forward of course there are other times that we battle with the executive so the relationship with the executive is bitter sweet heart cold is good and bad sometimes you roast it sometimes you get in the ring you need people in there that understand gender issues too so if you're reforming the security and you're not taking into consideration the gender dimension it will not happen automatically even if you take a woman and put them at the top and you haven't included that in the training of the security forces they will still experience problems controlling the men so i think the gender trainee should have been there as part of the security people's training if you wanted to really get the gender thing integrated into their way of thinking the legislature can interpolate we call it like dating population you can call it executive and say we are signatory to this human resolution why is it that we do not have general balance because it will fire 30 percent right technically about 30 percent women in this security sector 10 to 35 percent there uh the new one is 50 50 by by by the year 2013 is better men and women will be 50 50.

[00:24:54]there will be there will be equal equality equity between men and women in terms of positions in government and political positions and things like that but you have to be you have to be knowledgeable you have to be experienced to engage the executive because the constitution might be a cause for coordination and there were the power of coordination play well the way we try to do it was because we have a mixed society those from the southeast we're not part of the sandy and poor okay and so we could easily accept a lot of the stuff that comes from the western people especially when it comes to our saudi and and poro when it comes to our brothers and the other side and sisters on our side it was a little bit difficult to craft a law you know uh that would deal with this thing and try to discourage it so you see that's why it took that long uh to to have the domestic violence at in the past in the law [Music] in order to do the prison reform committees committee members will have to visit to see the condition and because there are people sometimes who are kept in prison beyond what we call statutory period i would advise them incoming lawmakers to to to study human rights issues so that they will make informed decisions about issues regarding human rights when they come before the legislature to know that george is performing when there's every complaint from the citizenry it does not complain from the citizenry from a citizen that they want to seek justice and they didn't get justice then they wished me to join their church in compliance of course the guy like judy shaking as a lawyer i know that there's a judicial uh a government a government of legal practitioners in the country so sometimes when when when when there was something in the public air where uh there was there was not always a place about a particular church or particular disposition of justice we too would call we we of course there's no limit we even if the judiciary were having an internal investigation there was nothing that stopped us from calling there and said well yeah say this is something happening this woman got killed because husband was firstly imprisoned or blah blah blah i think they should they should do so because there are whole lot of pre-trial detainees in our in our present cells and those those people are there unjustly so if the the the the frequency of your basis you know will put pressure on only executive to do something about it [Music] you have to go with the mindset to do your best it's a political theater and you have to be able to always build consensus in order to represent the best interest of your people you will need your colleagues to support you because it's about numbers and if you don't build consensus it'll be difficult the incoming lawmakers should try not to be like the old one who like the brand envelope once you start liking the bra envelope you can't do any reform within the government sector because people will always tell you my man he who comes with equity must come with clean hands i believe continuous education is good for the incoming people they have to be periodic interaction with civil society with people who are safe people who got to know her people who have the experience and that way that capacity will be built capacity building is not a one-day thing it's a process of learning it's a process of interacting with people learning new things getting new ideas and that way you'll be more open that way you'll be more sophisticated and you ask the kind of questions you will ask and that way you have a transparent and democratic security sector i will want for future lawmakers and even now should try as much as possible and take syria's the issue of oversight you know it shouldn't be when you are anticipating something from a particular agency then you call the minister and showcase it you know and fellow buster on the floor no it shouldn't be like that it should be a systematic approach those people are elected now in the 53rd they were people they're in the 52nd work along with them even but sometimes you may think that they have intention of contesting but some of them start their projects and the projects are not finished you need to finish them you need to talk to them on area of consensus more besides that you need to really have loving skills and engagement it's a whole power play you know in the legend where it comes to oversight then on representation representation is a terror component where you deal directly with your district that one is a relationship with your people directly so your ability your intellectual and academic ability to articulate the views of your people is very important for lovemaking if you don't have that ability as a new lawmaker you remain in a corner they call them bobo lawmaker in libya when we say bobo we're talking about somebody that can talk but up there you can talk but it's a kind of characterization some people are elected they go up in the legislature and they go oh yeah without without saying anything some people just go down and just take pay you know i think it's a lot of money people make up there now some people don't even attend session some people go to session sometimes one one just one one or two times for a whole month or a whole quarter or for a whole setting some people say okay i'm elected i love making i don't have to go to work so those people don't talk anything they a plenary they are categorized as global lawmakers [Music] in closing we would like to reiterate three main issues raised by the interviewees in relation to the oversight role the outgoing legislators noted that sometimes legislators are appointed to committees in which they have no expertise or knowledge about and noted that legislators cannot effectively perform the oversight role if they lack knowledge about how the sector works the interview is recommended that the leadership of the legislature should appoint individuals to committee based on knowledge or expertise in the sector the committee is to oversight continuous training of committee members on their rules and how to effectively oversight their sector is also important with regards to lack of capacity of support staff the interviews identified two factors responsible to include incoming legislators employing staffers not based on competencies but based on political considerations coupled with inadequate training of the staffers they propose that each committee should select and train a pool of staffers permanently employed to support the work of the committee in conducting research drafting or reviewing legislature and performing other tasks in support of the committee's work finally outgoing legislators identified a lack of knowledge about the work of the legislators by their constituencies as a serious challenge which sometimes prevent them from visiting their constituencies some committee members believe that legislators should provide financial support to them of family members and often make financial requests to legislators the outgoing legislators recommend that legislators instead of shying away from their constituencies should make them understand the nature of their wike and hold regular consultations with them holding meetings with civil society and community-based organizations will also help to improve communications between the legislators and civil society groups we hope that this initiative will stimulate and reinforce collaboration between former and increment [Music] parliamentarians you