MONROVIA-The  Minister  of Finance Development Planning has expressed sadness that  the quest for president George Weah’s  government to become transparent has made them to suffer back lash from the public and even the international community.

According to Mr. Samuel Tweah, due  the sincerity of the president to make full disclosure of the working,  it was misrepresented by the public.

He said,  past government of madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf used similar mechanism to build up the economy-by carrying our mob up  exercise.

“They used it for 12 years with Governor Mill Jones and Governor Milton Weeks. So when they were using  mob up exercise, they were using the same instruments to stabilize. But our president using  transparency, it became a problem,” he said.

According to him, the issue of borrowing from the country’s reserve was not a new policy, saying  that the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf-led Government used such policy for the past 12 years.

“So when the president said let me show the public what we are doing, that is the mistake there. So, we became the victims of  transparency.  We decided to become transparent and free. The president  is the example of honesty and transparency,” he said.

“We became transparent and free with every information.  If the president had not announced that US$25m  that it will be used  by the Central  Bank of Liberia(CBL), We wouldn’t  be talking about this today,” he added.

“So honesty and  transparency for public information has become a liability. The public should say the president should continue to be transparent and honest?”

But with all that, he added, the government is on path and the state is  not fragile.

“This government is well on path with its development agenda and Liberia  not a fragile state as is being portrayed by members of the opposition.”

He spoke  at the government’s  special  press briefing last Friday when he provided update on the government’s  delegation recent visit to the USA.

He said, delegation was headed by the Minister of State for Presidential Affairs,  Mr. Nathaniel F. McGill the Minister of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism, Ledgerhood J. Rennie, the Mayor of Monrovia, Jefferson T. Koijee and himself. They  met and discussed key issues with officials of Joe Biden’s  administration as well as Congressmen of both the Democratic and the Republican parties.

It can be recalled that influential U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham committed himself to rally with his Congressional colleagues at the Republican Party to sign a “Letter of Support” for Liberia’s second bid of the MCC compact grant.

He said they were able to present the actual story of the country as it relates to the “16 billion US dollar” issue, the death of the four auditors in the country and the US$25 million mob up exercise, amongst others.

“We are exerting our rights to be the 51^st State of the United States. That’s it, we are going there and saying that we are umbilically linked to the United States and we want to engage with the United States in different ways,” Tweah emphasized.