President Weah urged to separate culture ministry

The plea was made by Josiah Flomo Jokai, a pro-democracy advocate in the country. A noted non-supporter of Weah during the election campaign, Jokai made the plea in an open letter, where he also asked for the Liberia Culture and Tourism Authority (LCTA) to be given some control over historical sites.

“These national shrines should be transformed and given befitting beautification representative of our traditions, customs, and ethics,” he said. “Like Ghana, the Gambia, South Africa, Rwanda, and many other African countries, Liberia will rediscover its identity, significantly generate revenues through its attractive tourism programme, and realise an enviable infrastructural development.”

Speaking about the state of the preservation of Liberian culture, he said: “That part that should have been viable is conspicuously silent and as such the question of whom we are in terms of our way of life and our identity remains a myth.”

Jokai’s request for a separate culture ministry comes on the heels of a similar request made by members of the creative sector in Kenya. Where the Liberian advocate is against putting culture with information, the Kenyan group is against bringing sports and culture together.

“It is the general feeling of all the stakeholders in the creative sector that a ministry specific to arts and culture is created,” the Kenyan creatives said in a petition against lumping arts and culture under a Ministry of Sports and Culture as currently obtains in the East African country.

“Currently, Mr President,” Jokai wrote in the open letter titled Open Letter to President George Opong Manneh Weah, “the other piece of MICAT [Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism], which is ‘Cultural Affairs and Tourism’, is practically nominal or non-existent. It is being overshadowed by the information component; culture and tourism is an important part that tells the world who Liberians are truly in terms of heritage and national identity.”