Authority of the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency (LDEA) has said, it will need US$35 million through budgetary allotment in order to strengthen its capacity to counter the influx of narcotic substances in the country.
The LDEA through its Director General, Marcus Zehyoue stated that allotted US$1.9 million in the 2023 budget passed by the House of Representatives and pending concurrence by the Liberian Senate is too small to effectively fight the trafficking and abuse of narcotic substances across Liberia.
However, DG Zehyoue appeal came at the time after the LDEA in collaboration with the U.S government confiscated a consignment of over some 520 grams of cocaine worth US$100M that were smuggled into the country within a company’s container of frozen food at the Free-port of Monrovia.
Zehyoue believes that, raising the amount to a more acceptable level would help the country succeed in the war against drugs. “We are aware of the many competing priorities that rely on the small national purse.”
He added, “But the state’s security is threatened every day from within. People are brave in killing their fellow human beings and causing so much other damage because they use drugs, and there is a need to establish a drug data center and an intelligence gathering system to fight drug trafficking.
Meanwhile, LDEA Deputy Executive Director Lorenzo Pelham said these measures would protect the territorial borders of Liberia from the trafficking of drugs and controlled substances.
He indicated further the LDEA deployment strategy intends to deploy an intelligence management information system and immediately establish a secure Data Center that would coordinate intelligence gathering and sharing between international security organizations and domestic law enforcement organizations.
“On that, we are not equipped to do that, I will be honest, we are striving to get to that level but we are not up to that task, but we depend on our International partners. We got the Interpol, the US Embassy, we got our counterparts around Africa that we relate to and we share information,” he said.