Amid growing economic hardships and high cost of living, Liberia's President George Weah - at one time named the world's best footballer - delivered a defiant two-hour long state of the nation address on Monday evening.
Mr Weah - who marked his one year in office a week ago - rejected opposition criticism that he had not lived up to his ambitious plans.
He said:
Today, I can state with understandable pride that we did not disappoint our people, neither did we fail them.Today, I can state with understandable pride that we did not disappoint our people, neither did we fail them.
With the support from our two other branches of government and our international partners during the course of this first year in office I can confidently say that Liberia is far better today under our leadership than it was 12 months ago when we were entrusted with the mandate to serve our people."With the support from our two other branches of government and our international partners during the course of this first year in office I can confidently say that Liberia is far better today under our leadership than it was 12 months ago when we were entrusted with the mandate to serve our people."
Amid cheers from supporters, the former footballer-turned politician said, contrary to his critics, that he had not been distracted in serving the people.
Mr Weah has come under enormous criticism lately from the opposition and church leaders because of the poor state of the economy.
He has also been accused, for instance, of putting his personal business interests before affairs of state - allegations not touch on in his speech.
But Mr Weah did address the controversy surrounding $104m (£79m) of newly printed bank notes that allegedly vanished from containers in Monrovia's port and airport in March, two months after he came to office.
He said that an investigative team looking into the matter would release a report at the end of February.
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