Why is Economic Development Stagnant In the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Administration

As the saying goes, like mother like daughter, and like father like son. Yesterday, 7/6/2013, on a TMZ Radio International program, "Issues in the Press," Press Secretary to the President, Mr. Jerolinmek Piah was its host. Among his many praises for his boss, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for doing what he sees as "a remarkable job in Liberia since her incumbency as president," was the claim that Liberia's budget has soared from 80 million dollars to some 450 million dollars. He further highlighted the size of the nation's cash asset. Somewhere in the tone of 120 million dollars. He went on to highlight other intangible values such as Liberia's respectability in the world. According to him, "Liberians will miss his boss when she is no longer president, and so on." These are exactly the same rhetoric madam toted at the end of her first term.

What the Ellen's confidant did not brag about, is the growth of our nation's economy in terms of GDP and GNP, those tangible factors that determine the progress of ordinary Liberians. The fact that this closed confidant to the president, could not comment on our nation's economic development, speaks volumes.

What is economic development? It has to do with the level of wealth of a country, or the process by which it increases its wealth. In essence, it has to do with the increase in human productivity. Economic development, or getting wealthy as a country, has to do with major structural changes of a society: from rural-agrarian to urban-industrial; from poor, illiterate, and sick to wealthy, literate, educated and healthy.  This is also the change marked by the nation's demographic transition.

Mr. Piah mostly highlighted social, political, and cultural development. This has been the focus of past Liberian governments, which has kept us stagnant.

But, there is a big agreement on the functions of an economy: it produces and distributes goods and services. Thus, an economy that produces and distributes more goods and services is more developed than one that produces and distributes less. Liberia produces very little. This is why the president and her associates have less to say about growth.

Moreover, since goods and services flow through a market, they are given a monetary value. That is to say that, they are measured by interval yardsticks. As a result, it is possible to sum up all the things an economy does and state same in monetary terms, as Gross National Product (GNP).

Basically, investment produces a spike in human productivity: withholding some wealth from consumption to build greater productive capacities, increases productivity.

Back to Mr. Piah. There is a reason why your government budget has grown close to half a billion dollars. The size of government has stretched beyond proportion more than any government in the history of Liberia. Moreover, the focus is largely on how to run itself instead of the country (i.e., procuring expensive vehicles for its officials, gassing them, scratch cards, sustaining government bloated payroll, travel allowances, and other senseless spending).

No matter how much terms of reference Ellen gets, using the above approach will only service her government with little or no result.

Solution: Reduce government by 70 percent and refocus that resources to developing GDP and GNP.

Testimony of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Executive Committee, Liberia Action Party Before the Africa Subcommittee On the Current Crisis in Liberia June 19, 1990

Testimony of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Executive Committee, Liberia Action Party
Before the Africa Subcommittee
On the
Current Crisis in Liberia
June 19, 1990

Chairman Wolpe, I thank you and members of the African Subcommittee, for the opportunity to give testimony concerning the current crisis in Liberia. My name is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a member of the Executive Committee of the Liberia Action Party. I was twice jailed between 1985 and 1986, charged respectively with sedition and treason as a result of my activity with the party. Thanks to you and to several human rights monitoring organizations, I am free.

Currently, I serve as Vice President and Washington Representative of Equator Bank.
My testimony will be very brief, touching upon the legacy of the Doe regime, the reality of the ongoing insurgency of the National Patriotic Front and what I believe to be the vision which the Liberian people have for the future of their country.

By overwhelming endorsement, the Liberia people gave legitimacy in the Samuel Doe regime when it came to power through a violent military coup April, 1980. We did so because we believe that the first indigenous son, as leader would represent and seek to achieve the aspiration of the majority of the Liberia people-a society characterized by equality and equity, responsibility and responsiveness, resourcefulness and honesty.

Today the Liberia State is exhausted and virtually near collapse.

Economic resources have been plundered and misused by public officials whose greed and conspicuous consumption are unparalleled in the nation’s history. Citizens and country alike have been reduced to begging for survival while substantial wealth accumulates in the hands of a few privileged few. A once lowly master sergeant who came to power to redress the improprieties and inequalities in the society now rides in jewelry and three-piece suits, in a Rolls Royce with some fifteen other luxury cars in waiting. He speaks of love for a people, but a people who are feeling the brunt of a steady economic decline which has left them impoverished.  Unemployment, spiraling cost of living, the lack of medical facilities, inadequately equipped schools, little means of transportation and a depleted national capital stock are common conditions which they face. Even their culture and traditional ways of life are being threatened by wanton environmental degradation.
       
Attempts to address these grave economic shortcomings have been consistently spurned over the years by a Government lacking the political will to reform. As a result, financial institutions have withdrawn their support. The country is bankrupt; civil servants have not been paid for months and are unable to receive the social services such as power and water which enhance the quality of life.

This economic tragedy is mirrored by a political system which is maintained through state terrorism.

Arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, torture, secret and public executions, together with willful destruction and dispossession of private properties have been a consistent pattern. Unfortunately, this has been helped by repeated external sympathy for the regime, as each new atrocity ignored has served as a license for even more gruesome activities.

We are sure that when the record of Doe regime is finally assessed, we will find a human rights record so profound in its tally of death and destruction as to astound the world.

Liberia does not represent an example of social harmony, given the dichotomy which has characterized our society. But in the past ten years we have seen the development of ethnic strife, divisions and hostility unknown to us before. The oligarchy which now exists thus perpetuates itself on the divide and rule principle.

This is the legacy of the present regime and its chief architect, Samuel Doe-a legacy of economic mismanagement and decline, lawlessness, violence, political repression and social discord.

The post December 24 events developed out of these conditions and out of a sense of hopelessness, helplessness, humiliation and rage.  Ideally, Liberians should be prepared to exercise patience until 1991 and then seek to oust the Doe regime by the ballot box. But given the experience of the fraudulent election of 1985 to which I can give personal witness, and in the absence of any evidence since that time of a change in his policy and practices, not one single Liberian can honestly attest to confidence that with Samuel Doe in power the 1991 elections or any other scheduled before that time would be more than a repeat of 1985.

Additional, the current uprisings should not be seen as a repeat of the 1980 coup or the 1985 invasion involving the participation of a small number of armed dissents who seek to overthrow a Government and proclaim for themselves a new one.

This revolt symbolism a civil war which encompasses regions of the country where more than two thirds of the Liberian people live and the greatest resources are located. The  people, many of them children, have joined this struggles for freedom with little more than courage and hope for the future. It is within this context that the uprising represents an opportunity for creative transformation of the Liberia political landscape.

To use the words of noted Liberian academic and professional, Elwood Dunn, “In 1990 Charles Taylor is as much the principal instrument of history as Samuel Doe was in 1980.”

This is the reality and one to which the Liberian people must give adequate response to ensure that the future for which we hope- a member society is based upon participation, consensus and compassion and one which seeks to promote the creative talents of all its citizens under conditions of equity and equal opportunity-can come to pass.

For, it is these ideals which for the foundation for sustainable growth and economic prosperity.

In pursuit of these goals; the Samuel Doe regime must go-the mandate must pass to Charles Taylor who must in turn commence the process toward democracy.
There is another reality.  Whether we like it or not, Liberia is perceived as the closest one can come to an America colony in Africa. A share history, a long standing friendship, and  to a certain extent a common culture, makes Liberia in the eyes of the international community an example of the commitment or lack of commitment, the effectiveness or ineffectiveness, or United States, must get off the fence and assist the process of political transaction. In practical terms, this means concerted action to pressure political stability perhaps with the help of an acceptable international peacekeeping force; it means continued leaning on Taylor to announce a fixed timetable for free and fair elections monitored and observed by international agencies.

We will need more, Liberian is an economic disaster despite the more than half a billion dollars provided by the United States since 1980 and almost like amount provided by other bilateral and multilateral donors. However, I believe that with good government(and we will settle for no less) and with your assistance, the task of economic recovery and reconstruction can politically transformed Liberia can break the tradition shackles of dependency.

Members of the Committee, on Saturday in Alexanddria where I live I will bury my mother. She had hoped that she would have been able to return home to the warmth of additional family and friends before being called to the great beyond.  For her time ran out.  The more than 12 percent of the Liberian population, some 200,000 people which are in neighboring countries, and 70,000 in this country, and the countless number of citizens who are internally displaced, pray daily for what my mother dreamed a chance to return home and lead normal lives.

A hundred years of friendship with America deserves your support to the current struggle which seeks to help these people achieve this simple goal.

I thank you.