By Moses Uneh Yahmia
The wreckage of the national pariah in Liberia that masquerades as a government is becoming clearer than Prophet Daniel’s interpretation of the writings on the wall in the palace of King Belshazzar. It is written in the Biblical Book of Daniel that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego warned King Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon about the social improprieties in his Kingdom. The King did not listen but elected to persecute the three Hebrew men by throwing them into a fiery furnace. Similarly, we did not only signal but also warn about the imminent and inevitable collapse of the rotten CDC – led government predicated upon the shady loan deals and the general anarchy of governance in the homeland. Unlike the King of Babylon, we were not only bullied and vilified by the CDC fanatics but also termed as “Enemies of the state” by President Weah. Maybe the Nebuchadnezzar’s style of persecuting alternative voices will come later but at a higher level. But trust me, casualties will be on both sides!
We knew that this ship would have sung. But we did not have the slightest thought that its collision would have come this early. Within less than seven months of its sailing, the shipwreck which political commentators predicted has now shown itself not as a wishful thinking from perceived “Enemies of
the State” but as a crude and hybrid reality that has slapped the mass of the people in the face. And this early wreckage of the national calamity imposed on us by some Liberians and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is generating a dialectical movement in the people’s consciousness.
Musa Kanneh, a legislative reporter assigned at the National Legislature of Liberia recently via Facebook vented out his frustration about President Weah: “I supported your presidency. I voted you to power. But I didn’t vote for this hardship. We must do something about this hardship”. Another supporter of the CDC who is a bike rider in the VOA Community recently remarked: “If you see my bike old like this, it is because I used it for the CDC’s campaign to make sure that President Weah wins the election. Because many young people including me felt he is one of us that could have changed our living condition. But to see him breaking down all his houses and rebuilding them while things are hard on us, it is frustrating”.
The two views are just a part of thousands of Liberians that are disillusioned as the result of the manner and form the “Country Giant” is conducting the affairs of the state. The announced reduction in the price of rice (Liberia’s staple) achieved zero result. The New Monrovia City at Bali Island remains a misguided utopian ambition. The 14th Military Hospital is not forthcoming but construction of the President’s three exotic mansions is at its finishing touches. The approved 2018/2019 fiscal budget is anti-poor instead of pro-poor. Out of a budget of US$570million, US$310Million is allocated to cover the government’s wage bill. Taking into consideration the huge salary disparity between top bureaucrats and ordinary civil servants who are the
engines of public administration, vast majority of such funds will cover the salary and emoluments of elite and top bureaucratic monsters. In the budget, there is no allocation of funds to capital investment in electricity expansion to businesses and households. Tourism, which has a huge economic growth potential has just little over US$8,000.00 for capital investment in the sector. Subsidies to health facilities such as SDA Cooper Hospital, Catholic Hospital, Phebe Hospital and etc. have been drastically cut. The Education budget predominately covers administrative costs with little attention given to learning outcomes and increment in access to education to the people’s children.
The increment in the government’s wage bill from US$297million in FY2017/2018 to US$310Million in FY2018/2019 runs contrary to the government’s pronouncement of cut in the salaries and benefits of top officials of government. In the approved 2018/2019 Budget, the cost for running the office of the President is little over US$21million. This amount indicates a whopping US$6million increment in the budget of the President’s office. So we ask, is the 25percent cut in the salary of the President that he announced during his first State of the Nation Address really anything to write home about? Like Dr. H. Boima Fahnbulleh, Jr. said in his article, “Now they Know”: “The wretchedness of the inner soul can be determined by our interaction with people, colleagues, acquaintances and friends. There can be no other determination of the viciousness and crudity of the ‘self’ than the way we relate to those who accept us in their confidence. The vicious man will scheme, lie and pretend, but in the final analysis, he
will return to the defining traits of his character and invariably leave the trail of broken relationships, deals of treachery and unconscious perfidy.”
The main economic tool of the government (loan, loan, loan and loan) has proven scandalously ineffective as lenders do not trust the bogus middle company (ETON) and corrupt officials around the President. As we write, the government is on the renegotiation table with the bogus ETON. The banks are requesting for Liberia’s debt sustainability plan, debt repayment plan, Liberia’s economic forecast as well as the projected boom in the Liberian economy were the construction of the roads to the South East and Western Liberia to be successful. Unconfirmed reports have it that the IMF and the World Bank are cautioning lenders in Asia to not lend Liberia outside of the protocol of the two Bretton Woods Institution.
The so-called EBOMAF Pre-financing Road Contract is in limbo as the government is yet to find experts to write Liberia’s economic forecast as part of the Prospectus to raise capital from the sale of the Eurobond to finance the road contract. As we predicted, the announced tariff reduction has done nothing to reduce prices of basic commodities on the Liberian market. The Liberian dollar has astronomically depreciated as the result of the low quantity of foreign currency in circulation. Right now, the exchange rate stands as LD154.00 to US$1.00 and might increase to LD200.00 to US$1.00 by December due to government’s failure to implement progressive macroeconomic policies to remedy the economic malaise. Consequently, the people are feeling the pinch of the twin evil in Macroeconomics: Inflation and unemployment!
In the midst of all these, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and her band of thieves are parading in stolen wealth with no assurance from President Weah to institute a Commission of Inquiry to investigate these swindlers who feasted on the wealth of the people. How would he do such when Ellen massively manipulated the result of the 2017 Presidential Election to favor the CDC in exchange for the protection of her stolen wealth? Ellen Johnson Sirleaf provided tax holidays to big businesses in order to increase her dividends from the shares she has in those companies. This has created a black hole in the government’s revenue generation drive. President Weah can do nothing to overturn those tax breaks! He is so grateful to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for gifting him the Liberian presidency. Also, why the country is being consigned to the economic sewage, the productive forces of the economy are still in the hands of foreign private capital that keeps exploiting the resources of the country and the labor of the Liberian working class. And there is no assurance that the productive forces will be progressively organized by the so-called “Pro-poor government” to ensure the gigantic social transformation of the mass of people as the Minister of Finance announced during a cabinet retreat in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County that privatization is the solution to Liberia’s infrastructural deficit.
As a student of Dialectical Materialism, we understand that the people would be conservative for a while. They would show some level of insensitivity to the social mishaps in the republic. But as it is already being seen in some quarters, the insensitivity of the people would not last for long. The time is fast approaching when the mass of the people will no longer tolerate the increasing economic malaise in the homeland. They would consistently cry
out their indignation with the hope for the emergence of a progressive alternative that would deliver the republic from this national calamity. The task for the left is to not allow a vacuum once again that the reactionary right would exploit. It is time that we properly organize ourselves around the right revolutionary leadership, programs and projects to mobilize and educate the people. If we fail to do so, the production of another political farce would be unavoidable.
Yahmia is a student of the University of Liberia. He studies Political Science and Economics major and minor respectively. He is also a staunch member of the Movement for Social Democratic Alternative (MOSODA). He can be reached via [email protected].
