Monrovia – The former lawmaker of Montserrado County, District 12, Richmond Anderson, says Liberians should “give chance” for the country’s economy to be strengthened before raising expectations.
Report by Willie N. Tokpah – [email protected]
The former representative comments come amid growing expectations for jobs by many young Liberians as President-elect George Weah prepares to be inducted as President.
“It is safe to call on Liberians to give the new government time to settle down and straighten the economy before expecting too much too soon,” Anderson told reporters at a presser on Monday.
“I wish to call on the millions of CDCians who might believe that President Weah has the magic wand to respond to each of them demands for job, change in their current conditions over night, and solving all Liberia’s problems at once to understand that government is an intricate process and problems solving cannot be instant. They need to manage their expectations, if they indeed love our President.”
Anderson said strengthening a country that has its economy in shambles is important and would help address the high expectation for jobs of its citizens.
He predicts grave challenges that the CDC elected government would be confronted with in making the economy stable, saying “there is a need to firstly fortify the economy.”
He referenced reported challenges compounded by the International Monitoring Fund (IMF) freeze on further loan to Liberia.
“Liberia has passed the threshold of borrowing, coupled with low foreign earnings to buy the US Dollars, huge debt servicing, significant drop in our exports, low revenue generation to support fiscal budget and the reported depletion of our reserves at the CBL,” he said.
Dating from this record, Anderson believes, it would be important that those with high expectations of getting jobs from the elected leadership give the Weah government a time to settle down.
The election of Weah, he said, is viewed as an opportunity to restore the hopes of those who feel marginalized by the outgoing administration.
He wants Liberians see Weah’s determination for the Liberian presidency, despite hailing from a slum community, as a lesson of success rather than constantly criticizing his administration.
“The phenomenal rise of George Weah from the slum and dust of poverty to become an international icon and now President of Liberia can be summed up to commitment, determination, resilience, discipline, faith in God and himself and discovery of the talent God deposited in him. This is a lesson of success we all should learn,” he asserted.
He also warned the Liberian media against the use of its capacity to provoke the Weah’s administration, emphasizing that media practitioners desist from bias journalism “under the disguise of testing government tolerance.”
“As we enter the new dispensation, it is important that we conduct ourselves responsibly and don’t seek to provoke the system with the aim of testing its tolerance with un-objective, provocative biases, hate messages, insolence, and disrespect to authorities under the guise of press freedom,” said the former lecture of Mass communication at the University of Liberia.