Monrovia – Pledging “Change we can believe in” and “Equal Opportunity for All”, Lawrence Morris is hopeful his election as representative for District One Montserrado County will bring a refreshing face to Liberia’s National Legislature.
Report by Rodney D. Sieh, [email protected]
Crowded, Impressive Field Eyeing One Seat
The district is currently represented by Josephine George Francis with former Costa Morning Show sidekick Woods Nyanton, Desiree Satiah of the Liberia Maritime Authority, Emmanuel Yakpazuah, John Smythe and Amos Seboe, a former aide in President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s office, winding up a crowded field of contestants that should make the contest an intriguing one to watch.
Seboe’s challenge is still up in the air following his recent arrest over an allegation of elections fraud.
But despite the competition, Morris is hopeful that his emphasis on health, agriculture, and education will convince voters that he’s the right candidate for the job.
It is a field Morris embraces and one he is confident would present a challenge that he is more than ready to tackle.
“The competition in the district demonstrates democracy with many aspirants but I believe also that a sort of District primary (not Political) primaries) should be instituted to narrow the candidates to at least three persons despite the multi-political parties fielding their candidates so that the District have a smaller list of candidates to scrutinize and select as its representative thus disallowing a crowded field and the confusion of electorates.
This, in fact, should be a district consensus sending the message to political parties that we as a people will only select among three that we the people of district one will scrutinize for electoral purposes and this will enable less confusion and distraction and remain focus on issues and promote seriousness within a given political subdivision.”
Morris says his confidence in winning stems from the fact that the district and its constituents are the arbitrary decision makers and have scrutinized the various candidates and the positive impact and innovation as well as a positive upliftment of their district and the livelihood of the people of the district in all sectors of the people’s lives.
“This the people can attest to that they have not felt an inch of such as described and the opinion poll suggests that she stand a very slim chance of being reelected. I can admonish media outlets to also inform the population of the scorecards of the various contestants/aspirants as well as the various incumbents thus presenting a scorecard to the public as we all – journalist, professionals in all walks of life need to take the nation’s destiny into our own hands by providing inform and factual data to citizens so they understand and know how to vote using the data as a yardstick which will encourage all who hold public offices to know that they have an obligation to the people to bring positive change to the people they represent and not white wash developments.”
A Five Pillars Platform
For Morris, it will all come down he says to his plans and vision.
“My platform stands on five pillars namely: Agriculture, health, education, infrastructure, and roads.”
On Agriculture, Morris says he is looking at innovative ways of helping the citizens improve agriculture through a value-chain approach which will create jobs and reduce unemployment. “This requires encouraging investment and the utilization of machinery – mechanize farming.”
On health, he says he will work to ensure that clinical/health practitioners are capacitated through lobbying (Outside of Liberia) for training, attracting investment through the provision of health items/materials to equip the health facilities and provide basic health services to the people of the district.
“This also entails lobbying with your constituents as my approach is a participatory approach where all hands are on deck to ensure that we, together as a people do the utmost to lift out district from the shambles of its current status.”
On education, Morris says there are a lot of opportunities to transform a system that even President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has to acknowledge is broken. “As we all know, our education system is a mess as characterized by Madam President.
It is, therefore, all of our business to wake up and strengthen this system because we are heading into having a country of uneducated and a wrecked education system where our standard of education can no longer be valuable anywhere outside Liberia.”
Adds Morris: “We have to work together and create the avenues by lobbying with partners and other institutions, creating partnerships and soliciting assistance in capacity building of our teachers, improving our schools, infrastructures and its learning environment – good libraries, computers, etc. as well as having or introducing the teacher/student exchange programs which will enhance and bring some sanity to the educational arena within the district.”
The candidate also hopes to attract Ambulances for schools in terms of emergencies, transportation of students from one local to another and a host of other good things through the participation of the best brains within the district through a participatory process.
On infrastructure, Morris believes that there are creative and innovative ways of improving the shanty towns and villages within the district.
“This requires teaching and training your people through partners and lobbying and attracting people to help encourage our people to use the local materials to create decent homes and do away with the makeshift and create an enabling environment for the people. Attracting businesses and other development structures within the district.”
On roads, he describes as the gateway to development, he hopes to work with the national government in paving the way for investment and infrastructure development through various channels.
“By improving the road conditions, you create access to your citizens and other potential investors that will see the potential of the district and building capacities as the citizens will be empowered to learn skills and take over to carry on the continuous path of development.”
Experience-Driven Candidate
Morris says he sees District One as an area with a lot of unlimited potentials.
“We as a people will work together to ensure we lift up Agriculture as a means of providing jobs and reducing unemployment, strengthen Education, ensure that the WASH (Water Sanitation & Health) is paramount – ensuring that our health facilities are up to standard and responding to health cases at an average level, Improving the roads condition not just the main road but linking other feeder roads to ensure accessibility and then improving the infrastructure through community involvement and team building/working together as a people.
“My vision is not an individual vision but a VISION of the people as we will work together because if we embark on something/projects etc and succeed, we all succeed and if we fail, then we fail as a people and draw lessons from there and bounce back to ensure we lift out district.”
Morris who prides himself as a result-oriented, energetic, self-motivated, confident, reliable, young and hardworking man, has extensive and an impressive career through Africa, Europe and the United States spanning over 20 years’ experience in facilitating the implementation of people-centered community-driven initiatives such as livelihoods project, non-emergency programs, Natural Resources Management and Climate Change programs.
“My experience extends to financial management, advocacy and lobbying.”
As a Resident Representative presently for the Mano River Union MRU), Morris’s says his experience of partner perspective, developing policies and standard operating procedures (SoPs) has built strong Human Resource systems (HRM) systems and greatly influenced the present cordial relationship between initiatives/program and other key establishment such as USAID, UNOWA, UNMIL, AfDB, etc. as well as the MRU Member States (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea) Government line Ministries and Agencies within the context of agriculture, health and nutrition and some other bilateral offices of the Members States.”
He previously worked as the Country Station Administrator for the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) – a member of the Consultative Group of International Agriculture Group (CGIAR) where my experience of true partnership greatly influenced the successful establishment of management structures, policies etc.
With a good knowledge in project management, excellent supervisory and managerial skills, Morris believes that a rich experience in managing and analyzing project budget and using the information to develop very good and relevant budget variance report for management decisions would prove pivotal for his quest to represent District One.
“I was responsible for the coordination and management of all activities in Liberia, I also work with line government ministries such as the Ministry of Agriculture, CDA – Cooperative Development Agency among others and ensure the Monitoring and Evaluation, and building local partnerships in the project sites.
“I also have special skills in providing technical and managerial support and leadership on field activities to partner organizations to enable them to find innovative ways of supporting, strengthening their capacity their project communities to deliver inclusive sustainable services and linking that to the project activities.”
Putting People to Work Key
Williams counts among his achievements, training and follow-up field support on Community Led approach to project delivery, training on the effective managing and operationalizing project resources and assets.
“My skills extend to empowering communities with information to enable them monitor and hold service providers and duty bearers accountable. I have in the past played very significant role in planning and coordinating various programs using contacts and relationships. Among these are the hosting of various national workshops and regional events.
Arranging and facilitating an engagement meeting between different Ngos and other partners/stakeholders and key sector Ministers in Liberia. With good analytical ability, l acquired a good understanding of research and report writing.
This l demonstrated when l led the N2Africa research project on Nitrogen and soil fertility from which a paper is being developed in partnership with the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, and IITA.”
Lawrence speaks, read and write fluently three languages namely; English, French, & Dutch. He also has a working knowledge of Spanish, German and Creole.
If elected, Mr. Morris says his representation will mean self-dependency, capacity building, developmental driven with positive results oriented mindset, as well as inclusiveness where the citizenry/district residents become owners of whatever happens in the district.
“The expectation should be total participation by communities taking up projects with deliverables deadline and putting people to work with innovative and creative ways of bringing relief to the population of District One.”