The Editor,
The Liberian story is sad but there is a promised at the end of the tunnel. Let it be known that printing additional bank notes is not the solution to Liberia financial and economic woes.
The Liberian currency is only legal tender in Liberia and no where else on the planet. This is no secret that about ninety percent of the printed new currency sits with kleptomaniac government officials and their foreign business friends/partners in warehouses and homes in Liberia.
Between eighty to ninety percent of the citizenry and residents living in Liberia are cash strapped. The solution is for an independent task force to be constituted by the legislature in consonance with the judicial branch of government with international partners and civil society clothed with authority to carry out search and seizure of the new bank notes.
The search should heavily be done in homes of top current and former government officials and business houses and homes owned by foreign nationals residing in Liberia.
This clarion call should claim the attention of patriotic members of the national legislature and judiciary. Let it be made clear here, that all brand new bank notes that are sitting in these homes will eventually be turned over to the Liberian people. Printing more money to add to what is in keeping will NOT help your situation.
You will be brought to book. The government through the ministry of finance and development planning and central bank of Liberia willfully destroyed the commercial banking system of the country when they chose to operate outside the banking system and instead used plastic/rice bags to carry out a mopping exercise. It is abundantly clear that this intent was bent on kleptocracy.
Every ill gotten wealth will be returned to the country. I repeat, “every ill gotten wealth will be returned. Doomsday is at hand. Let me end with this caveat, that powerful men and women have paraded Monrovia and Liberia in the past and are nowhere to be found today.
John Brownell
[email protected]