EDITORIAL: Clear the Channel, Clear the Air

Ships sit off Monrovia’s coast while prices stay high and businesses struggle. If dredging is the problem, the NPA owes Liberians a public timetable, not one-line assurances. The Senate must act on Senator Konneh’s call for open hearings.

STAND ON ANY beach in Monrovia this week and look out to sea. You will see them: cargo ships sitting on the horizon, loaded with the rice, fuel, cement and medicine this country depends on, and unable to come in.

FOR THE ORDINARY Liberian, those ships are not a postcard view. They are the reason the price of a bag of rice has not come down. They are the reason a shopkeeper in Red Light cannot restock her shelves. They are the reason small businesses, already squeezed for cash, are paying demurrage on goods they cannot yet touch.

SENATOR AMARA KONNEH of Gbarpolu County has now put the problem before the Senate in plain terms. In an October 25 letter, he said importers report that Liberia-bound containers are spending an average of more than 30 days at sea, with many vessels sent to queue at ports in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. He pointed to two alleged causes: too little yard space at the Freeport, and delays in dredging the port basin and channel that keep larger ships from berthing. He also pointed to a pile of “opaque” fees charged along the supply chain, all of which end up in the prices Liberians pay.

THE SENATOR’S MOST striking point is one every household already feels. Inflation, he notes, has fallen to 4.6 percent, and the Liberian dollar has gained against the US dollar. By the numbers, things are improving. At the market, they are not. If the port is a major reason why, then the Government is losing the benefit of its own economic reforms at the water’s edge.

ASKED ABOUT THE problem, National Port Authority Managing Director Sekou Dukuly told this newspaper: “We are working on dredging and expansion.”

WE WELCOME THE assurance. But one sentence is not a plan, and it is not enough.

THE LIBERIAN PEOPLE deserve to know what “working on” means. When did dredging begin, or when will it begin? Who holds the contract, and what does it cost? How deep must the channel be for the vessels now waiting offshore, and when will it reach that depth? How much new yard space is coming, where, and by what date? Until the NPA answers these questions in public, importers cannot plan, consumers cannot hope, and rumour will fill the silence.

THAT SILENCE IS the real failure here. A port is public infrastructure. Its condition is a matter of public record. If the problem is dredging, the NPA should say so plainly, publish a timetable, and give regular updates until the ships are coming in again. Leaving businesses and families to guess, while the ships sit off our shores, breeds frustration and disarray that no press release can undo.

THE RESPONSIBILITY DOES not stop with the NPA. APM Terminals, which runs the container terminal under a long-term concession, must account for its yard capacity and its charges. So must every agency and contractor whose fees sit between a ship’s arrival and a trader’s shelf. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Liberia Revenue Authority must show what they are doing to cut costs and speed up clearance.

THE SENATE, FOR its part, should act on Senator Konneh’s request without delay. Summoning the NPA, APM Terminals, MEDTECH, GTMS, the LRA, the Commerce Ministry and the customs brokers to testify in public is the least this crisis demands. Lawmakers should leave that hearing with a written timetable for dredging, a published schedule of every port fee, and a clear account of who is responsible for what.

THE EXECUTIVE MANSION should also take note. Ports are a test of whether a government can deliver the basics. A Government that has worked hard to steady the currency and bring down inflation cannot afford to see those gains lost on the waves outside its own harbour.

LIBERIANS ARE A patient people. But patience is not the same as silence, and it should not be mistaken for consent. Clear the channel. And while you are at it, clear the air.