Common Sense calls us all to follow the Commandments of Our Creator. Non-sense calls upon us to follow the talk of the devil. This is why when someone who is a national religious leader comes to be the leader of State management, the expectations of people rise because they expect that the longstanding and widespread societal problems are highly likely to be solved. The main societal problem remains poverty. This is so because poverty has become the pretext for violence, that, at times, takes on the forms of coup d’etat and civil war in Liberia and in other countries.
By Togba-Nah Tipoteh, [email protected], Contributing Writer
The fact that poverty continues to prevail in Liberia means: non-sense prevails in State management in Liberia. But with the new State managers, expectations are high that there will be a reversal of the poverty problem. However, with no actions leading to the eradication of corruption by the outgoing government, people are disappointed that the incoming government is taking actions that exacerbate the societal problem of corruption. For example, the financial outlay by the National Elections Commission (NEC) of the certification program of the elected President of Liberia; the financial outlay by the central government for the Inauguration of January 22nd and the immorality and bad governance record of appointed officials sent for confirmation by the House of Senate.
The bad governance refers to the record that promotes the production of raw materials for export without the prioritization of Value Addition. The financial resource is considered to be the best tesoutce rather than the human rrsource. This record promotes poverty generation rather than poverty alleviation. On account of this record. the people of Liberia have declared that Liberia is headed in the wrong direction.(Afrobarometer, 2020). Due to the coup d’etat and the civil war in Liberia, over 300,000 lives were lost and many more people got injured. Currently, National Legislators have access to at least LD200,000 a day and their foreign partners have access to at least LD300,000,000 a day while nearly of the people of Liberia have access to at most less that LD300 a day (The Annual Reports of the CBL, LISGIS, MFDP, MCI, WB, IMF, ADB and UNDP).
To add petrol to the prevailing fire, the government of the United States of America (USA) has placed sanctions on some top Liberian government officials. Some of these officials were just certified as new members of the National Legislature of Liberia. in essence, their certification means that the government of Liberia will not be given any financial support (Magnitsky Act). But the USA government being money-driven, engages in conflicting actions. The USA government has given some financial assistance, including budgetary support, to the government of Liberia after placing sanctions on Liberian government officials.
The way out of the foregoing quagmire is clear. The government of Liberia has to end the prevailing production system. However, to end the prevailing production system, there has to be national decision-makers who prefer the production system that promotes poverty alleviation. To get the poverty alleviation system. there has to be a fair electoral system to replace the prevailing unfair electoral system. The only way to replace the unfair electoral system is for the current raising of awareness among the people to continue to motivate the people to take actions within the Rule of Law to replace the unfair electoral system. This raising of awareness is working well, as seen in the non-re-election of most of the Legislators who wanted to be re-elected.