Former President of Liberia Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf called the Educational System of Liberia a Messy System when she was serving as President of Liberia. Immediately thereafter, this Commentator published a Commentary on how to correct the Messy Educational System. The powers that be continued to implement the Messy Educational System and it runs today in the old form of Business as Usual.
By Togba-Nah Tipoteh, Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Liberia and Contributing Writer
The continuous running of the Messy Liberian economy has become so vexing to the extent that Front Page Africa has published an Editorial several times calling the Liberian economy a Messy Economy. The call of FrontPage Africa on the powers that be to fix or rescue the Liberian economy continues to go unheeded. This is the reason for the continuation of the bad Liberian economy where nearly all of the people of Liberia have access to at most less than LD300 a day. This Commentary, like the Commentary on the Messy Educational System is directed at helping to solve the Messy Liberian economy problem.
The way to fix or rescue the Liberia economy is to promote the production of raw materials for local production, giving prioritization to Value Addition. This way of production promotes poverty alleviation rather than the prevailing poverty generation. Under poverty generation, National Legislators have access to at least LD200,000 a day and their foreign business partners have access to at least LD300,000,000 a day while nearly all of the people of Liberia continue to suffer under poverty generation, having access to at most less than LD300 a day (The Annual Reports of CBL, LISGIS, MFDP, MCI, WB, IMF, ADB and UNDP).
This poverty generation system has been known reliably since the 1950s when it was published that while the real economic per capita growth rate of the Liberian economy was the second highest in the world, less than one per cent of the people of Liberia had access to at least sixty per cent of the income and wealth of Liberia and over sixty per cent of the people of Liberia had access to less that one per cent of the income and wealth of Liberia (Robert Clower et al, Growth Without Development, Northwestern University Press, 1966).
Just like today, there is Business as Usual because the powers that be continue to promote the mode that economic growth brings economic development in the face of the operations under the poverty generation system. This is the same view held by the educational system where the position of the Father of Modern Economics the Scottish Economist Adam Smith published his book The Wealth of Nations in 1776, the year, which, coincidentally, is the birth year of the United States of America (USA).
Despite the intentional theoretical and practical moves of the powers that be, the raising of awareness by the people who love Liberia continues to motivate people to take actions within the Rule of Law to transform the unfair prevailing electoral system into the fair enduring electoral system. It is only through this transformation that persons with good records can get elected to bring in the system of Justice, the indispensable ingredient of Peace and Progress in Liberia and in any other country.
