In the world over, economic growth and development are the prerequisites to sustaining genuine democracy rather than democracy being the prerequisite to attaining economic growth and development.
The formal has been the bedrock for the maintenance or sustenance of democracy in the United States of America, Great Britain, China (Deemphasized democracy), Botswana, Rwanda, France, or anywhere democracy has flourished for more than two decades. These countries have instituted macroeconomic measures to ensure vast majority of their citizens lives at a middle income level.
Trust me, in the next five years, Liberia’s emerging democracy would crumble if the West African nation continues to parade with its appalling per capital income, pervasive poverty, acute illiteracy, hovering infant and maternal mortality rate, and etc. These quantity of contradictions in a country that prides itself as a champion of democracy will unarguably lead to the mass of the people to violently struggle for a qualitative change in their horrible existence.
As the result, the democracy that is being boast of today will collapse, courtesy of the people’s thirstiness to have roofs over their heads, food on their tables, realistic income, health insurance, quality education, trade and business environment and etc. rather than going around to defend and proclaim the rights to vote, speak, assemble, move, and etc.
Therefore, the need to prioritize the economic overhauling of this space we occupy cannot be overemphasized. Can this be done with the current system of liberal democracy and private capitalism? My answer cannot be in the affirmative. Since the introduction of Tubman’s Open Door Policy to present, such system has proven futile. Based on this system, in the 1960s, Liberia recorded one of the highest economic growth the world over.
Unfortunately such growth did not positively reflect in the living standard of the mass of our people. After the war and devastation and the instituting of a democratic order, this system again produced almost a double digits economic growth in 2012.
Unfortunately, the Liberian people remain the victims of inevitable poverty and economic deprivation. They are the world’s fourth poorest people according to a Global Time Magazine 2016 Report. According to the IMF’s 2017 World Economic Outlook, more than 75percent of the population lives on less than 200LD per day. In 2016, Liberia recorded the highest infant mortality in the world over (1, 027 deaths out of 100,000 lives).
The life expectancy of the average Liberian is less than 60 years, the World Health Organization has established. I could go on and on listing reports that have brought Liberia to its economic bended knees. We elect to be brief.
After 170years of existence as an independent state, the suffering people of Liberia still remain hopeful of a nation with shared values, equity in income and wealth, liberty and justice for all and with all.
Can the narrative be changed? Yes, it’s possible. Economically, we must radically transform the way our productive forces are organized. I mean the productive force that created the wealth in the 1960s and in 2012 but was unable to lift our people out of poverty.
The ownership of our major means of production (wealth creators) must reflect the attainment of the hope and aspiration of our people to live decent lives. Currently, our major factor of production is our land. In and on our land, we have iron ore, gold, diamond, timber and the fertile soil ready for productive agricultural purposes. We have had foreign monopoly capital coming to our country getting hold of our land through bogus legislation and taking away billions in profits out of our resources. We as a people have benefited nothing but little in taxes, rentals, and social development funds.
The little taxes, rentals, and social development funds received from corporations like Firestone, Arcelor Mittal, China Union, Same Darby, GVL and etc. are nothing to substantially improve social programs in: education, healthcare, infrastructure, security and etc. It has been proven that the little collected from these corporations only have the weight to cater to recurrent expenditures in our budget.
The 2017/2018 budget of little over 600 Million has a recurrent expenditure of 80 percent. The little capital expenditures (roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, hydroelectric power plant, and etc.) in our existence as a country have been predominantly taken care of by loans that we have been unable to repay, thus making us a dependent independent nation. What a paradox?
In the reorganization of our productive forces, we must see the need to have the state partially own the major means of productions. That can be done through the visitation of those concession agreements and making sure the state has not less than forty percent (40%) shares in all those corporations.
With this, substantial share in the surplus profits that those corporations make out of our endowed natural and mineral resources will be given to government. For example, if Arcelor Mittal makes 100Million in profit a year from the exportation of iron ore, government will have not less than 40Million shares in such profit. Similar case can work with Firestone, China Union, Same Darby, Golden Veroleum Liberia and etc.
With this, the money generated from these state shares in corporations that control our factors of production, we can expand our budget. This expansion in our budget will not stick to a hovering 80percent recurrent expenditure. The state must increase its focus on capital expenditure in social programs.
This is how capital is mobilized to invest heavily in education, healthcare, infrastructure, security and etc. without predominantly depending on aids, grants, loans and goodwill to fund your capital projects.
When you invest in education especially in T-VET and STEM, you prepare your citizens to be accommodated in the new economy. When you invest in healthcare, you give your people the opportunity to live longer and prosper.
When you invest heavily in roads, energy, security, and other social programs, investors are encouraged to come in your country to invest in other sectors of your economy especially the service and industrial sectors and provide massive employment to your qualified and healthy citizenry.
When businesses are expanded, your tax based is increased. The state will start to have surplus capital which can be used to provide local Liberian entrepreneurs and farmers access to public finance. When Liberian businesses are empowered, they increase their capacities and start to locally produce consumer goods, thus not only decreasing your trade deficit but also adding value to the local currency.
When the peasants are empowered, they start to massively grow what we eat (rice, plantain, cassava and etc.). With the revitalization of agriculture, the rural areas will become modernized, thus depopulating the urban cities. This is how a serious minded country works toward genuine and people centred economic growth and development in its lifetime.
About Author
Moses Uneh Yahmia is a senior student of Political Science at the University of Liberia. As a young student who believes in Pan Africanism and the liberation of the African people from political and economic dependency, he supports as president, Dr. H. Boima Fahnbulleh, Jr., the only revolutionary Pan African Leader in the Liberia’s Presidential race. Brother Yahmia can be reached via: [email protected]/0776355802/0886944248