Monrovia – Mr. Alexander Cummings is not expecting to win the Liberian presidency on a silver platter. Racing against time and insurmountable odds, the former Coca Cola Executive has been making the rounds in his quest to reach all 73 electoral districts as he aims to make his case as to why he is the best option for the 2017 Presidential elections ballot.
Report by Rodney D. Sieh, [email protected]
The first priority for me is how we increase the revenue of our country. All the things that need to be done require money and so we have to figure out how we can get more from our resources, we have to figure out how we can expand the tax base, we’ve to figure out how we can reprioritize the limited resources we have – But I believe we spend too much money on the kinds of vehicles and stuff we buy” – Mr. Alexander Cummings, Presidential Candidate
“Between now and October 2017, I will work every day to make the case to the Liberian people. I will travel the length and breadth of our country, I will travel to all 73 districts of Liberia,” Cummings said during an appearance on a joint FrontPageAfrica-50-50 radio interview on 107 FM Thursday.
Cummings who has so far made the rounds in Lofa, Nimba, Bassa, Margibi and his hometown, Maryland County has already undertaken small developmental projects around the country to demonstrate what he says he can and plan to do. “I believe though, if we make the case, if we work with discipline and focus, the Liberian people will give us the opportunity to lead.”
But despite early in roads, Cummings says he is focusing on basic bread and butter issue he believes will separate him from the rest of the field. Here are some key points of Mr. Cummings Plans as explained in his radio interview Thursday:
On The Economy
“The first priority for me is how do we increase the revenue of our country. All the things that need to be done require money and so we have to figure out how we can get more from our resources.
We have to figure out how we can expand the tax base; we have to figure out how we can reprioritize the limited resources we have. You know today, very specifically, we need to provide transportation for our people. But I believe we spend too much money on the kinds of vehicles and stuff we buy.
There are some opportunities there to reprioritize, you look at the amount of travel we do. I think we can revisit that and take the waste out. So these are very specific things of how we can control the revenue base to reprioritize what we need to do.”
Creating Jobs
“We have to do that; we have a lot of young people who are unemployed or underemployed. Specifically, we will allocate money to employ young people and there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Monrovia is not the cleanest city in the world. We can put our people to work to clean the city, repairs to roads.
“The way I think of this is, you know sometimes we’re very critical of the current administration; but to be fair, they may not have had a choice but to try and do many things and I think they tried to do a lot of things; and when you try to do many things, you do nothing well” – Mr. Alexander Cummings, Presidential Candidate
A lot of little things we can do and in the short term, it may not be the most efficient way to use our resources; but we need them to get people employ, to provide vocational training skills and we have to do these things concurrently. It is a conundrum.
We have to systemically do the things that will fix our economy long term. But in the short term, we need to meet the immediate needs of our people.
On Making Use of Limited Resources Amid Global Downturn
“We have to make sure that we’re getting our adequate share of whatever limited resources there are and I will submit to you that my sense is that without fully enforcing the existing concession agreements so we can get fair share.
The second thing is that we need to look at other resources. I believe our country has diamonds, gold and other resources.
Are we fully exploiting those? I think there are a lot of opportunities to look at. The commodities are reciprocal and as we get toward 2018 and 2019, I believe the world would go through a circle and we will need to get more dollars if you will from our export.”
“We have to concurrently look at agriculture; we have to invest in agriculture so we can feed ourselves. The huge drain on our foreign exchange is the fact that we’re hoping that we can buy everything.”
“The other thing is because we are dependent on imports today, and will be for a while, we need to get Liberians into the business of importing and exporting. Importing and exporting is basic math, it’s not even Algebra.
How do we encourage Liberians; how do we provide the financing to get in the business of importing so we can have Liberians involve in the process. So that will be part of our plan as well.
The other thing we need to do is reprioritize where monies should be spent. I mention taking out waste. We can’t control the revenue because it depends on external demand for our resources, but we control where we spend our monies today, the choices we make, and the priorities.
The other thing I will say is that we’re not going to try and do everything and that’s hard by the way, to make choices. We’re going to have to make some choices where we invest our time and resources until we get more money to do more things.”
Electricity
“Electricity is so basic to everything we do. If somebody has a business to run, they will need cheap and reliable power; for kids to study at night, they need to have reliable power. People talk about manufacturing and adding value to our natural resources, without cheap electricity and power and water, it is a pipe dream because whatever we produce locally, whatever we do internationally, we will not be competitive unless we have electricity. So it is so important, it is so basic, that you have to have power because it is the basis for almost everything we do.
The way I think of this is, you know sometimes we’re very critical of the current administration; but to be fair, they may not have had a choice but to try and do many things and I think they tried to do a lot of things; and when you try to do many things, you do nothing well. Perhaps given that situation I may have done the same thing but we will never know. I think the difference here is we’re going to focus on making choices.”
Affordable and available electricity
“I would say two to three years we should have Montserrado, Margibi fully electrified. I will not sit here and promise the whole country in that period of time and yet to be fair a lot of work is being done with electricity today. So there will be a good foundation for whoever wins to get going perhaps a bit late. But we will build on that, focus our attention and will do our best to provide electricity.
Health: Clean, Safe Water Key
“First and foremost, it is a fact that water-borne diseases around the world are the major cause of illnesses and so one of the areas we want to address is to make sure we have portable water. We have some progress being made on that today but we need to accelerate that so people have affordable, clean, safe water.
The second thing is nutrition. We have to find the resources to provide nutritional meals to our people because when people are adequately fed, they can better resist illnesses and diseases. So that’s something we can focus on.
Perhaps very expensive, perhaps not simple. We’re looking at all of the sectors and we would be providing to the Liberian people a very detailed plan on how we will do this and we will harness it but the health issue is a top priority for us.
And then you have to go to the capacity building part of it, training of nurses, training of doctors, getting the right equipment etc. So those are the ways we will think about health in a very systemic way, getting at the basics first and then getting to the medium and long-term aspects.”
On Education
“Education is very important. There are four areas of the sector we’re going to focus on although there are many more we could do. First, in no particular order, Early Childhood Education- we have to get our young people at a very early age and it starts with training and development and that for me, involves training around integrity and values because I’m sure corruption will come up in some point; then, Adult Education – it is a fact that some sixty percent of our people are illiterate; teacher education – if we don’t have teachers in all of the fields, we’re not going to have good outputs. So we need to invest in Teachers’ Education, then lastly, Vocational Training Education. We’re going to invest in basic education – masonry, plumbing, carpentry etc, because that ties into job creation. And we will address education along those lines. We also have to start very basic because that’s what we need to address if we are to change the health outcome.”
On Skepticism About Alex Cummings
“The best predictor of future behaviour, future performance is past behaviour and past performance. And so I will say to Liberians: look at my past behaviour and by that I mean if you been bad all your life; come January 2018, you are not all of a sudden going to be good. If you have been good all your life, come 2018, you will not all of a sudden be bad.
You’ve delivered results in your life and career, it is highly likely that you will deliver in the future and if you look at my track record of success. The fact that I’ve managed bigger businesses, complicated businesses, multiple nations, multiple personalities and I have delivered measurable results, the odds are very high that that will happen, if given the opportunity to lead our country.”
“What do we need to do? There are obvious things that we need to do and that includes roads, infrastructures, power and electrification, health, education. But the one thing I don’t hear a lot of my competitors talk about is how do we engage the hearts and minds of Liberians in the transformation of our country.
You know I think the expectations are ourselves. We set too low and when you set those kinds of expectations that’s what you live up to. I don’t think we think highly enough of ourselves and I want to tap into the goodness of the Liberian people, of who we are. I’m a Liberian.
I’ve competed with people from everywhere across the world and I’ve been successful. There’s no reason why other Liberians with the same opportunities cannot do as well or better. And so this whole idea of the hearts and minds is about how we think about ourselves, it’s about rewards and consequences, it’s about communication.”
“I think I will be different because my track record is about delivering results. As we go through this campaign process, people need to watch what I do and what I say, they should compare me versus my other competitors, they should look at the projects we will do around the country and that will give them an indication. The other thing too is, we will be very specific in all the areas and I think that will also show a distinction between the competitors and myself.”
Nepotism/Corruption
“The first thing I will say is I don’t intend to appoint any close relatives to any major position and I want the Liberian people to hold me to that. Not because they’re not competent but because of our history of nepotism, it would be unfair to close relatives and the burden of leadership and so the plan would be not to appoint any close relatives whether they’re the smartest or the best.
But just because of what It communicates to our people and our history regarding that. So I want to say this publicly, emphatically and I actually said this to my immediate family that it would be unfair to them, and I would not give any close relatives positions in my administration. The reason being, it will harken back again.
People will say, there he goes again, just like the old guys and girls, he is now appointing his sister, brother etc. And I think we need to turn a new page with regards to that.”
“Will I punish? I say yes. I say this publicly to the members of the ANC; I say two things, if you are following me and supporting me in the hopes that if we win and it is our time to enjoy then you are following the wrong person because this is about transforming our country and not about now it’s our time to XYZ.
And like I said to my party chairman and others. If you do a misdeed just do me the favour and make it easy for me and resign but it’s not just enough for you to resign but we’re going to prosecute you.
There has to be consequences. You cannot live in a country where there are no consequences for your actions and corruption at the highest level; you are depriving the Liberian people of their livelihood and resources. And I wonder sometimes how we live with ourselves. So we will not only make sure you resign but we’re going to prosecute you.”
“I also got to say though that we all got to play our part to stamp out corruption. Whether you’re a big rogue or a small rogue, you’re still a rogue. So if you pay five dollars to get to the front of the line, you’re corrupt and of course if you steal government resources, you’re corrupt.
If you are given government contract and you don’t finish it and you eat the money you are corrupt. And we’re here to punish across the board but we will focus on people that should know better; who have been given the responsibility of guarding and shepherding our resources and if they’re more corrupt we will focus our energy on them but we will also punish people across the board.”
Security: Not in Favour of Foreign Troops for Elections
“The way I think of National Security is what the threat is? Is the threat primarily external or is it internal? It may be a bit of both. Where is the real threat? Based on the threat is how you will dive into it.”
“My instinct is not to bring in foreign troops to protect us. This point about bewildering ourselves and trying to protect ourselves- in the short term we should not rule anything out – depending on the nature of the relationship.
Instinctively, that’s not what I would favour us doing. I think investing in police is something we should do because again, at the margins, ours is more internal, policing with help us do that. My understanding is there is a rapid force in Cote d’Ivoire so if we’re in need of help they can rapidly be deployed.”
Legislative Fight: Favours Recusal for Tyler
I’ve said publicly a while ago that I felt morally, the speaker should recuse himself from the proceedings of the lower house. What’s happening in the House now is very emotional, very inflame, I think it would be irresponsible to comment, we’ll let the House manage the house and the outcome will be what it would be. But my position has always been that the speaker should recuse himself from a moral perspective, make his case in the courts.
Coalition: Still ‘Having Conversations’
“We have set our aspirations that we want to win in the first round. You know it is about setting high expectations for yourself and I don’t expect that we will have to go to the second round. That may not be the case but that’s not what we are setting up for. The prerequisite for doing that is to work with the coalitions.
And so we believe that it is important and we’re having conversations as we speak, that we find a coalition to work with us so that we can win in the first round. But not only because we want to win the elections but because governing Liberia requires that we work with other parties, that we create a government of inclusion.
We’re going to have to make some hard choices, we’re going to have to transform our country and the more people we have in the tent, who can explain to their constituencies why we are making the choices we make, the more we will be successful.
This is something I am general committed to; to have a government that represents all the geographic regions and many of the tribes in our country, different constituencies because winning is not only important but to govern; and these are some of the choices we will need to make.
So we want to win and we’re aspiring to win in the first-round coalition and we’re working with parties now in consultations about what are the choices and trade-offs we need to make; but it’s not just about winning but it’s also about governing. I am determined and we’re determined to have a government of inclusion.”
Running Mate: Geography v. Competence
“I think geography and competence are exclusive in making the choice of a running mate. At the margins I would look at competence, somebody I believe that in the unlikely event I get hit by a bus, that they could step in and not just lead our country, but have the same values and commitment to transformation. This is followed very closely by the geography balance, that the running mate represents a geographical balance.”
Assessment – Of County Tour So Far
“I’ve been inspired by the resilience of the Liberian people. Their lives are tough, the roads were a challenge, very, very difficult, traveling around the county but the solutions are there. This tour was described as a learning tour.
It was more for me to listen, to ask questions, to truly try to appreciate and understand the plight of our people because it is from those conversations that we would craft the very detailed specific policies that we would implement. I think Liberian people want somebody different; I’ve heard the discussions; we don’t want old wine in new bottle; we want something different.
So, I have an opportunity. So this is why it is up to me and the team to make the case why I’m that new wine in new bottle that will make difference for the future of our people.
If we select leaders with similar experiences from the past, we will likely get similar results and I think I offer different set of experiences, a different perspective, different approach to our issues and challenges.
I represent someone who believes in the goodness of our people, I believe in solutions. If you can harness all of that it brings you strong and direct leadership to our people, we can make a difference, we can move Liberia to the next level. We are preparing a development agenda that will describe what we plan to do for Liberia and we will be rolling those out in the not too distant future.”