Monrovia – Marketers, petty traders and local business entrepreneurs in Monrovia could no longer hold their peace; they say government is strangulating their businesses with high tariffs on containers, high taxes and rapid depreciation of the Liberian dollars.
Report by Bettie K. Johnson Mbayo, [email protected]
Red-Light Market, the biggest in market in Liberia was empty Tuesday, stalls were empty and stores were closed.
Street peddlers were off the streets. Same was the situation in Central Monrovia. Waterside Market, the biggest in downtown Monrovia, was clear.
Stores owned by Lebanese nationals were all closed.
Their action was a strike intended to bring the attention of the government to their plights and strenuous circumstances under which they are trading.
Dressed in red T-shirts, the traders gathered at the Capitol to petition lawmakers who have oversight responsibility to come to their rescue.
They carried placards, some of which bore the inscriptions, “Drop the taxes on businesses”; ‘High US rate reduces my purchasing power”, “We Dying”, “Liberty not US$ This is Liberia not America”; “Because you want fat salary so you increase the tax”, among several others.
The Petition
The president of the aggrieved traders under the banner, “Patriotic Entrepreneurs of Liberia”, Presley Tenwah read and presented the petition to Representative Ballah Zazay on behalf of the group.
The petition called for the classification of Liberian businesses in a specific group among the four categories of tariffs, to enable them pay flat rate tax of 0% – 5% tax on all good imported in Liberia.
They also called for a single custom examination before payment before any payment rather than multiple examinations of goods that are being conducted with separate and distinct payment taxes.
The local entrepreneurs called for measures to taken to tackle and stabilize the constant fluctuations of the U.S. Dollar against the Liberian Dollar in an effort to reduce hardships experienced by both sellers and buyers.
Persuasion Failed
Justice Minister Frederick Cherue commended the protestors for coming out to express their grievances, but recommended that they returned to their businesses – something which they rejected.
“Yesterday we spoke to the leadership to halt the protest but they refused and you talked about taxes, we invited the LRA, Police, the Ministry of Justice and I can say here we have not received letter on Police harassment.
“We have constituted a committee; my appeal is that the Legislature is busy just the same as the Executive so please return you businesses.”
“Be patient so we can work this out. My appeal is while you negotiate, please go back and sell you bitter ball; you are hurt, we are hurt, our children has to eat and their food comes from you.
“Today you have done well; again I beg you, please go back to your businesses and do your work while the Legislative and Executive do their work. I’m glad that you are not harassed by the Police, so give us the opportunity to maintain security,” he said.
Speaker Feels Insulted
Speaker of House of Representatives, Emmanuel Nuquay, appeared to be offended by the placard with the inscription “Because you want fat salary so you increase the tax”. While speaking at protestors at the grounds of the Capitol, he termed the message on the placard to him and members of the House.
“The first poster is an insult to us; the placard is to heap insults at us.”
“You talk about wholesalers and retailers distribution, did we pass legislation on that ‘no’. So you come and say ‘Because you want fat salary so you increase the tax’ this is unfair and we see it as an insult,” Speaker Nuquay intimated.
Speaker Nuquay said the seizure of goods at the port had nothing to do with tax and fat salary, adding that no one at the Legislature increased salary.
He termed the protest as a means of antagonizing lawmakers.
“We didn’t legislate the law on exchange rate. Exchange rate is determined by the market forces. “
“What did we do wrong, I agree that things are hurting you, but this was done by sub-regional body.”
“If there are issues hurting our people, we can work on that, but to say we want fat salary that is wrong. If you tear us apart the opportunity we have you wouldn’t have it.”
He committed the Legislature to ensuring that requests are looked into and addressed.
U.S. Dollar Rate Escalates, Aggrieved Marketers Support Protest Action
Aggrieved marketers of Montserrado County have closed businesses due to the high increase in the exchange rate, which has created sharp increase in the prices of major commodities in the country.
A planned protest action which was taken on Tuesday, January 31, 2017 by aggrieved marketers led to the closing of various business centers.
And there were mix reactions among Petty traders and consumers at the Liberia’s biggest commercial market.
Thomas A. Williams, Businessman: “The closing of businesses has a lot of sense in it – in that the Liberian Dollars, the inflation rate is on a daily basis and you don’t do business like that.
Everyday a dollar or fifty cents add to the rate in making it impossible to calculate your business commodity, making it impossible to know your profit margin.
So the plan action has a lot of magnitude, has a lot of reasons, we see it tangible, we see it the right time and as the right decision to draw the government attention to the market and the high increase in the exchange rate.”
Carlor Dolo, customer: “I support the plan action to close businesses until the government can take action against the high increase in the U.S. rate.
Since the U.S rate started going up, things are hard, even if you change US$5 to buy food, nothing good you can get in
the market for cooking. The entire commodities price has increased, even cooking salt price has increased, and because of this we cannot even eat good food.”
Doris P. Weatoe, customer: “The market is getting very hard and we the buyer are confused. Since the high increase in the U.S. rate, there are lots of challenges we have been facing.
The challenges are so many because if you were buying a cup of rice for twenty dollars and now you are buying a cup of rice for thirty or thirty- five dollars is too high.
Everyone is complaining because of the high increase in the exchange rate, so let the government do something to reduce the high rate.”
Joseph Kanneh, petit trader: “The U.S. rate is spoiling our businesses to the extent that everybody is finding it difficult to make life easy for them in this country.
Things are difficult for us to the point that we can understand our businesses any more.
Even cold water sellers are complaining about the high increase in the exchange rate.
So we want our leaders to see reason and do every good thing possible for the U.S. rate to come down.”
Augustine T. Tweh contributed to this report