The administration of George Manneh Weah has been weightlifting or as other folks put it, “clearing the mess”, of past administrations, particularly the immediate past 12-year government, and the most disgusting ingratitude comes from policymakers, policy-implementers and cheerleaders of the flunked regimes. As comical kids would say, “when bad luck is too much for you, red banana would crack your teeth.” That’s the case with one ‘Dr.’ Abdoulaye Dukule who I understand was, or perhaps still is, a protégé of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a foot soldier, and key inner-circle member of the Sirleaf regime for 12 years.
By Sherman C. Seequeh, [email protected]
In a commentary recently, ‘Dr’ Dukule struggled to dig out and spew dint on the George Manneh Weah administration. Fortunately, he did not draw his debate negating any of superior projects, the incomparable progress, this administration has made in three years. He was on something he calls “capacity problem” that he thinks drove the Weah administration in turning over the rice distribution project under Government’s emergency stimulus package to the World Food Program. What is unfortunate about it all is that the ‘Doc’ who is a former presidential envoy joined market-women arguers who think that rice distribution to households is an exceptional skillset and profession of a sort by which to measure or insinuate the capacity of anyone, specifically the Government of Liberia.
Before paring the capacity levels of governments—the Doc’s 12-year government and the current one—one needed to firstly wonder why the presidential envoy would not know that in the contemporary governance world order, there is something called public-private partnership in which governments cede certain public service responsibilities to the private agencies or the civil society to carry on at a particular time. One wonders how come the “Doc” does not know that when this happens, it only reflects greater transparency and accountability in governance than a signal of incapacity problem. One wonders why “Dr” Dukule does not know that the art of rice distribution is just a fraction of Government’s stimulus package and that other aspects of it, such as economic stimulus, tackling the pandemic head-on, amongst others are more technical, sophisticated, daring.
“Doc” Dukule needed to know—and he must know now—that it is a huge credit for the Weah government to have thought of the pandemic-beleaguered people in the first place, unlike the government he served for 12 years, by drawing up and implementing a stimulus package of a national scope. This indeed does reflect a huge moral and professional capacity on the part of the current government. Because, the last time I checked, I did not see any such intervention when we had Ebola, which was more devastating to lives and the Liberian economy. Did “Dr.” Dukule, the administration he served, and all the copious outpour of international goodwill deliver a grain of rice to anyone in this country? Did they think, let alone do, anything about both the social and economic needs of the people and nation? Didn’t we see their level of capacity limited to writing proposals, and engaging into international public relations stunts that attracted millions of dollars but left the unsuspecting populace and the economy accelerating into the gutter they were picked up in 2018?
For ‘Doc’ Dukule to question the capacity of the Weah government on account of WFP’s role in rice distribution is in part to insinuate that government he served had better governance and professional capacity. If that were to be what he actually thinks, he is still dead wrong, particularly when one were to compare governance and professional capacities not by the number of mere Doctorate Degrees (many of which are pointless and worthless) and the volume and multiplicity of whitepapers produced, but on concrete, historic transformative policies and programs delivered upon.
“Dr.” Dukule cannot claim better capacity when the sum evidence of the capacity of 12 years of rule marked Liberia’s trajectory into unimaginable governance failure by 2017. Billions of offshore monies, which came into the country like it did in similar circumstances and conditions in Rwanda, left Liberia un-impactful while Rwanda capitalized those supports. At the end of the 12-year period, the leader, ‘Dr’ Dukule’s mentor, declared corruption victorious. She declared education a mess. She declared failure in reconciling the nation. Worse still, the Second in Command of the 12-year period, ‘Dr. Dukule’s Master, confessed, “We squandered all the opportunities” to transform Liberia.
Certainly, Dr. Dukule is not claiming any better competency and capacity for himself and those with whom he served for 12 years. He’s just being unnecessarily fussy, hypocritical and demeaning of superior competency and capacity in the Weah administration, which is paying millions of the LEC and water and sewer bills they left unattended and has deflated and sanitized the bloated and disheveled civil service it left behind.
No, Dr. Dukule cannot claim capacity and competency for himself and his masters who perpetrated perennial national budget shortfalls, who confessed repeatedly “cut and paste” errors in the national budget, and who mismanaged millions of dollars and took responsibility for the colossal stealing at NOCAL.
No, “Dr”. Dukule cannot claim competency and capacity for his masters who wasted millions of dollars on Jallah Town Road, SKD Boulevard Road, AB Tolbert Road and other community roads which they built but only to rebuilt in the space of 24 months; who flooded with the Liberian money market with needless banknotes thus triggering the country’s worst inflation and liquidity tragedy.
Not only can “Dr” Dukule not claim professional competency and capacity for the administration he served for 12 years, he also cannot doubt the governance capacity of their successor, the CDC-led government. He needed to know—and must know now—that the current Government has got the public service more stable and sanitized; corruption is rigidly being fought; the macroeconomic basics of the country being genuinely monitored, checked and handled; Liberian students are doing relatively better in public examinations now than ever before; public college students are no more paying tuitions; roads and electricity are reaching more indigent, needy communities than ever before; free press is flourishing with the shutting down of Degree 88A left on the books by “Dr” Dukule and his masters. This administration has filed in more corruption cases to court than any government before it, and never has it been caught in “caught and paste” budgeting and never has this President taken responsibility for stolen millions.
The Weah administration has threaded where ‘angels feared’ in bringing Liberia’s governance to its apex of transparency and accountability. This is expressed in milestones where the administration, for instance, invited an international auditing firm to independently probe potentially nationally upsetting reports, invited Liberian civil society and opposition to political parties to participate in COVID-19 steering committee, and always sought the counsel of religious leaders in issues of national concern. Allowing the WFP to distribute food to households of vulnerable Liberians, as a fraction of Government’s national COVID-19 Stimulus Plan, is just part of that increased transparency and accountability culture rather than a capacity problem as naïve minds would conceive. Sad that “Doc” Dukule has fallen so low.
It takes huge muscles, meaning unmatched capacity, to run a nation left badly governed for 12 years when it was being pampered with unchecked inflow of foreign monies and support. It takes serious capacity on the part of the successor government to be able to provide national security responsibility with all its technical and financial implications after the nation had been babysat for over 25 years. It takes serious capacity muscles for the current administration, left to tote domestic and external debt ‘kinjas’ of 12 years to be able to defray those debts, curb inflation ignorantly or deliberately triggered by its predecessor, build many more paved roads and put more civil servants on payroll with better take-home pay.
One must question anyone who questions this kind of capacity. And I personally bemoan Dr. Dukule’s hypocrisy.