If
There Shouldn’t Be
‘Room
for Error & Laxity’
-Mr. President
Must Lead By Example There Must
By: Bill K. Jarkloh
When I was a boy, my dad told me
that leadership is by example and not only by words or instructions. Any liaise
faire leader who recused themselves from overseen tasks assigned or fail to
countercheck progress made is often doomed to fail. This being printed on my minds,
I am always aspired to lead by example to inhibit laxity and errors, and to
eschew failure. This is why our attention is drawn to President George Manneh
Weah’s annual message for 2020, when finally took cognizance of the carelessness
and avoidable mistakes in the government of the Coalition for Democratic Change
(CDC), which have invited volumes of criticisms to the Weah-led administration.
It was gladdening that at least for once, the Chief Executive has admitted that
things have been done wrong during the past three years of the present regime
when he commendably “…mandated the entire machinery” of his administration to
recalibrate and enhance the focus of finding lasting solutions to the “bread
and butter issue facing our people” because there is NO ROOM FOR ERRORS, NO
ROOM FOR LAXITY. So the looming questions is, will the past errors be corrected
to give the masses of the people relief? These thoughts are against the
backdrop of weighing on whether there were indeed laxities, and if yes, when
did the President recognize these errors and laxities on the part of his public
officials? With this article, I also intend to examine the sincerity of Mr.
President Weah by the statement, and how he will ensure that this directive
impact the country and curtail or minimize the errors laxities alluded to by
the President?
From the general point of view,
the president’s mandate which tends to crave for functional democracy and emphatically
indicate that there will be no room for error and no room for laxity means well
for the Liberian people; it is a brilliant mandate applauded on the very floor
of the joint session of the 54th Legislature even by the very Legislators
themselves, who constitute the representation of the masses of the people. But
the truth to this is that the mandate must be exemplified by action and leadership
example.
Correcting past errors and laxity
In the spirit of the president’s
pronounced mandate to public officials, the sincerity will be tested when the
chief executive moves to correct grave noticeable errors and serious laxities
that are visible. Indeed while there are a lots of errors and laxities in the
operation of the CPP government, it is noteworthy to remind the President that
leadership is or should be by example. The first and notable error that affects
national conducted and should be corrected to start with is the one affecting
the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission where a thief of Liberian nationality,
Ndubusi Nwabudike, sits and is being supported by taxpayers’ money despite
clarion national call on the President to remove him. The issue of Nwabudike at
the helm of the LACC is attached to the conduct of public officials, to
correcting and mounting checkpoints for errors and carelessness in the public
and ensuring that the President’s desire to give the LACC prosecutorial powers
is not just but a mockery. The issue is serious because it borders on perjury
which is lying under oath and forgery which is also a crime. So yes, there have been uncountable errors
all along since the inception of the governance process starting from 2018
January, which have been affecting the very “bread and butter” issues being
raised. Those who called themselves pro-poor defenders applaud the diverse
missteps that have accompany the regime administration. The Issue of graft,
indeed affects the “bread and butter” of the people when no good attention is
given it. Surely the fight against corruption is feeble and will not hold,
unless those who careless coveted state financial and material resources and
lay to claimed national status in error – like in the case of Ndubusi Nwabudike
- are brought to book.
The second which is both an error
and a laxity that need to be corrected is the administration of the COVID-19
stimulus package by the government’s team headed by Professor Wilson Tarpeh.
Some 30 million United States dollars – 25 million USD from taxpayer’s money
with five million from the World Food Program - was invested in the stimulus
package of assorted food and food kind. As a matter of ‘error’, nearly every
household was marked inscriptions COHFSP followed by a number representing the
house, and the enumeration covered nearly everywhere within Monrovia and its
suburbs, although the government contended that the package was for vulnerable
people at a time everyone was sent home from job and offices were closed due to
the outbreak of the Corona virus.
Despite of this good intention
and investment, which is done in nearly every country affected by the COVID-19,
the administration of the stimulus package has since been questionable as nit
has not reach not impacted the lives of the people. While the rigmarole was on, instead of trying
to correct the situation and to audit the stimulus package, Mr. Tarpeh was
removed from Commerce and awarded the lucrative Environmental agency. To date,
nothing is heard of the package which seems to have ended in the homes of
relatives, friends and love ones, or ended in private pockets of those
entrusted with the funds - [an audited is needed as corrective measure].
As we speak, the delivery of the
stimulus package remains a mirage to the ordinary Liberian in Montserrado; the
rice, beans and oil is only seen in market places with truck loads passing up
and down delivering the package to ghosts while the noise of the faulty
delivery and administration of the COVID-19 package still remains an
outstanding street corner talk.
Laxities in social service
delivery
Having said that, there are
perennial errors and laxities in the system. But for our students and unlettered
folks others who should also understanding what the President meant by NO ERROR,
NO LAXITY, we say the president was
admitting recognizably that so many me official make too many mistakes at their
offices and exhibit a large degree of carelessness in their offices. This is much
graved in social service delivery ministries and agencies, such as the Liberia
Electricity Corporation, the Liberia Water & Sewer Corporation, the
Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry etc.
As a matter of fact these
agencies feel they should be supported with taxpayers’ money and without
delivering to justify and protect the portfolios they have been paid for. Many
a time the LEC is careless of whether people’s appliances will be damage or not.
They carry current without prior warning to consumers, which is uncivilized and
is therefore an act of laxity. So they often cause damage to electrical
appliances of some consumer with impunity because that agency apparent believes
that government entity cannot be sued.
For them, it comes the
prerogative of consumers to sort themselves out if their appliances are damage
from irregular supply of power – no matter the value of that appliance damaged
by the power fluctuation. This act of carelessness – LAXITY, and it becomes
customary to the operation of that entity in its relation with consumers. If the President is to mean well for the
people, this is time that this laxity be corrected through a policy that will obligate
the LEC to restituting appliances damage by b it irregular power supply.
The Liberia Water and Sewer
Corporation (LW&SC) is also one that should be focused in this discussion.
That entity does not care who gets safe-drinking water or not. The LW&SC
obliges everyone to dig a pit by their residence in the name of well for unsafe
water to residents. Why shouldn’t diarrhea and other water borne diseases be
prevalent? The Liberia Water and Sewer
Corporation does care of the consequences of not delivering on their mandate.
Its authorities instead feel by their appointment, they are untouchable and
unanswerable to the people. If a mandate of this kind should work for the
people, it carelessness of the authorities must pursued with punitive administrative
action. This is where the President is seeing at fault for not delivering this
service to the people; and so yes the appointing authority has now recognized
that NO ERROR, NO LAXITY – meaning President b Weah is ready to change course.
What’s about the appalling
inefficient public transport sector? The Ministry of Transport is indeed one of
the ministries that is causing the government the level of unpopularity it
suffers as reflected in the 2020 midterm senatorial election. What kind of
sector will have its regulatory arm but is left to run by itself? This is the extent to which public transport
sector operates leading to the gross exploitation of commuters by commercial
vehicle drivers. It its operation, it
only runs behind motorist for licenses and stickers in the name of revenue,
with no interest in the welfare of the general population. Certainly, this too
is LAXITY – I mean carelessness at its zenith. Every government is constituted
for the welfare of the people as enshrined in the constitution; and any attempt
to by the government to betray this sacred mandate is absolute carelessness, a
LAXITY that should be reprimanded also with administrative action. If I were to
suggest to the President what should happen, for this reason, I would recommend
that the authorities concern should sack at the Minister of Transport for doing
nothing to regulate transport fares at the detriment of the people. By the way,
is the Minister and his team sleeping – or decided to ignore his duty? Can’t he
see that the commercial motorists are exploiting the commuters? Is the
government comfortable with having a transport ministry that allows the public
to be exploited by bus and/or taxi drivers, tricycles or motorbikes? It is a
shame and an act of carelessness which the President refine to call LAXITY.
When the people say we are suffering, these are the services they lack,
services for which they voted the government to power.
Unfortunately, however, we have a
case of the National Transit Authority (NTA) which should have intervened to
reduce the transportation fiasco as a worst case scenario. But sits on the
fence and looks at the people suffer. All it does is to be out there for
charter trips while the government apparently and deliberately uses the buses
donated to the Liberia people by friendly countries and peoples for corporate/official
uses and highway transportation. Is this a mistake or ERROR or naked carelessness
or LAXITY?
Another concern is about running
the trade and commerce in the country by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Since 2018, this sector has degenerated to a nirvana of petty traders and The
Lebanese and Indian merchants who are even selling cool aid without Commerce
Ministry’s intervention, thereby allowing them to go about profiteering unduly
at the expense of the consuming public. Such carelessness for the welfare of
the people creates high cost of living as prices of basic commodities becomes self-regulatory
in the full view of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Professor Wilson
Tarpeh, who was initially designated apparently betrayed the purpose of that
calling, sat there until recently without doing nothing about the high cost of
living. Even the successor of Ministry Tarpeh seems to be relaxed. The core
function of that ministry, which is to regulate the cost of basic consumable
commodities, is now reduced to the issuance of press releases. There is no
longer tangible value of five dollars; 10 dollars is only good for a candy and
the cost of Living has become astronomical due to LAXITY at the Ministry. The
above constitute a semi-graphic picture of what the ordinary people go through
in addition to exorbitant school fees charged by private institution, can
this act of LAXITY continue, or will
the situation be reverse in the wake of
this presidential mandate?.
Concerning the Health and
education sectors, they too have their take of ERRORS and LAXITY. Government hospitals are the poor with no
equipment and drugs, just as the public education system lacks conducive
learning atmospheres equipped with libraries and laboratories as well as good
siting environments for learning, For the Public Hospitals are operating on the “no-drug”
syndrome while most of the public health workers operate private clinics and
mini health centers or medicine stores that are well equipped with the best of
drugs and equipment. Certainly the wave of LAXITY in the government should not
even be called ERRORS, errors being mistakes that are not always made; instead,
they should be referred to as the carelessness – LAXITY – which is prevalent in
public sector.
The “Our time mindset”
Call it LAXITY or ERROR! They
started from the onset of the CDC styled of democracy. Any democratic
government must seek to act on information, which is key to a functional
democracy. This is why the third
President of the United States of America, Thomas Jefferson says: If you asked
me about a society without press, and a press without a society, I will choose
the latter. According to Mr. Jefferson, “A
press that is free to investigate and criticize the government is absolutely
essential in a nation that practices self-government and is therefore dependent
on an educated and enlightened citizenry.” To the contrary of this famous
thought and philosophy, the CDC government’s information operatives started to
shoot problem for the young government. At as early as January 2018 when the
George Weah’s appointees started the problem saying that the Weah-led government
does not need the press to succeed. President Weah’s first Press Secretary Sam
Manneh, Deputy Minister for Public Affairs Eugene Fahngon and Jefferson Koijee
are all on record saying this government does not need the press to succeed. This
wasn’t really a laxity, it was indeed an error on their part. President
Jefferson who was a strong supporter of democracy said the newspapers too often
take advantage of their freedom and publish lies and scurrilous gossip that
could only deceive and mislead the people but Jefferson himself who suffer this
suffered greatly under the latter kind of press during his presidency was a
great believer in the ultimate triumph of truth in the free marketplace of
ideas, and looked to that for his final vindication. For a young and
inexperienced government to say it does not need the press to succeed is a
serious ERROR which the Liberian Media took advantage of to vigorously checkmate
the emerging excesses of the CDC administration from its inception. What was the result? And so the reality had
caught up with them.
Though branded the media an “Ellenic
media” that was only there for the past regimes, the independent Liberian media
landscape was attracted to the ruling party as a result of the practices of acts
of nepotism and favoritism of ruling party when it embarked on employing
unqualified people into offices where they couldn’t perform. This act therefore
burdened the system with overemployment, while some civil servants were at the
same time booted off their offices and ripped t off their duties. Again, this
euphoria of “this is our time” was a grave ERROR that have militated against
the performance of the government.
And so square pegs were put in
round holes, performance started to go bad, and the image of government began
to be obscure at home and abroad. When
the media which the CDC didn’t need to succeed started checkmating the performance
of the government, the resultant excesses along the corresponding image that
was being developed, the regime embarked on flexing muscles at journalists and radio
with threats and other arbitrary brutal actions for asking critical questions
as was in the case of BBC correspondent Jonathan Paye Lelay, political
commentator Henry Costa, the late Zenu Miller and many others. They did not stop, pro-government
personalities started to sponsor and support pseudo-independent newspapers and
radio stations that have obviously become defenders of the wrong – sorry, for
the purpose of this – call it “ERRORS AND LAXITY.”
IN THE BEGINNING…
This also speaks to the fact that
whatever errors made should not altogether be attribute to the Presidency even
though he as leader bears greater responsibility. Notwithstanding, most of the
errors are precipitated largely by carelessness on the part of appointed
officials who were designated and assigned public service duties that they do
not attend to. Even the President
himself has been a party to the error-making, by not holding his appointees
accountable and by appointing people with questionable characters with no
remorse.
The “bread and butter” issue raised
by President Weah started to showcase itself in the country when prices of
basic consumable commodities started to rise, when the transportation sector
become self-regulatory and when the money market started to embrace liquidity
problem characterized by fluctuation of the rates of the United States dollars
to the Liberian dollars in the face of acute joblessness caused by the euphoria
of “this is our time” mindset which witnessed an influx of unqualified CDCians
into civil service. I mean it started
with increase in the prices of petroleum products after the Unity Party regime,
In the midst of these stories, it
became public that a freshly printed load of batch of banknotes, at about the
value of 100 million United States dollars were reported missing. This obscured
affair started with previous Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Government which had
commission the a US Company, Crane or its Swedish subsidiary Crane Currency AB to print the controversial banknotes which
was to be delivered late 2017, the year of the Liberian election that effected
change of the system. Interestingly, the breaking of the news of the “missing
16 billion Liberian dollars” came when the Government had already announced
that it inherited a broken economy, a claimed that was rebuked by the
predecessor of President Weah, Madam Johnson-Sirleaf who said she left money in
the public coffers.
But that was not the main issue;
the issue surrounding the missing money was whether the delivery to the
government was properly done, and that which of the regimes – Sirleaf or Weah
administration – took delivery of the printed billions of Liberian dollars. Amidst
s the controversy over the “missing 16 billion” Liberian dollars, ROOM FOR ERROR was obscurely created
when the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Information, the Ministry of
Justice and the Central Bank of Liberia started to issue uncorroborated
statements concern the controversy. As though adding insult to injury, the
chairman of the ruling party, Mulbah Morlu said he saw a pickup full of money
heading towards a certain direction. These amalgamated accounts concerning the
“missing” money generated huge protestations from angry suffering Liberians. The situation was grave because when George
Weah promised “transforming the lives of all Liberians” as the “singular
mission” of his presidency when he was elected in 2017.
The international wires reported Critics saying
Liberia’s economy has worsened because of Weah government’s incompetence and
failure to address corruption. Soon when the the 53-year-old man marked two
years in office on January 22, 2019 that the poor and young voters who assured
Weah’s landslide victory discovered that the economic woes of the country have
worsened under his leadership, with critics laying the blame squarely on the
lap of the government’s incompetence and failure to tackle corruption.
PRE-WEAH STATE OF THE ECONOMY
When the Sirleaf Government was
leaving power in early 2018, the country witnessed continuous depreciation of
the Liberian dollar against the U.S. dollar. Then the local currency was traded
at a street value of LD$130.00 to US$1. In a recent analysis, a Certified
Public Account, J. Yanqui Zaza, catalogued the reasons for the depreciation of
the Liberian dollar between 2005 and 2017 by saying “The demand for the US
dollar has contributed to the decline of the value of the Liberian dollar since
2006. It declined from LD 62 to US $1
dollar in 2006, to LD 108 to US$1 in 2016, and in 2018, it is now LD$126 for
US$1. Don’t tell me that one needs to be told that the Liberia doll lost value
as much as 200 LD to 1USD. “The exchange rate decline is now been exacerbated
by the liquidity crisis.
From then up to present, many
other rooms for “ERRORS AND ROOMS FOR LAXITY” have been generated in the
governance process. As discussed
earlier, some of these include gross delay of salaries, an appalling transport
system, and high cost of living with no price control mechanism on the part of
the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and selective justice system coupled
with other societal mishaps embracing insecurity.
Yes, the Weah inherited an economy
badly hit by a collapse in global prices of rubber and iron ore which is Liberia’s
key export commodities. This is in addition to the Ebola crisis of 2014-2016 that
aggravated the economic stagnation in the country, where 83% of people live on
less than US$1.25 a day
In its January 20 report, Naymote
Partners for Democratic Development, a Liberian Civil Society group said the
president had fulfilled only seven of his 92 promises, of which five had been
completed during his first year in office. The Aljazeera online news quoted the
group, that “These include revising the national school curriculum, passing a
long-awaited land rights law and capping the salaries of senior government
officials at $7,800. Some progress was made on 38 pledges, Naymote said. On the
economic front, these included steps to reduce tariffs on basic commodities,
upgrades to key infrastructure such as roads and the introduction of loans for
small businesses.” However, Weah’s government had failed to begin work on 32
promises, the report said.
But the group reported “no
tangible actions on promises around accountability and anti-corruption,
explaining that those pledges included setting new rules to prevent public
sector graft and pursuing legal action against companies involved in
bid-rigging and other corrupt practices.
As the economy worsened with inflation hitting 30 percent and civil
servants reporting months-long delays to salary payments and health
practitioners as well as Maritime workers engage a regular course of protest
for pay, more than 10,000 people took to the streets in protest last June.
Thousands of people rallied once again in Monrovia on January 6, before being
dispersed by police using tear gas and water cannon
As a matter of fact, teargassing people for demanding their just
entitlements (salaries) is an error and delaying people from taking their pay
on time constitutes deprivation which amounts to laxity on the part of
authorities concerned. So with these trends, the people feel disappointed with a system in
which a Minister of Commerce who cannot regulate the cost of basic communities,
where there is a Transport Minister who allows commercial motorists to decide
fares for commuters, a Central Bank that has up to date failed to ensure policies that
will revive the money market, a Finance Ministry who has miserably failed to
put the economy on good footing but will rather waste US$25 million into an
oblivion in the name of mob-up exercise. In the face of the acute economic
debacle, there is laxity on the party of the economic management team to
address the liquidity problem, or at least by telling the public the amount of
legendary notes, the amount on the newly printed notes in circulation, but yet
embark on seeking approval.
A Liberian Rights Advocate, Kofi
Wood recently addressing an array of opposition politicians said “The Weah-led
government , Woods said, has deployed old and poor habits of governance,
suppression, glaring incompetence and lack of integrity since it assumed power
three years ago, adding that “we have also seen the minimum of reforms
undertaken in the past reversed or undermined.” Atty. Woods, a onetime minister
of Labor and Public Works under former president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, said
greed, wanton and pervasive corruption, injustices, violations of the
constitution, and violations of all elementary norms of human decency are
making up the record of the Weah-led government. “The CDC government
shamelessly defends against honest criticisms and justify their mistakes by
pointing to the previous government as if their measure of performance is what
they perceived as the missteps of the last government,” Woods said. “The
so-called wrongs of the last government can’t be your right. If it was wrong
then, it’s wrong now.”
CONCLUSION
Amidst the disappointment in the governance
that culminated to the wakeup call the electorates gave the CDC administration President
Weah has warned his officials that in his quest for functional democracy to
make no room for mistakes and carelessness (ERRORS and LAXITY). But before we
forget, the President needs to be serious by that statement. This seriousness
should be translated to avoiding running the government a s friendship club at
the peril of the people. Ever since the Liberian people have noticed that most
of the officials of this government have made careless mistakes which have
operated against the very government he heads, and by far damage the economy of
Liberia. Today, Samuel Twe remains the Finance Minister despite the careless
mistake of wasting perhaps into some private pockets including his taxpayers 25
million United States dollars that was
entrusted to him; Wilson Tarpeh is awarded the Environmental Protection Agency after he mismanage 30 million United States dollars
intended for stimulus package intended for vulnerable Liberians who need
support in the wake of the outbreak of the Corona Virus; Nbudisi Nwabudiki is
still swinging his hands after he criminally stolen Liberian Nationality – sitting
at the LACC, etc. A successful leadership must endeavor to always lead by example.
If there should be no more error and laxity, Samuel Wulu and the Minister of Commerce
must begin to regulate the fares of transportation for commuters, the Water
& Sewer Corporation must get to work to supply save drinking water to the
people, and the Liberia Electricity should be made efficient. It is because of
these laxities in the government that the Weah administration during the
by-elections of 2018 and the Midterm Senatorial election of 2020 the people voted
against the CDC which obviously provokes the warning giving by President Weah
to executive officials.
