ALL SET AND done, the Sirleaf Administration is moving mountains and breaking down vicious economic barriers to make way for Liberia’s bigger socio-security agendas: peace, reconciliation, and stability. It is tackling head on Liberia’s long-term governance virus, corruption, and the world’s governance rating radar is not missing the action. It is taking loud notes, rating the initial gains as world class and there seems no reason to us why well-meaning Liberians can not hail the Sirleaf Administration’s efforts and bid it “Bravo, keep up the momentum!” Here’s why we think that is necessary.
A RECENT STATISTICAL data released by the Worldwide Governance Indicators Institute (WGI) said at the current rate, Liberia has shown the largest improvement of any country in the world in controlling corruption. From a dismal low of 190th out of 206 countries ranked according to demonstrable standing in the fight against corruption in the public and private sectors in 2004, Liberia by 2007 rose dramatically to the 113th place out of the same number of countries. This, according to WGI, translates into something close to 45% globally in corruption control and the regeneration of fiscal management and discipline that involve accountability, transparency, and commitment to budget controlled spending.
HONESTLY IT IS true that there very little we can boast of as a country in terms of the appropriate and equitable redistribution of the nation’s resources in as much as unemployment stands at an unofficial 85%, poverty is widespread, and poverty-related vices such as armed robbery is subtracting dearly from the nation’s social and business life. But the argument does not end here, for the existence of adversity does not prove the absence of efforts to promote peace and harmony and improve the standard of living. It only shows that the proper modalities have either not been discovered, or have not been put in place. No Liberian disagrees that corruption is the next thing to lingering insecurity in post-war Liberia that is considered a thorny obstacle to rapid national recovery. Liberians therefore cannot wait to obliterate corruption through tough government policies, legal prosecution, and individual or group efforts. But the fact is that how ever they had hoped against hope, pointed fingers and real and imagined culprits, and decried the “worst suspect”, nothing had changed. Nothing had, even though for more than a century corruption was said to be public enemy number one.
TOLBERT DREW A dagger against it in the mid-1970s, and Doe publicly flogged a finance official on corruption suspicion in the late 1980s – all in vain. And not surprisingly by early 2000, Taylor began using corruption as trade-off for loyalty at the time insurgents were rocking him out of the throne. In vain contrast, Gyude Bryant declared a “Zero Tolerance for Corruption” in 2003 and then ducked when corruption reared up in its full regalia. The incidence of corruption was such that by December 2005, Liberia lied at the bottom of the anti-corruption rankings of the World Bank Institute. But that picture has changed dramatically, surprising statisticians and making Liberia the world’s most zero-tolerant post-conflict nation. Corruption has indeed been pervious to change strategies in the past.
BUT AS THE WGI statistics indicted, that downward slide has been reversed, thanks largely to the Sirleaf Administration’s enactment of a new procurement law, the establishment the new Public Procurement and Concessions Commission (PPCC), and the utilization of a Cash Management Committee to ensure greater honesty in budget spending as contributing factors. Thanks also to the establishment of the GEMAP program with key partners, the renegotiation of concession contracts, the guarded holding of government officials more accountable for their actions, and the current legislative efforts to establish an Anti-Corruption Commission, among many other factors.
THE WGI STATEMENT commending the government’s efforts in corruption control did more than making us proud for the first time in the direction our country is taking in post-war recovery – it has prompted us to begin to look closely and critically at what the government is doing with the aim of informing and educating the Liberian people more aggressively. It has indicated to us that conditions in the country may bear faint resemblance to those that existed before and during the war, but that viewed from outside and put into perspective, Liberia has discovered its humanity and the government is genuinely dedicated to improving conditions in the country, beginning with the legal prosecution of individuals caught or suspected of engaging in corruption.
THERE CAN BE nothing that is more inspiring and that brings hope to over-hoped Liberia and we join the WGI to commend the Sirleaf Administration for its cutting-edge strategies in minimizing corruption. Bravo, Madam President. We bid you keep up the momentum.
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