Liberia CONTINUES
job creators. We are very focused on this
agenda for transformation these five years,
to ensure that Liberia achieves those goals
that we have set forth.
In concrete terms, what does that focus
mean?
We have done a lot on developing
infrastructure. Through bilateral and
multilateral arrangements - World Bank,
African Development Bank, development
funds like the Kuwait Fund, the European
Commission, Germany, Norway and all
of those - we’ve mobilized substantial
development in the area of power, for
example. Plans are now being executed
for the restoration of our hydro [watergenerated electricity]. With the support
of Norway, Japan, World Bank, Kuwait, we
are going to be having an additional 38
megawatts of power that will serve as an
interim until the hydro comes on stream.
So we’ve made a lot of progress, but it’s not
going to be enough.
We have four major mining companies
that have investment in our starting
operations. They’re going to require a
significant amount of power. We have
two major agriculture concessions - from
Malaysia and Indonesia - that are now well
advanced in their planting. They’re going
to require power, because in all of these
we’re looking for value-added. The road
sector is the same thing. We are committed
to build all the primary roads and connect
them to the different [county] capital
cities. We’ve got a long way to go but are
well underway toward the completion of
some of those.
Yet I can tell you, our own estimates show
that to meet all of our infrastructure needs
in the next five years will take $3 billion,
which, of course, Liberia doesn’t have
out of its own resources. So we continue
to work with our partners to mobilize as
much of that as we can to get our ports
functioning, our power functioning, roads
built.Until we do that, we’ll not add value
to our very vast natural resources where
the jobs come from.
What does it mean to be part of the
Power Africa initiative announced by
President Barak Obama in June?
We are pleased that Liberia was included.
This has to be an ongoing operation with a
U.S. company. That we don’t have, but we
have good prospects and are talking to one
or two American companies that could be
working with us to start some operations
that might enable us to qualify.
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Are you satisfied with what you’ve been
able to accomplish against corruption
during seven years in office?
I’m satisfied that we’ve made progress. We’ve
made correction a topical issue. We’ve moved
it from under the table and under the rug
to where it becomes an issue that everyone
discusses and where disclosure takes place
regularly. We have put in place institutions of
integrity, such as an extractive transparency
initiative and new public procurement laws.
The freedom of information act, the whistle
blower’s act, promote an open society, where
everybody can report. On a sustained basis,
corruption is being combated.
We still have a problem with our judicial
system - the punishment part of tackling
corruption. We have dismissed people
or fired people and sent people for
prosecution, but the process is too slow. We
need a fast action court that will render
judgment quickly and set an example as a
deterrent. We’re still working on that.
We’ve talked about economic indicators.
What about social progress that
you’ve been able to record in the last
seven years--health and education in
particular?
Even in those areas, we’ve made quite a
bit of progress. Our school enrollment has
increased, particularly the enrollment
of girls. Throughout the country, we’ve
built new schools, renovated schools,
built hospitals and clinics. The issue now
becomes the paucity of trained people.
We’re training nurses, we have reactivated
our rural teacher training institutes, and
they’re putting out hundreds of graduates
every year, but they are not enough. For
the enrollment we have, over 1.2 million
kids in school, we don’t have enough good
qualified teachers, and we don’t have
enough materials in the schools. So we are
grateful that Peace Corps has come back,
and they’re doing a great job with some
of our rural teacher training institutes,
but they’re not enough. The progress from
whence we’ve come to where we are today
is tremendous. But the challenges are
still enormous, because we’ve got a much
longer way to go.
This is a principal legacy of years of
conflict and war, isn’t it? You lost a
generation, at least, in terms of education.
Absolutely, there’s no doubt about it. The
Liberian experience is clearly that it’s so
easy to destroy but it takes so much longer
time to build.
How does international media coverage
of Liberia square with what you see as
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