By: H. Richard Fallah
RHODE, ISLAND, USA: As the Economy of Liberia continues to remain a disappointment to many of its citizens in recent years, President-Elect, Joseph Nyuma Boakai, has promised to make the case for a productive economy under his administration.
“I want to make the case for a productive economy,” he said.
Addressing Diaspora Liberians Saturday, December 16, 2023, on the occasion of the Formal Welcoming Program by the JNB Movement, New England Chapter, and the Liberian communities in the northeast, in Rhode Island, U.S.A, President-elect Boakai noted that Liberia, as a mainly agrarian country, must leverage its comparative advantage in agriculture to increase its economic output.
He highlighted the need to address the crisis of governance by promoting inclusivity and popular participation in the decision-making process of the country.
According to him, power of government must come from the people, whose unfettered participation in the democratic process always establishes the legitimacy that ensures political stability and social cohesion.
Ambassador Boakai opined that the nature and structure of Liberia`s economy have promoted so much inequality and partly caused some of the social tensions and strains in society that have led to conflicts.
“We must rethink how concession and enclave should work for our people across the entire value chain with deliberate decisions on value addition over raw extraction,” maintained.
Former Vice President Boakai asserted that natural resource exploitations must not only bring growth but that it must equally come with development in that, income is plowed back into the delivery of social services and other public goods.
Boakai who is also former Minister of Agriculture, explained that with sixty percent of the population made of youth and therefore it’s most productive cohort, and more than fifty percent of those working in the agriculture sector being women, his leadership will ensure the critical investment needed in agriculture for agro-based production.
“Our society has historically and unreasonably been bedeviled by inequality with the majority below the poverty line and at the lowest rungs of the social ladder,” JNB noted.
According to him, historical structural barriers have not only made it difficult, especially, for those in the interior of the country to access social services, they have curtailed their ability to earn and sustain respectable livelihoods.
Boakai: “These have created fault lines along wealth, class, ethnicity, and many more fractures that are the seeds of conflict. We may not remove these historical barriers overnight, but I believe we can manage them by empowering the people and providing opportunities and access to services.”
He further asserted that there are other social concerns such as the lack of respect for one another, dishonesty, hate messages, and the culture of impunity, something he assured the Diaspora Liberians, will become things of the past.
“I have outlined all these because I see them as some of the recurrent and most critical problems facing the country that will certainly confront the incoming government,” he mentioned.
President-elect Boakai, at the same time, promised that he and his team will explore the means available to address these problems including the drug epidemic and health and sanitation challenges. He noted that it is important to establish but stressed that they cannot do it alone as a government.
“Certainly, the results of interventions will not be immediately evident in some of the cases, this is why the Diaspora community would be a crucial partner in developing our country; let me throw the challenge out to you,” he stated.
According to him, the importance of the Liberian Diaspora in the political, economic and social development cannot be overemphasized, recalling that 2022 International Organization of Migration estimates which puts Liberians living abroad at about 500,000 with an estimated 100,000 living in the United States alone.
President-elect Boakai mentioned that with those living abroad equaling about 10 percent of the Liberian population, direct and indirect engagement with the country will have a contributing impact on the development of the country.
“We are aware of how much financial remittance from you to your families and friends in Liberia have created social safety nets and closed gaps in the provision of social services by the government,” he continued.
JNB: “Your remittances have not only provided means for people back home to feed themselves, provide housing, health care, and education, but they have also contributed substantially to the economy in many ways.”
He told Diasporas Liberians that their expertise and networks in the Diaspora have also contributed in meaningful ways to the development of private ventures in the larger economy.
The former Vice President and now President-elect of Liberia, further announced that the Liberian Diasporas will be nurtured and cultivated as a serious partner in implementing his government`s development agenda.
“Similarly, I am in this public manner proposing a yearly conference on Diaspora engagement to help facilitate Liberia’s contribution to the community in the development of the homeland,” he said.
Ambassador Boakai: “Fellow Liberians, ladies and gentlemen: we have an opportunity to change the course of our country. As I have always said, our country holds so much promise, and it is up to us as a generation to seize it and transform our country for all to have a fair chance of a better livelihood.”
He cautioned Liberians that the elections have gone away, it is time to do the hard work.
Boakai asked all Liberians at home and in the Diaspora to join him, as he leads in the fashion of a servant leader to help build the country together and promote a functional and equitable society for generations to come.
“It will not be an easy road, but God above all, we will work together to change and transform our country,” he noted.
Meanwhile, the Liberian president-elect, mentioned that achieving a democratic outcome in the manner and form that it was done was “not a walk in the park” or “a Sunday school picnic”.
“It has its problems and challenges and it can be a messy business,” he averred.
According to him, he has been involved in some of the toughest election campaigns in the last four presidential election cycles, and has been stretched physically, financially, mentally, and emotionally; and also, been hit personally by a barrage of falsehoods.
“While I am blessed to have the most loving wife, Mrs. Kartumu Boakai and a loving family that have agreed to join me through this crucible, I have come to realize that it is the people of Liberia that matter most,” he said.
He noted that it was on the giant shoulders of Liberians that he and his team were able to stand to see the common good and beyond the narrow interests and the insular political culture.
According to President-elect, it is their unwavering resolve to choose their leaders freely and make their voices heard that will continue to make these globally heralded transitions in Liberia -especially the 2023 elections a thing to admire about the democratic credentials the country is now enjoying.
He said, if this past campaign should make Liberia strong and help prepare the country for the tasks ahead, it would largely be on account of how the people of Liberia have rallied around us in a historic fashion for the change they want, and I must say, the Liberian Diaspora community has been an integral and crucial partner in all this.
He used the occasion to express appreciation and deepest gratitude to the Liberian community in Rhode Island and to all Liberian communities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean and many more for joining hands with Liberians in the motherland in creating a `spontaneous people’s movement.
`
“I would, therefore, like to take this time to thank you for your financial and material donations, your expertise, your media outreach, your activism, and your critical voices that created awareness and popularized our message of change transformation, and message of rescue,’ he indicated.
According to him, the history of the struggle for democracy and transformation in Liberia has always had a link to the work of Diaspora communities, their organizations, and associations that have worked tirelessly to address some of the vexing issues confronting our country.
He believes that the Diasporas Liberians invested in the election process because they wanted a change in the political, social, economic, and material conditions that occasioned the steady stream of emigration, particularly in the last thirty years.
