100 DAYS OF FAILURE: SUFFERING, BRUTALITY, LIES, POOR PERFORMANCE, CORRUPTION, DECEPTION AND DIVISION
INTRODUCTION
On November 21, 2023, immediately after being announced winner of the presidential election, Mr. Joseph N. Boakai, while granting an exclusive interview to journalists had these words to say, “My first hundred days deliverables, we will quickly review and find reasons for the hardship in the areas that are essential to the livelihood of Liberians. If the price of rice is high, it will be reduced. I have also said that in my first hundred days, no car will get stuck in the mud on a major road. And I mean that”.
These audacious and ambitions assertions aforementioned would herald what will later be articulated in President Boakai’s Inaugural and first State of the Nation’s Addresses as his government “First Hundred Days Deliverables”! To articulate this policy announcement by President Boakai in a more precise policy framework perspective, the Unity Party-led government through the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning ( MFDP) rolled out a policy framework document called “First Hundred Days Action Plans which the government herself in said document stated it had appropriated US $ 23, 488, 543.00 to be used to make sectoral interventions that will improve the living conditions of Liberians during the government’s first hundred days in power.
FINDINGS
With the expiration of the Unity Party-led government much talked about first “Hundred Days Action Plans”, the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) has carefully evaluated and appraised the government’s performance during these hundred days using the Unity Party-led government own published hundred days action plans document and has drawn comparative analysis from the targets in the document to the outcomes and realities of the day after the hundred days have ended.
Not only do the statistics and indicators we have calculated bring us to a conscious conclusion that the Unity Party’s first Hundred Days Action Plans ended up as a FIASCO AND COLLOSSAL FAILURE MARRED BY LIES, POOR PERFORMANCE, DECEPTION AND DIVISION, but the stubborn realities of the current socio-economic conditions of Liberians speak a louder volume.
The government was only able to achieve a dismal 0.0035%, far below 1% of its hundred day’s projects and programs objectives it said it would have funded using US $ 23,488,543.00 of taxpayers ’monies. Additionally, of the government 67 routine targets for the hundred days, appallingly, the government only achieved 12, representing 18%, the government failed to achieve 38 of those targets, representing 58% not achieved, while 17 of those projects remain incomplete, representing 24%. This assessment does not consider the projects and targets the government said its partners would implement.
Besides this statistical evidence above, the evidence of the obvious colossal failure of these overambitious plans are evident in the street and every corners of the country. As we release these assessments, the price of a 25kg of rice is LD$300 more than what it was before the Unity Party’s first hundred days, likewise, the cost of a dollar GSM card and voice and data bundles have also increased. The Price of gasoline sold on the streets as of May 1, 2024 is $1000.00LD a prohibitive cost so unbearable and more that LD $ 200 of what it was before the hundred days.
Police and para-military brutalities are becoming increasingly rampant while unexplained deaths continue to swell throughout the country just within the period of UP hundred days. The sad stories of fire incidents and their disastrous outcomes remain unattended to by the government, the worst insensitivity any government would render its people. The “No Car would Get Stuck On A Major Road” policy statement ended up as a BIG LIE told as there are several pictorial and documented evidence of cars getting stuck on major highways. Regrettably, after hundred days, the government only celebrate few miles of grated roads that would soon lie in ruins due to the imminent rainy season.
After the much talked about hundred days, the streets of Monrovia and its environs remain filthy as dirt and sewage are making untidy heaps. Witch-hunting and arbitrary dismissals are the order of the day while corruption sits at the seat of the Ministry of State for presidential Affairs, the Ministry that manages the President, but yet the president calls out Liberians as beggars while on a fruitless tour.
These outcomes are not surprising because they clearly show what we obviously anticipated of a Unity Party led government that has come to further divide Liberians rather than uniting them. The Coalition for Democratic Change and its political allies will relentlessly engage this failed Unity Party-led government to ensure our hard fought peace is sustained and their diabolical lies and plans are exposed.
