28 January 2008
document
ANNUAL MESSAGE To the Third Session of the 52nd National Legislature of the Republic of Liberia By Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf President of the Republic of Liberia Capitol Hill, Monrovia - Monday, 28th January 2008
Mr. Vice President;
Mr. Speaker, Mr. President Pro Tempore;
Honorable Members of the Legislature;
Mr. Chief Justice, Associate Justices of the Supreme Court and Members of the Judiciary;
Members of the Cabinet and other Government Officials;
Mr. Doyen, Excellencies and Members of the Diplomatic Corps;
Her Excellency the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in Liberia;
Officers and Staff of the United Nations Mission in Liberia;
The Chief-Of-Staff, Men and Women of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL);
Former Government Officials;
Traditional Leaders, Chiefs and Elders;
Political and Business Leaders;
Labour and Trade Unions;
Youth and Student Organizations;
Civil Society Organizations; Members of the Press;
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen;
Fellow Liberians:
INTRODUCTION
In obedience to the Constitution of our Republic, I have the honour for the third time to report to you on the affairs of our nation. First, in homage to the Almighty God by whose Supreme Will we are guided, I ask that you join me in observing a moment of silence. We do so also to the memory of the cherished Liberian leaders and other citizens who have passed to the great beyond.
Honourable Members of the Legislature, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow Liberians. We said last year that we could not bring quick fixes to the monumental problems that we inherited, and we did not promise that we would. We expected therefore that during the year 2007 our tasks would be difficult and our challenges demanding. Nevertheless, we can now say to you with confidence that Liberia's recovery is fully underway. The economy is expanding with growth accelerating to over 9 percent last year. Roads and buildings are being rebuilt; hospitals, clinics and schools are reopening and agriculture production is on the rebound. The Government is introducing a broad set of policies to foster peace, accelerate reconstruction and development and build strong systems of governance. There is still a long way to go but there can be no doubt that Liberia has launched its recovery and is poised for rapid, inclusive and sustainable development in the years to come.
LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
Honorable Legislators, we are grateful to your Honourable Body for the passage of several pieces of Legislations and instruments of ratification during the past year. Notably among these are the Telecommunications Act, the Census Act, the Governance Commission Act, and amendment of Section 1508 of Chapter 16 of the Labor Practices Law which aims at ameliorating disputes between employees and employers.
We also thank you for ratification of the Oil Production Sharing Contracts between the Oranto and Broadway companies of Nigeria and the United Kingdom respectively. Our Administration issued only two Executive Orders during the period under review: Executive Order #8 to extend the mandate of the National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration and Rehabilitation; and Executive Order #10 which revised Executive Order #9 to extend the suspension of the protective tariff on cement.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. President Pro Tempore, we applaud the leadership that you brought to this legislative effort and I want to acknowledge the special diligence of the Vice President, Honorable Joseph N. Boakai as, President of the Senate. He has been a competent Assistant taking from my shoulders, onto his own, responsibilities for investment promotion, international representation and resolution of institutional disputes.
Mr. Vice President, I thank you for your loyalty and exceptional support.
Honourable Legislators, we solicit your continued support and consideration of those draft Legislation still pending before you some of which have important implications for the final resolution of our debt problem, for the achievement of our goals of national renewal and for the safety of our people. These include the Anti Corruption Commission Act, the Code of Conduct Act, the Acts Amending the Investment Incentive and Revenue Codes and the Act to Amend the Penal Law. Also pending before your Honorable Body are the Acts to Amend the Comium Concession and the Act Establishing the Veterans Bureau as well as Acts to limit the ability to transfer between budget lines; and to merge the Bureau of the Budget into the Ministry of Finance.
For this third Session of the Fifty-Second National Legislature, we will be submitting for your enactment several proposed Legislation intended to consolidate the progress and meet the challenges under our four pillars of nation building. These will include: the revised National Defense Act; the Security Sector Reform Act; the Act to Amend Certain Sections of the Act Establishing the Independent National Commission on Human Rights (INCHR) and an Act to Create and Establish the Liberia Airport Authority.
And although it has now emerged that our Petroleum Law does not require the ratification of Production Sharing contracts, in as much as we had submitted the first two for your approval, we will now also ask you to consider and ratify the Oil Production Sharing Contracts between our National Oil Company and other exploration companies including Repsol of Spain, Woodside of Australia and Regal of the United Kingdom.
Additionally, we expect to submit for your ratification Amendments to the Firestone, Liberia Agriculture Company and other Agriculture concessions agreements and Concession Agreements for the Iron Ore deposits in the Western Cluster and the Bong Mines operation. In this respect, Honourable Legislators, I am pleased to report that after a vigorous and professional exercise involving the work of seven Government entities, the Delta Mining Consolidated Ltd. of South Africa has won the bid for the Western Cluster with an indicated potential investment of US$1.6 billion. The process now moves to the next stage of validation that will undertake due diligence of all the major bidders to determine their capacity to make the stated investment in full and on time. The Inter-Ministerial Group has now started the process of bid evaluation for Bong Mines. In addition to this new development, we are pleased to note that during the past year, Arcelor Mittal increased its investment from US$1 billion to US$1.5 billion.
Mr. Speaker, Honourable Legislators, let me now report on the state of the nation, the progress which we have made and the challenges which we face under the four pillars of our development framework.
PEACE AND SECURITY
Under the peace and security pillar, within the context of our Security Sector Reform, one thousand and one hundred men and women have completed the basic training to become the first core elements of our target two thousand persons new Armed Forces of Liberia. We have nominated to the Honourable Senate sixteen persons to be commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants, the first group of Officers for the Army. We believe, Honourable Legislators, that you will be proud of these gallant men and women when they are presented to us on February 11, Armed Forces Day.
The training of the Army will continue for the remaining nine hundred and officers training will continue with key support from the United States supplemented in specific areas by support from our sisterly Republics of Nigeria, Ghana and Benin. Additionally, today two hundred of our soldiers are in training at the Nigeria Command Army Staff College.
In this connection, I would like to pay particular tribute to our sister state Nigeria which has provided the leadership for our Army until our own new men and women are prepared. We commend General Luka Yusuf who served as the first Army Chief of Staff and who has returned home to take up the position of Chief of Army Staff, and we commend equally his successor, General Suraj Abdurrahman.
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