The MCC has its own rigid requirements and does due diligence before a decision is made on compact eligibility.

The MCC established a four-step process to select countries for aid: 1. Identify candidate countries through assessment, 2. Publish selection criteria and methodology and accept public comments, 3. Issue candidate country Scorecards and 4. Select countries eligible for MCC assistance.

Therefore, the MCC selection process is thorough and transparent. Also, as Liberia is now compact eligible, the government is required to prepare a succinct policy and project-needs assessment document that will determine how much the country will eventually receive under the MCC Compact. This is not just a free hand-out of money from the US government that goes unmonitored. Unfortunately, this seems to be the type of language being put out there by some members of the Fourth Estate. The Liberian press has a responsibility to educate the public in a balanced and non-political way. After all, every Liberian in spite of political leaning, should be proud that their country has qualified for MCC compact. There are several other African countries which have yet to qualify including Nigeria despite its vast resources. This shows that many Liberians who blindly criticize the government are uninformed of the many late night hours being invested by some professionals at the various ministries and agencies; particularly the economic planning, finance, national investment, health and social welfare, and the central bank entities. It takes a lot of work to meet the policy and operational targets set forth by multilateral development agencies. In fact, many Liberians do not even know that the government had to first qualify for the Threshold category of the MCC and show improvement over several months before recently qualifying for MCC Compact assistance. Liberia’s foreign assistance is being widely monitored by the donor community something that we should learn to appreciate. The USAID is fully operational in Liberia and very actively involved in monitoring its foreign assistance. The United Nations agencies including the World Bank have offices in Liberia and are continuously monitoring foreign assistance. The IMF sends in mission teams periodically to assess the fiscal and monetary policies of the government and reviews the impact of their technical and financial assistance to the Liberian government. Even the African Development Bank has praised the government for is application of foreign assistance received by the country which has led to further concessional lending by that bank. The budget process in Liberia is very transparent and one of the more open budget processes in Africa. Even where there are deviations from budget targets as when the Liberian legislature chose to increase their salaries before passing the budget. At least the process was transparent and the public was duly informed of this unpopular act by the legislators. However, it is Liberian voters who must learn more about how their legislators vote on issues so that they can hold them to account on election day. Recently, there has been the blanket accusation that Liberian government officials are buying homes in the United States. However, the full facts are left out of these accusations. It is a fact that several professional Liberians who returned home from the United States to join the Sirleaf government were already homeowners in the US prior to returning. Moreover, a good number were recruited under internationally- administered knowledge transfer arrangements which pays them competitively for abandoning their professional jobs abroad to provide expertise at home. It is a known fact that Liberia lacks trained human capital due in part to a brain drain which brought on by the civil war. The Snow Foundation, the UNDP, World Bank, Open Society foundation, the Carter Center, etc have all provided assistance toward paying competitive salaries to qualify Liberians to return home and assist. Unfortunately, many Liberian critics at home and abroad are not aware and assume that their well earned salaries are due to corrupt practices. In addition, a good number of the professional returnees have their spouses still working in the United States or have their children working in the US as well providing them with family income levels which are exponentially higher than the average Liberian wage earner. Therefore, to assume that a Liberian government official has a home and family in the US when he was recruited from the United States in the first place is just playing "sour grapes". This is the mindset of mere jealousy and a personal disdain for Liberian-American professional returnees who are maintaining roots in the US while trying to offer professional assistance to their country. Liberia has made major strides since 2006 and has done a lot to meet the indicators set by the Milliennium Challenge Corporation to qualify for compact assistance. Today, unlike in the 1980s when the issue of corruption was placed under the rug and not discussed; corruption is a hot button issue. The country has an independent auditing agency for the first time. It has an anti-corruption commission for the first time. It was also the first West African country to be compliant under the International Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative and it has a code of conduct bill which has been lingering before the legislature for passage. Critics should be advocating that their legislators pass the Code of Conduct Bill. Thereafter, they should advocate that the Ministry of Justice puts in place the systems to implement the bill after it is passed. Rather than exhibiting “sour grapes” expressed on the internet day in and day out, Liberian critics need to learn how to organize themselves in a free society that is widely tolerant of ideas. It is difficult being an effective critic for change when you don’t have adequate laws to support action for change. A good example is the issue of nepotism which has been a hot button issue targeting only the president’s appointment of her son. She has challenged the public to show that he is not qualified for being Chairman at the oil policy and regulating agency NOCAL. However, less talked about cases of nepotism where the culprits are less qualified is widespread in society. Worse, there is no explicit law against the practice in the Liberian Constitution making it another legislative issue that requires advocacy at the grassroots. Armchair internet criticism will not bring about change. Liberia is a different, more open and tolerant country and it requires political advocacy on the grassroots level to move public sentiment and votes. Today, there is widespread press freedom and tolerance of government criticism. Liberia has had two consecutive democratic elections and the country is making long-term vision plans for economic and social development that would uplift a large portion of the population out of poverty. These are trends that we should be embracing and providing our own voices toward improving the performance of government.