Photo: Boakai Fofana/ allAfrica.com The Government of Liberia (GOL) is eligible to receive a new and larger funding package from the United States Government under its Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact, Liberia's Finance Minister, Amara Konneh, has disclosed.
The MCC is an independent U.S. foreign aid agency that is helping to lead the fight against global poverty.
Created by the United States Congress in January 2004 with strong bi-partisan support, the MCC is changing the conversation on how best to deliver smart U.S. foreign assistance by focusing on good policies, country ownership and results.
According to Minister Konneh, Liberia passed 10 indicators out of 20 in order to be qualified for the grant. He said the qualification of Liberia for the MCC funding is due to government's efforts to strengthen and enhance policies to better the lives of its citizens.
He made the disclosure on Thursday, December 20, 2012 at the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism (MICAT) regular press briefing held at the Charles Gbenyon Press Hall in Monrovia. Speaking further, the Liberia's Finance Minister stated that the grant from the United States government would help support the Liberia Rising 2030 Vision.
The Vision 2030 document was recently adopted in Gbarnga, Bong County. Among other things, the Liberia Rising Vision 2030 is primarily aimed at national renewal and the overall process of post-war reconstruction and development of the country. He furthered that the grant would also contribute to the Liberian Government's five-year Agenda for Transformation Plan. But he did not state the monetary value of the grant.
Under the Liberian Government first three-year threshold program, Minister Konneh recalled that the US provided US$15M for Liberia to make critical reforms in several sectors. Minister Konneh named some of the sectors as: increase in girls' primary education, improvement in land rights, and modernizing custom practices, amongst others.
"I am very excited today to announce Liberia's eligibility to receive a new and larger funding package from the U.S. government for our development purpose through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) which is the United States institution dedicated to help developing countries meet the millennium challenge goals. Base upon our eligibility, Liberia now stands to receive a substantial grant to support our recently launched Liberia Rising 2030 vision," he emphasized.
The government official continued: " As a result of the support we received from our American partners under the Threshold Program a segment of our female students now have access to education through the Girls Opportunity to Access Learning (GOAL) initiative which was rolled out in Bong, Lofa and Grand Bassa counties. The threshold funding did not only support our policy reform in education but it also directly empowers communities in the targeted counties to build and rehabilitate their own schools to make them girl-friendly. We now have a stronger understanding of land issues. We are now in the second year of the Threshold Program."
At the same time, Minister disclosed that a Land Governance Framework would be established in the country very shortly in order to support government in addressing 'contentious issues' surrounding land ownership in Liberia. According to him, the level of progress being made by the Liberian government has encouraged the U.S. government to renew its support to the Liberia's development through the MCC.
With the latest qualification of Liberia, the Finance Ministry boss stated that the country now has a huge task to develop what he called "comprehensive programs" for the compact implementation that would focus on the needs of the country. Also speaking, United States Ambassador accredited to Liberia, Madam Deborah Malac, said the eligibility of Liberia for the MCC funding is a 'very important step for government and the entire country.'
She disclosed that Liberia is amongst a very few countries that have been selected for the funding. She pointed out that the decision to qualify Liberia and other countries was taken by the Board of Directors of the MCC at a quarterly meeting on Wednesday, December 19, 2012.
Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, Morocco and Tanzania have all been selected to benefit from the MCC grant.
Madam Malac stated that the countries have reached the benchmark set aside by the MCC to benefit from the funding. For a country to benefit from the compact funding, the MCC of the United States Government takes into consideration good governance, economic freedom and investments in citizens, amongst others, she added.
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The US through MCC should not give a penny to Liberia for development unless the Ellen government can account for the US $500 million dollars budget for 2012-2013. If MCC gives money to Liberia, Americans must send their people to manage and administer such projects. Liberian govt. officials are buying homes in America with stolen Liberian money. Some could not afford to pay their rents in America until they joined the "come help yourself government of President Sirleaf" in Liberia. Some have bought homes and are renting them in America, and their wives and children are doing well with corrupt funds transfer from Liberia.
The MCC has its own rigid eligibility requirements and does its own due diligence before a decision is made on compact qualification. There is a four-step selection process
The MCC established a four-step process to select countries for aid: 1. Identify candidate countries through assessment. 2. Publish selection criteria and methodology 3. Issue candidate country Scorecards. 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 will now have to prepare a succinct policy and project-needs assessment document to determine how much the country will eventually receive under MCC Compact. This is not just a free hand-out of money from the US government that seems to be type of language being put out in the Liberian press. The domestic press has a responsibility to educate the Liberian public in a balanced and non-political way. After all, Liberians should be proud that their country has qualified for MCC compact amongst the many other African countries which have yet to qualify including that of Nigeria. This shows that many Liberians who blindly criticize the government are uninformed of the many late night hours being invested by 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 and benefits before passage; at least the process was transparent and the public was duly informed of this unpopular act. Liberian voters will just have to learn more about how their legislators vote on issues and hold them to account on election day. Moreover, the blanket accusation that Liberian government officials are buying homes in the United States has been made recently by some Liberians. However, the full facts are left out of these accusations. It is a fact that several professional Liberians who returned home to join the Sirleaf government were already homeowners in the United States prior to returning home. Moreover, a good number were recruited competitively under internationally administered knowledge transfer arrangements that pays them well for returning home and providing professional expertise. Liberia lacks trained and educated human capital and a brain drain occurred during the civil war. The Snow Foundation, the UNDP, World Bank, Open Society foundation, the Carter Foundation, 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.
The MCC has its own rigid eligibility requirements and does its own due diligence before a decision is made on compact qualification. There is a four-step selection process
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 will now have to prepare a succinct policy and project-needs assessment document to determine how much the country will eventually receive under MCC Compact. This is not just a free hand-out of money from the US government which seems to be the type of language being put out there by some members of the Liberian press. The domestic press has a responsibility to educate the Liberian public in a balanced and non-political way. After all, Liberians should be proud that their country has qualified for MCC compact amongst the many other African countries which have yet to qualify including that of Nigeria. This shows that many Liberians who blindly criticize the government are uninformed of the many late night hours being invested by 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 and benefits before passage; at least the process was transparent and the public was duly informed of this unpopular act. Liberian voters will just have to learn more about how their legislators vote on issues and hold them to account on election day. Moreover, the blanket accusation that Liberian government officials are buying homes in the United States has been made recently by some Liberians. However, the full facts are left out of these accusations. It is a fact that several professional Liberians who returned home to join the Sirleaf government were already homeowners in the United States prior to returning home. Moreover, a good number were recruited competitively under internationally administered knowledge transfer arrangements that pays them well for returning home and providing professional expertise. Liberia lacks trained and educated human capital and a brain drain occurred during the civil war. The Snow Foundation, the UNDP, World Bank, Open Society foundation, the Carter Foundation, 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.
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