Liberia — There is no telling who is right in the raging argument in Liberia about the present status of Liberia's economic recovery and reconstruction.

For critics and most rank-and-file Liberians, the government is yet to show what it has done with the millions of United States dollars it budgeted and expended yearly since 2006. For government insiders and liberal, sympathetic observers, the administration has achieved much more than allowable under the current level of economic recovery and global realities. The deadlock is slowly turning into a roadblock to growth and peace. But for the National Chairman of the ruling Unity Party, who is also the national orator of the July 26, 2013 Independence Celebration, the Sirleaf Administration could remove the deadlock and build bridges to peace by simply undertaking projects and programs that impact immediately upon the lives of ordinary Liberians. The Analysts has been skimming his Independence Day address.

Unity Party (UP) National Chairman and 2013 National Independence Day Orator, Cllr. Varney Sherman, says while the Sirleaf Administration's recovery record is spotless, the administration can unite the country and win the hearts of ordinary Liberians in no time by undertaking projects vital to their daily lives.

He said this was not to say that the administration did not tailor to the needs of the Liberian people the projects and programs it undertook across the country, thus far. It is to emphasize that the nation's economic agenda needs review to consider an immediate-to-long-term and community-to-national approaches to reconstruction and development.

The UP national chair, formerly the standard-bearer of the defunct Liberia Action Party (LAP), congratulated the Sirleaf Administration for lifting Liberia from the ashes of war and discontent onto the platform of recovery and dialogue for peace, reconciliation, progress.

But the tough-talking chairman said there was much more to peace and reconstruction than long-term planning and worming into the heart of the comity of nations. There was the ubiquitous question of why Liberians destroyed their nation in the first place and what they can do not only to avoid going back to war but going forward at an affordable pace.

It was this question - especially that which regards the transformation of Liberia - he said, that the celebration of this year's Independence Day raised within the minds of public officials and Liberians who face daily the pinch of the failure or inadequacy of well-intended and well-crafted public projects and programs.

“There's only through well-defined vision, rich with courage to take decisions and boldness to implement those decisions can Liberia be transformed to a safer and better place. For today's Liberia, Independence Day cannot merely be a day of remembrance and celebration,” he said.

The extremes and reaches of the Liberia civil war, he said, must indicate to the government and people of Liberia that restoring peace requires removing the causative factors, amongst which, he said, are the socio-economic and political differences amongst the nation's political class and the ethnic, religious, and economic chasms amongst rank-and-file Liberians.

Some may point to the existence of the rule of law, respect for human rights and values; but the counselor-at-law said these the government has achieved considerably to the extent of allowing itself to be challenged and insulted by opponents who have nothing but criticisms to offer to the nation's development agenda.

“Investment in infrastructure such as road network, which has direct impact on the social economic development, available, affordable, and efficient public utility and social services, including available pipe-born water, sanitation, transportation, telecommunications, which are the foundation for economic recovery and national reconstruction in the country, are being vigorously pursued by your government in several parts of Liberia,” he said.

The government's problem besides those critics claimed, he said, is that it has not been able to inform the Liberian people adequately about its achievements.

Had it been able to explain the links between its policies, programs, failures, and challenges vis-à-vis the availability of implementation wherewithal, he said, through that, it would have created a stream of dialogues with the people that could inform its peace agenda.

“I believe that some of those things that made us to go to war are still simmering. And, I rush to forget that at every Independence Day, we as leaders of Liberia should examine ourselves and every aspect of our country and ask whether enough of the fundamental differences and long-standing problems which caused our civil war were addressed,” the corporate lawyer said. “We should evaluate the extent to which our success and failures in addressing those differences and long-standing problems may have either enhanced or affected our country's progress.”

That the Sirleaf Administration has more than the responsibility and obligation the founding fathers of the nation had to be visionary, Cllr.

Sherman said was not an overstatement.

“[You have to be] just as bold and courageous as they were, or even bolder and more courageous than they were to tackle head-on our fundamental problems, so that genuine peace is used as the foundation to restore country to its pre-war status,” the counselor said, noting that national reconciliation may be the fulcrum for transformation.

What this means, he said, was for the administration, despite its numerous achievements, to design programs and policies that would make significant difference in the livelihoods of ordinary Liberians.

These policies and programs, he said, must be ones “for which your government would be remembered, and many people of this country would be able to say that is it because of you, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf that our country has gotten to where it is or they are where they supposed to be”.

“I submit further that amongst other things, public servants be given the greatest opportunity to do good for so many people in the shortest possible time to change the lives of so many people and to fundamental difference in the lives of others,” he said.

These efforts, he said, must consider the eradication of poverty, social economic deprivation, and doggery - societal ills that he believed underline the people's discontent, but that policymakers have dismissed for too long.

“They consider themselves to be the disadvantage of our society,” the national orator said of disadvantaged Liberians. “And so, they always distinguished themselves from us (the few privileged). Poverty, social and economic deprivation and doggery are fertile grounds for social unrest.”

He continued, “It is poverty, social and economic deprivation and doggery that unscrupulous people take advantage of when they employ violence as the instrument to make a difference at the disadvantage of the ordinary people.

“Let us make no mistake that the greatest unspoken part of our civil war was the same poverty, social and economic deprivation, and doggery that too many of our people suffered from. It is the same reason why a civil [war] that started on the bases of a conflict from two counties eventually involved the entire Republic of Liberia, and affected every loop and corner of our country.”

What the Sirleaf Administration could do in practical terms to remove these ills, he said, was to pay attention to the extreme poverty and social and economic deprivation and doggery that he said have become the daily experience of ordinary Liberians.

He said some of what the government needed to do to overcome the extreme poverty and social and economic deprivation and doggery could not require as much funds as put into other non-productive sectors.

“For example Madam President, Mr. Vice President and members of the leadership of our country; we all know that many of our people do not have pipe-borne water to drink and human waste disposal facilities, even-though those are absolute necessities for their health nowadays.

Too many people have not had the comfort of electric life,” he said.

He said making electricity available to rule dwellers would go a long way in impacting their lives in ways that would reduce poverty and by that reduce discontent.

“As much as we appreciate the big infrastructure development progress carried out since peace returned to Liberia, I suggest that now is the time that we begin to think about some projects such as the building of water pumps and erection of solar lights in all the villages of Liberia which impact the lives of the grater majority of the Liberian people,” he said.

Due to time pressure, The Analyst would not report full details of the counselor's address that covers corruption, amongst others issues of national concern. Look out in subsequent editions of this paper for more on the 2013 National Independence Day Orator's address to the Liberian people.