The peace agreement signed last August that created Liberia's transitional government also established several autonomous agencies and commissions designed to promote transparency and efficiency during the difficult transition from long years of conflict. One of the most-watched of these new bodies is the Governance Reform Commission, which the peace accord said "shall be a vehicle for the promotion of the principles of good governance in Liberia." The commission has been given a broad mandate ranging from developing a strategy to "ensure transparency and accountability" to acting as public ombudsman to monitoring "national and regional balance in appointments without compromising quality and integrity."
The head of the transitional administration, Gyude Bryant, chose as chair of the commission Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, an investment banker who served as finance minister in a former government, headed the Africa department at the United Nations Development Programme and ran for president against Charles Taylor in the 1997 elections. Other commissioners include the former interim president, Amos C. Sawyer, Francis Carbah, a former economic affairs minister, and George Klay Kieh and David Kortie, both political leaders. While in the United States last month to take part in the International Reconstruction Conference on Liberia at the United Nations, Sirleaf talked with AllAfrica's Tamela Hultman.
Before we discuss the commission, let me ask if you believe Liberians are ready for change?
This is Liberia's opportunity to start anew, in every way, and to try to seize this opportunity in coming up with the kinds of structures and policies that will move us away from the past failures and the underdevelopment that has characterized our economy despite the ample natural endowment that we have.
It's not going to be easy. Our value system, some of our cultural traits, has been reshaped by violence and by lawlessness. Given all that we've been through over the past 24 years - 10 years of military rule and 14 years of conflict - a major process of education and sensitization will have to be put into place so that some of the things that we talk about can be dialogued properly in the society and that the changes will be embraced by the majority of the population.
How can you use this window of opportunity effectively?
That's going to be a challenge to each and every Liberian. We must each individually and collectively see this as the one chance we have to put our country back on the right track, to address those long-standing issues that we have let go, like the cleavage in the society, like the monopolization of power and privilege, the imperial presidency that's led to such dictatorships over the years.
How can we improve upon the equity or equal opportunities? The primary responsibility to meet these challenges for change rests with Liberians. The international support [that has been promised to Liberia] will never turn into cash if we don't take the measures that are needed to demonstrate our commitment to good governance and all the aspects that go with getting a society that restores the dignity and the productivity of the individual. Let's hope Liberians can rise to the challenge.
How was this commission created?
The commission is included in the comprehensive peace agreement that resulted from the Accra peace talks. It's one of the several autonomous agencies, and its mandate is to ensure there are good government practices, including accountability, transparency, and what is called subsidiarity, meaning elements of decentralization. It has an ombudsman feature.
It's a bold mandate, so a lot is going to depend upon how that mandate is interpreted. What I call the futuristic orientation of the mandate - that is to say, trying to design the new structures and systems - would include the tenants of good governance for the future - perhaps something that would be implemented in a large part by the elected government. But there is also this monitoring and watchdog function which could be interpreted to have some short-term implications, i.e. pointing out some of the shortcomings in good governance even during these two transitional years, and giving recommendations on how they might be addressed. Certainly, the ombudsman function falls in that category.
It sounds ambitious.
Very ambitious, given the time frame. I would like to see the work of the commission concluded within twelve months. I know that that's a tall order, but we're going to try our best to do it. Fortunately, we've got good people on the commission, and I'm still talking to some of them. People like Dr. Sawyer, Dr. George Kieh, Sir Francis Carbah, are Liberians who are working outside. Even if they are not prepared to come home permanently right now, we hope that we can have an arrangement that will enable them to work with the commission and to provide effective input into the work of the commission. And we have, of course, local commissioners, who will be perhaps carrying the ball, along with me, since I've already relocated home. And then the collaborative groups and the consultative groups that we hope will enable us to carry out this responsibility within the desired time. We will use external, professional help whenever, wherever it is necessary. So the task is great.
Will it be difficult to maintain the disparate functions of ombudsman, monitoring, watch dogging and planning the structures and the infrastructures of governance for the future?
It could be difficult if we try to have some equality of those functions. I'm hoping that we can place a bit more emphasis on the futuristic aspect of the work, rather than on the interpretative, watchdog function. In the transition that we have and the composition of the transitional government that we have, it would be a bit difficult to carry out the shorter-term aspect of our work to the kind of effective level that we would want.
The transition government has certain watchdog functions, like the office of the auditor general, at least in terms of financial accountability. You have a civil service commission that should be looking at the workings of government and then you have those who head agencies and ministries, who have certain responsibilities to ensure that they monitor the work of their offices and that they subscribe, as best they can, to all the tenants of good governance. So we'll do a general monitoring functions on this, and if we see major gaps or major deficiencies, we'll put it in the report and send it forward and hope that it can be acted upon, even in the short term. But we really want to see the structural reform. That will take us a little while to formulate and that probably will not be implemented until an elected government's in place.
What are the key elements of structural reform and where do you see the major problems that need to be resolved?
The commission is just providing the experience, the expertise and the different spheres of professionalism, but we will look at the need for constitutional reform [and] judicial reform. A lot of work has been done on judicial reform, and wherever work has been done on some reform area or another, it makes the work of the commission that much less, because we will just draw upon that.
We'll have to touch on land reform. We might not be able to resolve it, but we have to deal with it. Civil service reform. The whole political system, you know. And I don't have any fixed ideas about what kinds of reform we could recommend to ensure that each stakeholder feels like they're a full part and that the political system does not advantage or disadvantage any one group. We hope to look at the whole economic system and see whether it does promote the elements of good governance or what are the things there that could be recommended for change. But those are just my personal thoughts and what we finally decide will be guided by the views of all the commissions and by the views that result from the consultative process that we wish to undertake.
Will the commission be considering the impact of HIV/Aids on governance?
We'll have to look at that because of the consequences of HIV/Aids on the overall development effort. Reports that I've seen recently suggest that, while this was not a serious problem for Liberia in the past, it is fast becoming an area that requires attention.
I don't have the statistics in terms of which percentage of our population are affected or are potentially at risk, but I understand that it's sufficiently serious that one needs to see what can be done now within the context of the Governance Reform Commission. When we do civil service reform, when we tackle decentralization issues this will have to be looked at. I don't know what kind of measures we will be recommending to deal with that, but we certainly will study it and I hope that the other commissioners or those with whom we hold consultations would help us to find the right kinds of recommendations to make in this regard.
Is part of the challenge winning support for the reforms you expect to recommend?
Yes. The hurt is deep for most Liberians and the healing process, which we hope will start now, to which we hope all Liberians will be committed, is going to be a difficult one. That might bring some cynicism into the work we do. There will be those who might not really believe that these kinds of deep, structural changes in a society [are possible]. We'll have to convince them that the nature of our work will indeed ensure that there will be a Liberia that functions properly, that has good governance, that can have growth and development in a sustainable way. We'll have to get that confidence and renew and strengthen the hope for the future. I hope that the commission's work will make a major contribution to this renewal.
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You have said that your remaining major goal in life is to see good governance in Liberia before you die. Do you see this commission as one way to do that, and are there other plans in your future that could help you fulfill that goal?
This commission is an important instrument toward the fulfillment of that goal. It does provide me with an opportunity to be even more knowledgeable about the elements of good governance and all that's been done in a progressive way worldwide and to see how that might be made applicable to our circumstances and what might be replicated by us. So it's an important instrument.
Of course, we would still have to get out of the electoral process a leadership that is willing to exercise political will, willing to effect change and willing to institute reform... I'm hoping that, when we get there, we will find the leadership required to bring these measures into effect.
As the leader of a party, how do you see your role in that process?
I don't see and will certainly try to be very careful that there's no conflict between what I do with the commission and what I do with my party. Essentially, I have said to all our partisans that, in this first year, we need to concentrate on healing, we need to concentrate on empowerment, we need to concentrate on getting our people back into productive endeavor.
That means that even though we must build our party and build our constituency and institutionalize the party, we don't want to start campaigning right now. We don't want the politicking to undermine the work that we have to do to get our country back on track. Certainly, I don't want it to undermine the work of the commission. And so, even though the time is short, and time is running out on us in so many ways, I still hope that we can get the work of the commission, if not concluded, sufficiently underway where the technical team can carry it to its ultimate end well before we get into next year, before the political fever begins to push us to spend more time with politics.
