By law, at least 26 businesses are reserved exclusively for Liberians under the Liberianization Act. The Act, originally established in 1976 and expanded in 1998, is a legal framework designed to protect and empower Liberian-owned businesses.
Framers of this Act listed 26 exclusive business activities, such as transportation (taxi and trucking services) and retail (sale of rice, cement, timber, planks, ice, and pharmaceuticals), services (Travel and advertising agencies, commercial printing, tire repair, and shoe repair), and the operation of gas stations, block making as businesses exclusively reserved for Liberians.
However, since its passage and subsequent amendments, the law, like many others before it, remains weak in its implementation. As a matter of fact, the heads of government ministries and agencies that should ensure the implementation of this law are, in many instances, the ones flaunting it, and when they, by chance, choose to do business with a Liberian, the treatment is condescending.
Government operatives would cite low capacity within Liberian-owned businesses as justification for engaging foreigners who are, by law, prohibited from being involved in these business activities, thereby violating the very constitutions and laws they swore to protect.
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Sometime this month, Gbarpolu County Senator Amara Konneh highlighted the plights of Liberian-owned businesses and how hardworking Liberians are operating without legal protection, structure, or adequate access to opportunities guaranteed by law.
In the words of Senator Konneh, the country is losing control of economic sectors explicitly reserved for Liberians under the Liberianization Act due to the government's failure to enforce these laws and provide meaningful support and truly so.
Day after day, Liberians continue to be discriminated against in their own country by their very government who should be protecting them. Government ministries and agencies, for example, would gladly award printing contracts to foreign nationals-Lebanese, Indians, Ghanaians, and Nigerians, while Liberians operating in these sectors watch as observers. This cannot happen in these countries.
Early this year, the Liberianization Policy came under scrutiny following a deal between Firestone Liberia and APM Terminals, which allegedly allowed foreign-owned trucks to operate within the Freeport of Monrovia, displacing local Liberian truckers, sadly.
This is why we strongly believe that the time to end these injustices against Liberians is now. Liberians need to rise up and learn from countries like Ghana, where foreign retail shops have been shut down, enabling Ghanaians operating in these sectors to take charge of their own economy.
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The time when a Lebanese or Indian man arriving through our borders with US15,000 as an investor with the sole intent to engage in retail businesses should end. The banking sector, too, is not helping in this regard, dishing out huge loans to these Indians and Lebanese, continuing to deliver the Liberian economy into their hands on a silver platter.
We strongly call on civil society groups, the media, and other well-meaning Liberians to lead this crusade. Foreign Nationals operating in these sectors exclusively reserved for Liberians should be rethinking their options, because the time has come for Liberians to take over.
Government agencies and ministries that join these foreign nationals in violating our laws should be held accountable and prosecuted for doing so.
Liberians are tired of being spectators in their own country or watching their government walk over them. The time to take back our economy is now.
