By William Selmah wselmah@gmail.com
A consortium of professional media and civil society actors in Liberia has issued a statement on the effects, causes and solutions to the current economic challenges facing Liberia, calling on the government to institute radical measures to address them.
The group, What Weah Must Do Movement, said the astronomical increase in the exchange rate between the U.S. and Liberian dollars and its attending economic consequences amount to a national security threat.
The new movement, which is an affiliate of the public policy and media think tank, Paragon Consultants Inc, said this has put Liberia’s “current and future economic prosperity at risk”.
It noted the surpassing effects it is already having on the prices of local commodities on which 90% of the population depends, adding, this “causes hardship of unimaginable proportion to citizens, and could lead to public discontent capable of compromising national security and peace”.
But the What Weah Must Do Movement has been quick to point out that the current economic crisis is not unique to Liberia and is by no means a making of the Weah led government.
“Inflation is, has been and will be an unavoidable part of economics,” it asserted.
It goes on to argue that “Liberia is nowhere near the top twenty countries with the highest inflation rate in the world, including Argentina, Egypt, and Iran, etc.
Food in the markets but prices becoming unaffordable
Commenting on the root causes of the inflation, it referenced two theories, one of which blames it on the sidestepping of “Liberia’s long time currency printer, the British banknote manufacturing company, Thomas de la Rue”.
the group further states that the hiring of the “services of a little known firm based in Lebanon to print the new Liberia’s note in surplus beyond the required limit, with the assistance of some Lebanese businesses based in Liberia”.
The movement adds that proponents of this theory maintain that privileged officials of the Sirleaf government printed 1000% more than the amount of currency officially declared.
According to the movement, the surplus was traded in valuable assets and has been keeping stacks of Liberian banknotes in private homes and warehouses, something it claims, was the making of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration, as part of its “currency hoarding, market cornering and price manipulation”.
The second theory it puts forth asserts that dishonest government officials and businessmen procured moneymaking machines in Nigeria, China and even Liberia to counterfeit the local currency with the aim of maximizing profits at the detriment of the country’s economy.
In its recommendations, the What Weah Must Do Movement called for the current economic crisis to be declared a national security concern and the constitution of a national taskforce to analyze and investigate intelligence.
It also recommends the nabbing of “criminal networks associated with currency hoarding, exchange rate manipulation and counterfeiting”.
Among the recommendations is also a call for government to “subject all containers and boxes of goods entering Liberia to item-by-item search, at every point of entry, with the sole purpose of identifying and seizing Liberian banknotes above $10,000 and counterfeit entering Liberia”
It also wants the entire Board of Governors of the Central Bank of Liberia dismissed, a as well as, political appointees of the past administration still serving with the bank.
The other recommendations include enforcing government’s regulation that all foreign exchange bureaus be registered, replacing the current bank notes, auditing the Central Bank and keeping the public informed.
The What Weah Must Do Movement has meanwhile warned that the longer the current economic challenges drag on, the more danger it poses.
Some social economic commentators have been quick to hint that Liberia’s worsening inflation is on the brink of degenerating into recession.