GBAI BALA’S REJOINDER – MITCHELL’S REBUTTA
By Atty.. Abraham Teah Teh-bah Barlou Mitchell*
The Liberian civil war was replete with a plethora of conspiracies that contributed immensely to the magnitude of its devastation, agony, cold-bloodedness and prolongation. One of such conspiracies Honorable Gbai Gbala described as “speculative, in his “rejoinder” was the capture and the slaughter of Head of State Samuel Doe, as articulated in my September 2019 Article titled: “Fixing the Liberian economy – the imperative, not war crimes court”. This rebuttal to honorable Gbai Gbala’s “rejoinder” attempts to unload and unpack some of the major conspiracies that characterized the Liberian Civil War.
In his “rejoinder”, Gbala, inter alia, scornfully questioned the rationality of the Government of Liberia for the “printing of 34 Billion Liberian banknotes and digging new holes to cover old holes, according to Information Minister Lenn Eugene Nagbe’s new theory of Macroeconomic Analysis”. Apparently, Gbala has joined the bandwagon of the opposition campaign against the printing of new LRD banknotes to address the current economic crisis. I disagree with both him and his cohorts.
The Printing of 34 Billion Liberian banknotes and “digging new holes to cover old holes” – an absolute necessity
In addressing the many issues raised by honorable Gbai Gbala in his “Rejoinder”, I will firstly address the printing of new banknotes by the government of Liberia, given the seriousness of the current economic crisis and the underlining debate surrounding the national economy. This article is four in a series of rebuttals in which I have attempted to expose some of the major conspiracies that characterized the Liberian civil war, including the slaughter of President Samuel Doe. This exercise is important because politics in Liberia continues to be plagued with conspiracies and treacheries.
I am not an economist, neither do I pretend to be one. Nonetheless, the current state of the Liberian economy has become a grave issue of national concern; one that borders on serious national security implications, and warrants the concerns of all Liberians.
As such, the current state of the Liberian economy deserves the supreme attention of all Liberians void, however, of partisan and ideological persuasions. That is why I had earlier suggested in my article that we, together as Liberians, needed to fix the national economy before proceeding to other critical issues as criminal prosecution of those accused of war crimes, an exercise that has far-reaching financial, economic, political and security implications for a weak, fragile, post-conflict state, ridden by an inflated economic crisis.
Those that are vehemently opposed to the decision by government to print new banknotes to nullify the current contentious notes as bad policy are wrong. Some of their arguments are that money used to print new notes could be used to pay civil servants. Others similarly argue there is no money in the commercial and Central Bank to run government, and the printing of new banknotes is an alibi to find money to pay civil servants. Their argument also is that the decision by government to print new banknotes was not an outcome of National Economic Dialogue (NED); by that it is implied government‘s decision is arbitrary and professionally ill-informed.
These arguments lack substance and they are either influenced by ignorance, naivety and/or downright political treachery, or a combination of all. To be blunt, no government should run its strategic economic, political and national security business in the street, or based on public sentiments. It must rather be based on national intelligence and other critical considerations determined by due diligence.
Existing LRD Banknotes out of government’s control
Now, here is where we are. The Government of Liberia has of recent repeatedly said it has no control over billions of Liberian banknotes that should be in circulation to stimulate economic activity. This is what the government said when it articulated its position on this matter through its Information Minister, a major spokesman of government: “We, as a government don’t know how much Liberian Dollars we have in the country and at the same time we do not know where it is kept; so we will change the money” (FrontPage Africa, September, 2019).
Additionally, Front Page Africa further reported that “On Monday, September 16, the Senate’s Committee on Banking and Currency, chaired by Grand Gedeh County Senator Dennis Marshall, recommended to the Senate Plenary, to go ahead and endorse the President’s request to print the new Liberian dollar banknotes. The Committee even endorsed the introduction of new L$1,000 denomination, which might be added should the new notes be printed”. The FrontPage furthered: “Sen. Dennis justified that the Central Bank of Liberia’s Board is unable to state exactly the amount of Liberian Dollars in circulation”.
President Weah bending over too much to please predecessor
Since his inauguration, President Weah and the CDC-Government have been bending over backward to save their immediate predecessor—former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and her regime, even at their own perils. It should be emphasized here that Economics and politics, as a science, however interrelated they are, are not identical. These are two distinct social sciences. On the one hand, Economics deals with fundamental issues of bread and butter, and other basic needs of mankind—shelter and cloths, and by extension trade and commerce, health and education, which are core needs of mankind. It does not care about one’s ideology, important as politics and ideology are; neither does it care about which political party one belongs to. At the same time, it is grossly dangerous for people to play politics with economic issues (Micro or Macro). Politics, on the other hand, is about propaganda, diplomacy and/or the playing of games.
When Nelson Mandala took over as the first black president of South Africa after liberation, he warned his fellow compatriots as follows: “It does not matter whether the cat is black or white; what matters is that the cat must catch”. Catch what – rat. A cat that cannot hunt to feed its kittens and itself, does not worth to be called a cat, it therefore becomes a doomed cat. Mandala was simply saying, now that they had finally taken over politically as oppressed black South Africans, they needed to show their juice, and be able to attend to the needs of the people of South Africa, because the people would not eat race and ideology after liberation.
The economic performance of the Coalition for Democratic Change in power will determine its fate in 2020 and in 2923. It will determine whether or not the CDC will continue to enjoy the confidence of the people of Liberia, whose mandate it enjoys as a result of 2017 elections. If it runs a one term economy, it will get a one-term political shot. The recent defeat of the CDC in the recent Montserrado bi-election by a nonentity from obscurity is a good lesson on the wall. Succinctly put, the CDC has sufficiently undermined itself since its incumbency, more than what an opposition could have done.
The CDC should remember that the running of government is a serious business, and this can only be handled by serious people. State power is a double-edged sword; if you don’t use it properly, it would use you in return. Elections and re-elections are about performance review and validation in a democracy. It should be stressed here that we do not suggest that the CDCians are not serious people presiding over government; but the young comrades must be told they need to be more serious and decisive.
The people of Liberia expected from the Weah Administration from day one of its incumbency to tell the nation the true state of the economy it inherited from the Sirleaf administration. President Weah has been vacillating on this fundamental issue. And whenever President Weah at certain points in time attempted at exposing the nature of the economy he inherited from Madam Sirleaf, she would go on BBC and rebuke him; in return, President Weah would curve in, in a retreat. What does the CDC owe these people? And why must the CDC be so apologetic to them?
The Liberian economy and 12 years of Unity Party and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf rule
What has happened to the Liberian economy in more than sixteen (16) years after Accra, Ghana, in 2003? The Liberian economy has been very slow to recover, and slow recovery has suffered interruption as well. Fundamentally, the economy has not been given a serious transformative attention it requires. Apart from the EBOLA pandemic and its divesting impact on the economy, destroying the emerging post-war investment climate by driving away major investors out of Liberia, the Sirleaf administration, the first constitutional post-war government, had a perfect opportunity but wholly failed to lay the foundation for redesigning and reforming the Liberian economy, and to put it on the footing of national renewal. We continue to run a 21st Liberian economy with 19th and 20th Centuries’ models.
Despite the many poverty reduction strategies, including the 7-Year Agenda for Transformation (AfT) of the Sirleaf administration, she failed to structurally transform the Liberian economy from its obsolete “Open Door”, extractive enclave nature, donor-driven, and a rental economy. She failed to redesign and create a more self-sustaining, locally-driven economy, with human capital development as the engine for growth, for medium and small business creation, anchored on agriculture and other critical sectors, where the state takes on the herculean task of financial capital formation, to boost local investment, job and wealth creation, in the new economic dynamics. We continue to be subservient and struck to obsolete liberal economic doctrines which ascribe Liberia the role of an appendage to merely supply raw materials in returns for royalties, determined by transnational and multinational corporations that always report annual losses. To make a radical break, the Liberian state and its officialdoms must muster the courage and the political will to confront and surmount the ills of obsolete economic practices.
Within twelve (12) years of post-conflict governance, Madam Sirleaf should have critically reviewed the educational system, so as to link education and skills development to the needs and demand of the new economy, thereby building symbiotic links between education and economic development.
After calling for the review of all concession agreements a few weeks of takeover, what did Mrs. Sirleaf do? She uncritically and gullibly approved all concession agreements that had mortgaged the natural resources of the country to trans-national and multi-natural capitals, through unequal and one-sided statute of frauds. She continued the campaign to mortgage the country’s natural resources (including the oil industry) that became a conspicuous object for speculation and shady deals in post-war economic recovery. A revered international auditing firm found, for instance, that out of 68 concession agreements ratified under the Sirleaf administration, only two were consistent with best international practice.
Electricity, the engine and the foundation for economic growth and development in a post war economy did not catch the strategic attention of the administration from the immediacy. She romantically played with the strategic energy sector with the debauched mantra: “Small light today; big light tomorrow”, and relied on Mount Coffee, the Monrovia-based hydro dam that had proven insufficient and ineffective in the past for the generation of electricity for the nation, as the panacea. The issue of electric energy, in a national economy, is not merely about “light”; it is strategically about electrification, the foundation for manufacturing, and the backbone for any modern economy. What is small light today and big light tomorrow? Garbage!
In less than 9 years (1957-66), three years less than the tenure of the Sirleaf administration, Kwame Nkrumah built the major infrastructure of Ghana, public buildings and roads, as well as the AKOSOMBO Damp that became the foundation for Ghana’s economy and democracy. We hold Madam Sirleaf’s administration and those of other previous regimes fundamentally responsible for the unfortunate situations of repeated misrule and missed opportunities. Madam Sirleaf struggled for power for decades, and employed the most brutal means to take power, including arm rebellions. Logically, and reasonably, one would think she had a readymade agenda for transforming the country she woefully destroyed. Not even the Executive Mansion whose destruction she literally ordered, she repaired. For 12 years, there were huge budgetary allocations and allotments made for the repair of the Executive Mansion – there the Mansion still lies in ruins and story is an open book for Liberians.
Never in the history of Liberia was there such a global unanimity of empathy and support for Liberia been realized during the period of 14 years of post-conflict national renewal, including support from the entire membership of the United Nations Security Council. Under Madam Sirleaf, the international community brought into Liberia more than US$16 Billion in the form of direct foreign investment (UK-based Media Expose Corruption), yet her national budget was barely US$500 Million. That was a contradiction because in that context, US$500 Million was a subset of an economy of US$16 Billion of foreign investment. Now if in fourteen (14) years, US$16 Billion investment could not generate at least US$1 Billion annually as revenue generated from the profits of that huge investment, then where was the money located? During the same period of international peacekeeping, UNMIL cumulatively spent close to US$10 Billion in Liberia. From these figures, there was virtually nothing to show as impact these investments made on the national economy; our economy is obsoletely arranged in ways wherein more money and wealth leave the country than those that come in. Other countries in a similar situation, such as Rwanda, made excellent use of copious international empathy for a country from years of war and conflict. In fact it is these countries that can be called the international community’s success story. Liberia isn’t a success story. It remains a failed story.
In a Cabinet retreat of the early period of one year of President Weah’s administration, a foreign consultant within the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, a Gambian consultant, addressing challenges of the Liberian economy, he told President Weah the following: a) Liberia’s model of concession agreements with foreign capitals as a business practice, that surrenders the county’s sovereign economic interests, is unhealthy for the country; b) he also indicated that more money leaves Liberia, than what comes into the economy. In other words, whatever little revenues we generate, we spend more to import what we eat, and eat what we do not produce. Hardly do we, as a dual currency regime, regulate how much of our foreign exchange that must leave the country – we claim we are a “market economy”. In today’s global liberal economy, there is nothing such as an “unregulated market economy”. The Liberian economy encourages donor patronage than internal sustainability. There is no way we can internally sustain the Liberian economy, if we do not deliberately invest in the productive sector of our economy, where Liberians become the direct drivers in the seat.
Criminalization of the economy
This brings us to where we are today. Leaving the country grossly unattended by failed poverty reduction strategies, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf virtually criminalized the little of what was left of the Liberian economy, as an “exit strategy”. She criminally printed LDR$16 Billion for fictitious reasons, thereby further criminalizing the banking sector and currency regime of the economy, because she unauthorizedly printed such huge sums of money. Both the old and new banknotes are predominantly in circulation outside the banking sector, with the Central Bank at the center of economic sabotage, during and after her administration.
It was during the Sirleaf administration, a sitting Central Bank Governor unscrupulously and unethically used US Millions of Dollars of public finance to build and run his private partisan campaign machinery as a presidential candidate, under false pretexts of giving out public finance loan to local people, and did so unaccountably. In his so-called public finance campaign loan scheme, Governor Mills Jones used one hand to give out loans, and simultaneously used the other hand to request votes – quid pro quo!
Madam Sirleaf’s children and cronies presided over the strategic sectors of state governance: The Central Bank of Liberia – nerve-center of the national economy, responsible for the scrupulous and robust regulation of all banking and financial policies and operations; National Intelligence – the nerve-center of national security, including financial and monetary intelligence; the oil industry that was made bankrupt by her most loved son, and she publically took responsibility for the corruption at the oil industry. Other areas of government placed in the service of her cronies and family friends included Public Works, John F. Kennedy Hospital, Ministry of Finance, Maritimes, Liberia Electricity Corporation, Ministry of Health, etc. She dashed the educational sector aside and merely referred to it as a “mess”.
Today, the Central Bank of Liberia has become the object of zero integrity in national governance. The entire banking and financial sectors, commanding heights of the national economy, have become the drivers of a progressively inflation-prone economy. At the same time, money laundering, hoarding, criminal speculations by criminal cartels, counterfeiting, and broad-day light acts of economic sabotage have become the order of the day. These are terrible lararcies the Weah administration is confronted with.
Economic coup d’ etat
In essence, the Liberian economy has been hijacked by criminal cartels, with support from opposition politics, with the aim to instigate instability and bring about regime change. We now have on hand a situation of an economic coup d’ etat. ECOWAS and the rest of the international community do not recognize and accept military coups, as a short-cut to power; economic sabortage has strategically become the ploy to derail the nescent administration. The National Economic Dialogue set up by President Weah to critically review the national economy, did virtually nothing to critically dissect the structural and systemic challenges pitfalls of the Liberian economy and thus provide far-reaching remedies; instead, the NED, among other things, got budged down with politics, and called for war crimes courts to prosecute people accused for war crimes.
So you see, honorable Gbala! You and all others opposed to the printing new banknotes to address the present situation, are damned wrong. The government has categorically stated it has no control over the $LDR banknotes and does not know where the money is kept. In the face of the US$16 Billion saga, it is plain and simple: Money circulated in the national economy outside the control of the state, is a downright criminal money. As a matter of fact, all legal and legitimate monies within the jurisdiction of the state and government should be located in the banks (the Central Bank and its subsidiaries – the commercial banks). Where we are economically is the fact that the State Bank has no control over the currency regime.
Once it was discovered that such a huge amount of banknotes were illegally printed, the Weah government should have immediately nullified those notes, because they were printed outside of the law. Besides, monies in the economy outside of the control of the state represents economic subversion, because it is money in the hands of possible anti-state elements. The state, in effect, has therefore been hijacked economically, and by extension, politically.
In this regard, our concerns here is not about “printing additional 34 Billion Liberian banknotes and digging new holes to cover old holes, according to Information Minister Lenn Eugene Nagbe’s new theory of Macroeconomic Analysis”. The fundamental issue here is not so much about “digging and covering holes”; as averred by honorable Gbala; it is about immediate action as a remedy to the currency crisis.
Decision to print new LRD Banknotes correct and overdue
Therefore, the decision by the Weah administration to print new Liberian banknotes in face of the current situation is not only absolutely necessary; it is correct and overdue as an option.
The printing of new banknotes may not become the singular panacea for fundamentally addressing the current economic crisis, but a correct move on the economic chess board.
If the appropriate security and financial mechanisms are put in place and tightly enforced, the printing of the proposed $LR 34 Billion banknotes would do the following: a) largely abrogate and turn into cement papers, the criminalized banknotes being used to criminalize the economy; b) reasonably place the economy, its financial and banking sectors, under the control and jurisdiction of effective State regulation; c) regain the Central Bank’s regulatory and monitoring control over the financial and commercial banking sectors better than as is now; d) weaken the criminal cartels, and reduce opportunities for speculations, money laundering, and other acts of economic sabotage.
The IGNU experience
The Interim Government of National Unity (GNU), under Professor Amos Sawyer, in the early 1990s undertook similar measure when the warring factions, principally of Prince Johnson and Charles Taylor, looted all banks in Liberia, including the “National Bank of Liberia”, and criminally accumulated huge sums of the “JJ” Banknotes, which they used as instruments to wage and sustain wars. When the “JJ” was replaced by the “Liberty” by Professor Sawyer, the huge financial assets of these warlords were destroyed at one stroke. Both Taylor and Johnson became understandably enraged and decided for the first time to form an unholy military alliance against IGNU and ECOMOG.
Subsequently, Taylor and Johnson launched their infamous October 1992 “Octopus” military operation to capture Monrovia. Eventually, General Johnson realized that Taylor had over-run his Caldwell Base; he immediately surrendered to ECOMOG as a coward and betrayal, and he was flown to Nigeria. That became the end of the military mission of General Johnson. On the other hand, Taylor’s “Octopus” was crushed; he was routed out of Monrovia, beyond Kakata and Buchanan, on the run. He subsequently opted finally for a political rather than his ambitious military means to grab power.
Therefore, those who are campaigning against the printing of new LRD Banknotes, are doing so in bad faith, or either are they naïve, ill-informed, or they are just out for political mischief-making. The Government has no option but to act in the direction correctly contemplated. We fully support the idea of the printing of new LRD Banknotes so as to nail the casket of the economic saboteurs and their political supporters, as the case was during the war period of IGNU
The second edition of my rebuttal to honorable Bai Gbala’s “rejoinder” is on the way. We will not tolerate demagoguery around here; neither will we permit deceitful politics to be unleashed on the public with impunity.
Bai Gbala and other leaders of the past responsible for today’s economic mess
Let me conclude with some recollections here: Honorable Bai Gbala has served in public service since he returned in early 1980 from the United States of America as head of a ULAA delegation to Liberia. Then, I (author) was Vice President of the University of Liberia Student Union (ULSU); I, along with the ULSU Secretary General, now Dr. Thomas S. Jaye, under the leadership of the ULSU President, now Professor George Klay Kieh, led an ULSU delegation in a sixteen-seated-Toyata-Bus that we used to pick up the ULAA delegation at the Roberts International Airport.
We enthusiastically drove the ULAA delegation to Monrovia and took them to the UL Campus at the ULSU offices. We charted, and they thanked us for the work at home; they pledged their unflinching support to the struggle of the students of Liberia as part of the over-all struggle, and promised to be guests of ULSU while in the country.
Subsequently, upon their visit, and having met President Tolbert, the ULAA delegation was assigned with Mercedes Benzes and lodged in lucrative hotels at the time, the Ducor Intercontinental Palace and Carlton Hotel, on Broad Street. As the story went, the ULAA guests, having met President Tolbert, disappeared from ULSU in thin air, as they had become new big guests of the Tolbert Government. The 1980 Coup met the ULAA delegation in Liberia, and honorable Gbala and Charles Taylor, became conspicuous in the military regime of the People Redemption Council Government.
It is said by some pundits that Hon. Gbala and other advisors to President Doe wrote the “Krahn Manifesto” by which provisions and strategies the PRC went asunder in an “elimination by substitution” policy.
Specifically, Hon. Gbala served as Economic advisor to Head of State Doe, benefiting from the spoils of military dictatorship that pushed the country to war. He also served as co-founder of the National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL) of President Doe. He later served in the interim government of Dr. Amos Sawyer, and the succeeding Council of State Chairpersons, including Professor David Kpomakpor, Professor Sankawulo, Mrs. Ruth Sando Perry and Mr. Charles Ghankay McArthur Taylor as President.
He served as a political, economic and international affairs advisor to the Heads of State of all of the foregoing administrations (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia Diaspora Project, Public Hearing, Hamline University, June 12, 2008 8 St. Paul, Minnesota).
It is therefore clear that honorable Gbala, having been around in public service for this long, cannot claim innocence of conspiracies that catalyzed the Liberian civil war as well as the current intractable Liberian crisis that seems to defy all solutions. Honorable Gbala, an economist and a longtime economic advisor in government, it is fair to say, is one of those, like Madam Sirleaf and others, that should be held to account for Liberia’s current economic mess.
What he and others of the past should be doing as older folks is to help the young people in government and stop playing politics. At the same time, the young folks should realize that no government may have a monopoly of knowledge particularly in certain critical aspects of governance and should feel free to consult and employ the services of critical professional expertise of sincere people. We should stop playing politics with economics and other critical sectors of government, and wait for 2023. It is too soon and premature to start campaign politics. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Africa is on the move, Liberia is coming!
ALUTA!
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*The author: Atty. Abraham Teah Teh-bah Barlou Mitchell, BA LLB (International Relations and Law, University of Liberia); paternal and maternal grandson, respectively, David Allen Mitchell (Mississippi St. Sinoe), and Joseph Bonner/Gbea Saywon , Paramount Chief, Non-monpo Chiefdom, Sinoe County; student activist, former President, Sinoe University Student Association (SUSA-1979), University of Liberia; former Vice President, University of Liberia Student Union (ULSU-1980); SSR/Public Sector expert; former Commissioner of Immigration, Liberia (2003- 6); a founding member, New DEAL Movement, Liberia’s only revolutionary social democratic party; founding Secretary- General, National Democratic Coalition (NDC-Liberia – its founding political leader and first standard bearer, Professor Dew Tuan-Wleh Mayson, also a prominent leader of the Movement for Justice in Africa- MOJA, Liberia).Mitchell is a practicing lawyer, associating with the Central Law Offices, Inc., Zayzay Community, Paynesville, Liberia.