Mr. Jaya Kamara, Acting National Chairman of the Mano River Association in the Americas, Mr. George Wuo, Executive Vice President of the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA), guests, thank you very much for inviting me to be the keynote speaker at the First National Conference of the Mano River Association in the Americas. You could have invited a wide variety of other speakers with more impeccable credentials and interesting lived experiences. Nonetheless, you elected to invite me to speak to you on such an important occasion. I am very grateful for the honor. I hope that you will find some value in the views that I have come to share with you.

Before I start, I want to issue a disclaimer. The vision that I am about to present here today is not exclusively mine. Rather, it represents the collective wisdom of many great Liberian thinkers, who have begun to contemplate the future of economic governance in Liberia in light of past gloomy experiences. My only claim is that I am an able learner who has been blessed to participate in discussions with numerous brilliant, committed, and patriotic Liberians from whom I have learned a great deal. I owe these Liberians an enormous debt of gratitude for equipping me to participate in this crucial conversation.

Like many, if not, all of you, I grew up in a mining concession area. I was born and reared in Yekepa, where LAMCO – a joint venture between Liberia, Sweden, and Bethlehem Steel Cooperation of Pittsburgh had its headquarters. As a child, and the son of laborer, I watched my dad work numerous hours for minimal wage to support our family. I contrasted the life that we led with some of my friends whose parents were “staff” – a designation for those who lived in management quarters. The amenities in management quarters were comparable to, if not, better than many living conditions in western nations. Their lives were vastly different than ours in laborer quarters. The stark disparity and the support of my parents encouraged me to vow to excel in school so that I could provide better living conditions for my parents when they retire. Returning to work for LAMCO upon completion of school was every kid my age dream, especially those of us who felt the need to get a taste of the comforts and luxuries that living in staff quarters offered.

However, my dream and that of many of my childhood friends did not become a reality. Economic conditions in Liberia deteriorated. Political conditions also changed for the worse. LAMCO was forced to retrench its operations as I reached the point developmentally to return there to work. I am told that your situation at the National Iron Ore Company (NIOC) was the same.

I entered the University of Liberia in the early 1980s and would return home to Yekepa for vacation to visit with my parents. As I traveled the Monrovia-Yekepa corridors, it regularly dawned on me that something was wrong with the conditions surrounding me. I could not fully articulate what was wrong, but it became obvious to me that the various communities surrounding LAMCO and their inhabitants were living in mud houses and zinc shacks with no indoor plumbing or electricity. They used outdoor toilets and fetched water from unsanitary wells. If their children attended school, they were enrolled in dilapidated schools and the teachers were not among the best stock of our educators. The road to Yekepa was dusty and inundated with potholes, while the curves were dangerous, exposing passengers to enormous risks.

Contrast these conditions with Yekepa, particularly the settings in which our expatriates lived. Their roads were paved and smooth and their homes were situated on acres. Electricity was provided 24/7 and many had house boys to wash their clothes and iron them as well as cook for them. They had a swimming pool, golf course, luxury cars, and several opportunities to socialize at night clubs and ice cream shops. A movie theater was also located in the center city, coupled with a company-owned musical band. A radio station owned and operated by the company also served LAMCO employees and broadcast sports activities that drew the country’s best athletes. The schools were rated to be top notch and well-staffed. Healthcare facilities benefited from the most current interventions, technologies, and staff. I am also told that conditions at NIOC where many of you grew up were not different than ours in Yekepa.

This picture reflects the conditions in many of the concession environments that I visited as a child and teenager. I did not visit Mano River, but I spent time in Buchanan, where LAMCO had another operation. I also visited Bong Mines, Cocoapa, and Firestone. I worked in Robertsfield for a few years following college and also witnessed the contrast described previously. How is this picture related to the subject that I am about to discuss today? There is a relationship, even an interlocking connection, between Liberia pre-war investment policies and the stark contrast between the concession areas and their surrounding environs.

Pre-war Liberia investment policy was lopsided. It benefited the concessions and the government officials who signed these documents, but failed to meet the basic needs of the citizens who were endowed with these natural resources that were being extracted by the foreign companies. Raw materials were taken strictly from the ground and not converted through intermediary processing to semi-finished or finished products to be sold locally or abroad. Hence, Liberians were denied the added economic value that could have accrued to local citizens and the whole country.

It is true that when President William VS Tubman launched the Open Door Policy that brought in LAMCO, Mano River, Bong Mines, and the others, they contributed significantly to the economic and social developments of our beloved nation. The world in which we lived at the time was not as globally connected as the one we live in today. With the end of the Cold War and the resulting mitigation of antagonisms between the United States and the Soviet Union, the divide between these two super powers have collapsed. This has diminished the strategic importance that Liberia enjoyed. It has therefore exposed Liberians to a greater need to be even more analytical and strategic in our capacity to think critically about new sets of public policies that can derive enormous benefits for all Liberians, and not a select few. We must think globally, yet locally in crafting our national investment policies in the post-war era. In thinking about the linkages between the global and the local nexus of our public policies, we must ask ourselves, how can we develop concession agreements that are durable or sustainable (mutually beneficial to Liberians and our international partners)?

Admittedly, we are living in an intensely interdependent world and can no longer escape our ties to our fellow Liberians and our foreign partners. The need to infuse international capital into our nation building processes cannot be overstated. Yet, our international partners must realize that they have to apply restraints in their desires to derive excessive profits without considerations for the needs of their hosts – the local people. International capital has greater influence on national security and therefore, it is lifeblood to the future of Liberia. In a fast-changing global economy, we must recognize and accept that interdependence and integration on all fronts are indispensable to durable transformational change. This is the lynchpin of reviving Liberia from its near death experience. The deaths of thousands of Liberians in the name of ethnic hatred demand this commitment.

We must indeed invite and encourage collaboration and partnerships with international investors, but we must negotiate terms that are friendly to the local communities in which such concessions are situated and the country at large. Our investment posture must be one that strikes a balance between local/national and global needs. No longer should we allow investors (local/national/international) to extract our raw materials without the bulk of the benefits of those investments trickling down to the Liberian populace, particularly members of the local community.

All good investment policies begin with respect for the citizenry and their entitlement to their God-giving natural resources and the fruits of their labor. Post-war investment policy must govern against corruption, especially situations where the predators in our midst create conditions that are solely conducive to their needs. Local villages surrounding concession areas and their citizens cannot be placed on a back burner while government officials (local and national) stick their personal tentacles in all investment deals. And public policy making must be a process that invites the posing of critical questions pertaining to why and how the concerns of the citizenry are considered in decision making. We must now ask: “Who benefits and who is locked out of opportunities?” We must envision alternatives to existing structures of dispensing national wealth.

In all venues of policymaking we must begin with the quest for a more just and equitable society than we have ever lived in before. Past policies have been the breeding grounds for inequity and thus caused hatred and social isolation. We must confront those social ills that are woven into the fabric of our institutions and systems.

Hope resides in the fact that we are beginning to see glimpses of an emerging civil society ready and willing to confront practices that have retarded economic growth. I offer you an invitation to take up the mantle of Albert Porte. He was principled and immersed in integrity. With the looks of conditions in Monrovia, it is clear that the Porte persona is scarce, if not a dying breed. He confronted those among us who perpetrated massive suffering and human rights violations. He cared less about the political leanings of the perpetrators, but more so for the suffering meted out against Liberians. He was a true patriot that sought good for all Liberians.

Local people must get the first fruits of their God-given natural resources. Local people must come before the national government. Local people must have representations on the Board of Directors of concessions in their communities. If local people do not enjoy the benefits of investments in their communities, then no one should. If equity and justice must prevail, then the concessions or multinational corporations must make provisions for operational practices that are environmentally-friendly. I recall it was NIOC where there was a massive mud slide that caused lives and untold suffering for the mine workers and residents, apparently because there were little or no preventative environmental protections in place to curb such a mishap.

The voices of the local people cannot be marginalized, and this means that allocations must be made for employment opportunities and/or skill development as wells wages that provide sustainable quality of life. Their children must enjoy the same amenities that concession owners and their employees enjoy. If the children of the local people do not derive these benefits, we risk creating conditions that are apt to producing disaffected citizens ready, willing, and able to engage in the untold violence that has wreaked havoc on our country for the last 14 years or more.

One of the aged burdens on our investment policy is public corruption and therefore, let me state that harsh criticisms of our public officials are well-deserved given the unbridled nature of corruption in Monrovia (yesterday and today). The lack of mechanisms to curb corruption and bring it to a halt has for so long haunted our country. It is this, and other reasons that have brought our country to a place where conversations are being held now about bringing the country’s economic policy under the auspices of the international community. It is very shameful that past and present government officials whose public record is steep in corruption are shamelessly pointing their fingers at the international community for its bid to subject our country to an informal trusteeship. I am in agreement with those who have called for modifications in the existing plan by the international community to bring about reforms in our economic and justice governance frameworks. But then again, I am embarrassed by the gull of some who are responsible for our plight to be acting as if they did not contribute to the depressing conditions on the ground in our homeland.

If you, the new generation of Liberians fail to rise up and stand against detractors who find pleasure in feeding from the public coiffeurs, we are doomed. I urge you to stand up and be counted among the Liberians that have and will continue to say no to corruption and ineffectiveness. Our investment posture in post-conflict Liberia must be one that builds institutional buffers against corruption. We must seek imprisonment for corrupt government officials and retrieve stolen public wealth from them through various strategies, including seizure of properties that were acquired during tenure in government that do not match wages acquired while in the employ of the government.

Corruption destroys and disrupts the productive capacity of the nation, but most importantly, it dissuades the best and brightest of our citizens who have integrity from wanting to become public servants for fear of being mired by the taint of corruption. To accelerate the pace of national economic and social development, we must create conditions that make it difficult for those who cannot resist from stealing government resources or misusing government property to linger in jail for prolonged periods – perhaps implement a two strike rule.

Above all, I should add that rapid improvements in our roads, the provision of basic infrastructure and social services are necessary preconditions for attracting and sustaining investments. Rapid improvements in telecommunications, providing mental healthcare facilities to address the needs of war-affected people, building functioning health and educational systems, providing people with life skills, jobs, and building capacity in civic involvement to reverse the chronic public apathy among citizens would all cumulatively set the nation on a path to recovery.

Liberians have traveled abroad and been exposed to opportunities that were restricted to a select few of Liberians. It has become abundantly clear that the danger we face of possible trusteeship over our nation is due in large measure, if not, fully, to the neglect of our country and the absence of patriotic spirits among many of our citizens. It is clear that this generation must take action to bring about durable change before it becomes too late. No longer can they be subjected to the ills that aroused their anger and vengeance. To you my brothers and sisters, I urge you to build an Association that will work hard to make these aspirations a reality. Take your skills and transfer them into partnerships with other collaborators (foreigners and Liberians alike) to rebuild the dilapidated economic fabric of our nation. In summary, I make the following recommendations:

· Local representatives should be part of the contract development process, and be given opportunities to contribute to negotiating concession agreements.
· A certain percentage of the revenues generated by the concession should be designated as royalties for the citizens of the local community through a revenue sharing formula.
· Certain infrastructure improvements should be made mandatory parts of the agreement and be enforced by the local and national governments.
· Ensure that raw materials are transformed through intermediary processing into semi-finished or finished products; and
· Establish rigorous monitoring systems locally and nationally that consistently evaluate if concessions are meeting the benchmarks that are earmarked.

To close, there is a poster in my previous office that reads: “A community that excludes one member is not a community at all.” Until we speak again, I urge you to broaden the network of your organization; be inclusive of those who identify with your cause. Reach far beyond the confines of Mano River and attract people who share your values. Espouse your values of inclusiveness far and near. Remember: when someone draws a smaller ring to exclude you, do not hesitate to draw a bigger ring to include them. Members of the Mano River Association in the Americas; I wish all of you God’ richest blessings in all of your future endeavors. I thank you.