Senesee G. Freeman, I

With the emergence of a new political dispensation, Liberians at home and abroad are quite enthusiastic that the process of reconstruction and rehabilitation is now on course. But despite this welcome development, the reality remains that this government in the short term will be unable to absorb the huge number of people mostly college graduates who have not had the opportunity of gainful employment owing to the dismal performance of the Liberian economy cnsequence of prolonged years of civil conflict and bad governance.

Another side of the economic coin is that most of these college graduates anxious for an opportunity to contribute their quota to the development of their country lack the basic managerial skills and experience badly needed to accelerate the pace of development. This brings us to the crux of this article titled “Creating a Liberian Service Corps”.

A contextual definition of this phrase highlights four keys words, namely, Creating, Liberian, Service and Corps. Creating denotes bringing into being something that has not existed before. Liberian implies a uniqueness to values, culture and traditions of the people living in Liberia. Service means to help, benefit assist with no conditionality, in order words, a work of selflessness, while Corps in this context signifies a group, a public body, a unit or an organization dedicated to a particular set of core values.

During her inaugural address on January 16, 2006, the President of Liberia, Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, again reaffirmed her campaign promise to create opportunities for Liberian youths to be trained and gainfully employed in order to contribute their quota to nation building. As we await this campaign and inaugural promise to come to fruition, I owe it to President Sirleaf and her newly elected government to look at the concept of establishing a Liberian Service Corps to help in the acceleration of national development and putting to work quickly many of our colleagues who are recent graduates of universities and other higher institutions but are still unemployed. (Recent estimates indicate that Liberia's unemployment rate stands at a staggering 85%).

After more than eight months of intensive travels around Liberia as a Program Officer with the International Foundation for Elections Systems (IFES), interacting with local residents and International Partners from Totota and Gbarnga in Bong County, to Ganta, Saclepea, Tappita and Sanniquellie in Nimba County, to Greenville in Sinoe County, to Harper and Pleebo in Maryland County, to Bopolu in Gbarpolu County and to Voinjama in Lofa County during the electoral exercise, I have come to a realistic conclusion that with the great economic potential and the dynamic resilience of the ordinary people, the emergence of a Liberian Service Corps comprising Liberians both within the country and in the diaspora who have acquired theoretical knowledge in their field of competence but have not been opportune to apply same, can be tapped to play a pivotal role in the reconstruction of the country.

If President Sirleaf and her corps of officers are indeed serious about making Liberia work again, then the human resources of these cadres must be utilized to ensure an accelerated pace of national reconstruction and development. Further, many of these persons may not relish the idea of working at menial jobs outside of their traditional spheres of habitation due to the widely held belief that a government job in Monrovia ensures prestige and money and keeps one in contact with the status quo. However, with the right incentives and a commitment by most Liberians to seeing Liberians at work again, sooner or later this movement will receive nation wide support. But there is a dire need for nurses/physicians assistants/other medical personnel, agriculturists, teachers, social and community workers, amongst others that can be utilized to help the Unity Party led government in its efforts to reduce the bloated Civil Service and find alternatives for those who may be affected by this measure and others in the unemployed category.

But skeptics may be quick to question the timeliness of this recommendation at a juncture where the newly elected government has inherited an economy with a staggering US$3.5 billion of foreign and domestic debt and a cash based budget that does not have adequate funds to even carry out its operational expenses. As a student of economics and a social worker, I am of the view that this task, even though difficult, is not insurmountable as there is a lot of international good will within the comity of nations to help us if we are indeed serious about meaningfully touching the lives of our people and using our vast availability of human resources in the first 150 days of this regime.

It is therefore recommended that the UP Led government begin immediately looking at the possibility of establishing a Liberian Service Corps and working with our development partners and friendly governments to galvanize the needed support to make this program workable and meaningful. Technicians from the Ministries of Labor and Youth and Sports could be requested to work at putting together a realistic blueprint for the implementation of this proposition. We are quite confident that if this scheme is seriously considered, it will in the long term contribute to the acceleration of the much needed community development programs and projects for which we overwhelmingly voted this government into power, and bring to fruition the Liberian parlance “Papa na come.” Madame President, please act now for that is indeed a panacea for accelerated development in post war Liberia.

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