Human Resource, Not Financial Resource

When any government says that it is resource short and getting the shortage problem solved is the solution to the economic and financial problems of the country, the government is wrong because the problems continue when the shortage problem is solved. Witness the record-breaking clearing of the external debt of USD4.5 billion through the Heavily Indebted poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative during the immediate past State regime. With hundreds of millions United States Dollars worth of grants from the World Bank/IMF, the European Union (EU), USAID, the African Development Bank (ADB) and the government of the People's Republic of China, the problems remain, as over 80 percent of the Liberian population live on less than USD2 a day.

Clearly, the continuation of the economic and financial problems in Liberia means that financial resources are not the main resource of Liberia. This Commentary will show that human resource is the main resource of any country, including Liberia. The failure to recognize this truth and the continuation to rely on financial resources as the main resource leads to the worsening of the problems. State managers continue to ignore their big mistake as they bask in the artificial sunshine of luxurious lifestyles, with the Liberian Legislators having access to at least USD1,000 a day and their foreign partners, in the commercial sector alone, have access to at least USD2 million a day in the midst of the longstanding and widespread poverty of the people of Liberia. This poverty has become the pretext for violence and even civil war, as seen in the Liberian Civil War of 1989 to 2003. 

Besides the State managers, other national leaders, be they religious, civil or private business persons, continue to operate on the basis of the financial resource as the main resource. Give anyone who does not have the Will to help others to help themselves to make Liberia better for all USD1 billion, and give anyone who has the Will to help others to help themselves to make Liberia better for all USD1,000; the person with the USD1,000 will do infinitely better than the person with the USD1 billion because the person with the USD1 billion will spend the money only on himself. This spending on oneself with the money of others is the source of the longstanding and widespread corruption that continues to eat up the financial resources that continue to be made available to Liberia. National leaders, including religious and political party leaders, pursue the financial resource and, therefore, can not speak truth to power. The truth from the Community, as in the Report of the Liberian Economic Group (LEG), was delivered to government and other national leaders since October 2019, but none of them has taken ownership of the Report, as the societal situation worsens, with 80 percent of the Liberian people saying that Liberia is headed in the wrong direction (Afrobarometer, 2020).

This Commentary shows that the persons who set the House called Liberia on fire, through corruption, will not get water to put out the fire! Therefore, the Community has to continue to save Liberia by raising awareness to get people to take non-violent actions to change the electoral system from UNFAIR to FAIR in order that persons with the Will to help people to help themselves to make Liberia better for all can be elected to make this change.