‘Liberia is Moving in the Right Direction’

The Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Samuel Tweah, has disclosed that Liberia passing the Millennium Compact Challenge (MCC) scorecard is an indication that the country is moving on the right trajectory.

Tweah bragged that even though there has been much negative propaganda against the George Weah administration, “the truth has unveiled itself and the success should be celebrated by every Liberian, regardless of the political persuasion they come from.”

According to him, “two big things have happened for us and they are reputational clarity, reputational direction, confidence and faith in the stewardship of President Weah.” 

He explained that the MCC money, when received, will help enhance development in the energy sector and the benefit will not be exclusive to government officials but to everyone else who is in the area of the supply chain.

“What the MCC Scorecard did then is to say that after all these years of propaganda, someone called me from America saying that he and many were made to believe that the country was going down,” Tweah said while being interviewed on the Super Morning Show. “But the MCC is now saying that the government has been doing well. “We are looking into sustaining it next year.”

The minister’s position comes as Liberia has passed twelve (12) out of twenty (20) indicators. Liberia, after failure in 2018, passed the control of corruption, government effectiveness, civil liberties, political rights, trade policy, and rule of law, among others. The country scorecard is a consolidation of each individual country’s scores of each of the policy indicators including Economic Freedom, Ruling Justly, and investing in people.

Liberia’s MCC Scorecard success, with a record 12 out of 20 indicators above 9 out of 20 in 2022, confirms the fair and correct evaluation of Liberia's ongoing development in its governance system, as stated in reports from the IMF and US State Department.

Under the Economic Freedom policy area, Liberia for the first time passed the Trade Policy indicator. The Government also passed the Control of inflation indicator, while under the Ruling Justly policy area, Liberia passed 5 out of the 6 policy indicators: including the must-pass indicator on Control of Corruption, and other political governance indicators such as the Rule of Law, Freedom of Information, civil liberties, and political rights. 

However, Liberia could only pass one indicator out of the six indicators under the Investing People Category.

The Weah government’s success in the 2023 Millennium Challenge Compact Scorecard, however, does not mean that the country automatically gets the US$500 million it has been eying. Liberia's performance qualifies it to be included in a poll of 66 nations that move on to the next round of assessment to determine eligibility for the Compact. 

The MCC Board's decision during this review period will be based on the governance trend and scorecard indicators, Post Compact assessment-evaluation of the first Compact, and the Government's strategy to invest in human capital.

The Weah government's remarkable success comes after a number of other encouraging international evaluations. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Board recently commended Liberia, approving US$22 million to strengthen the nation's reserve in exchange for Liberia meeting the program's quantitative performance criteria. Liberia continues to pursue remarkable macroeconomic and governmental reforms, according to the IMF.

In its country economic assessments for 2022, the IMF praised the Liberian government for its challenging and effective governance initiatives and policies that have largely maintained macroeconomic stability, lowering inflation within single digits and maintaining a positive real GDP growth of 3.7% despite the enormous economic challenges facing the world at the time, such as COVID and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

“There are more countries applying for Compact than MCC is able to give. Sixty-six (66) countries can apply and maybe twenty (20) get it. One can pass but the MCC board has to assess you on a case-by-case basis,” Tweah said. “The board will make a determination when you pass. The board looks at democracy, and good governance, among others. And if it comes to democracy, the President will make a case for Liberia that our country is an exceptional democracy because, in Liberia, we have civilian control of the military like it is in the US. In Liberia, no President can tamper with term limits.”

 “We are equal to American democracy in those respects. In Liberia, you have no political prisoners. People criticize the government, abuse the President and they are living and going to sleep sound,” he said.

Meanwhile, Tweah attributed the government's previous failures to challenges including COVID-19. Tweah noted that the priority would be to increase the electricity supply to the Liberian population.

“MCC money can’t go to paying contractors. MCC money can deliver hard infrastructure. You can see it. MCC money is not about things that you cannot verify. You will go and see it. You will see the road; you will see the energy infrastructure. So we are very happy. The President wants this so we can continue after the first compact,” he told his interviewers.

He said people who think that President Weah does not know what he is doing are wrong, saying the President has a capable team of cabinet members and they are delivering, even though there are challenges.

“The man knows what he is doing. He has a team, a dedicated government looking out to solve historic complex challenges,” Tweah argued. “I can’t pretend to you that we can solve these problems in two or three years. These are structural challenges that we are facing but we have a President that is focused on this and even though there are challenges here and there, we remain focused and not distracted.”

On consistent passing of the corruption indicator in the MCC scorecard, Tweah boasted that it is based on the policy decisions the government has employed to show the world that it is serious about fighting against corruption.

But when quizzed why the government has passed on corruption fbut senior government officials were sanctioned by the US Department of  Treasury Department for corruption, Tweah said he takes no interest in discussing the merits and demerits of the sanctions.

 However, he said, the government itself was not sanctioned, and, as such, its performance cannot be subjected to an individual’s bad performance.

“I don’t want to get into the Treasury thing here, though, but the Treasury follows the IMF program, the MCC scorecard and from this report on the MCC scorecard, we can safely say that the country is moving in the right direction,” he boasted.