Editorial: The Primary Focus Should Be The Economy

CPP’s Response To The SONA, Verbatim

𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐈𝐒 evidently weakened, lumbering under an over US$2 billion public debt stock, US$80 million budget deficit, double-digit inflation, sluggish growth, high unemployment, and increasing poverty. The primary focus should be the economy, both rescuing and transforming it. While we commend efforts in the agenda laid forth in that direction, namely empowering Liberian entrepreneurship (made in Liberia), leveraging Information Communication Technology (ICT) in creating jobs, and the National Tourism Authority to name a few, yet a clear direction of how this new government will set out to alleviate these economic ills was missing and no answer given to the ‘bread and butter’ questions.

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄, 𝐖𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 on the President to make the economy and jobs, jobs, jobs his number one priority. In that vein, we call for initiatives to spur local economic stimulus/empowerment including prioritized agriculture sector revival with special agriculture loan schemes for smallholding farmers (targeting women and youth), microfinance schemes for medium, small, and micro enterprises (MSME), and supporting entrepreneurs/enterprise development with incentivized SME (small and medium enterprises) business incubation.

𝐀𝐋𝐒𝐎, 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 with the president’s made in Liberia push, we call for prioritizing the enforcement of the “Liberianization” policy which will further spur Liberian businesses, the adoption of a “buy Liberian” procurement and maintenance policy by all government apparatus and parastatals to support domestic businesses, and the enforcement of the government’s 50% procurement localization target. We also call on the government to focus on initiatives to boost youth economic opportunities, particularly immediate policy actions to better aid disadvantaged youths (“pen-pen” boys, “keh-keh” boys, etc.).

𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐂 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐍𝐃 accountability are interrelated, the revitalization of the economy rest on issues of accountable governance, and its bad twin of corruption in the form of fraud, waste and abuse. While we again commend efforts in the agenda laid forth in that direction, specifically comprehensive audit of all government institutions, reintroducing fiscal rules and travel ordinance and establishing Office of the Ombudsman, we also call for Executive Orders to immediately…