Over the past weeks, Liberians have not only suffered the burden of a whopping increase in the price of the nation’s staple, rice, but wholesalers and retailers of the commodity hoarding the commodity and smuggling it to neighboring countries.
Upon President George Weah’s return from the United Nations General Assembly, he announced that there is sufficient rice in the country to feed the citizenry up to the end of November, but that critics of his administration have been playing politics with the situation. A few days later, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry announced that rice is in country, but the importers are refusing to distribute the commodity on the market for their selfish interest of maximizing profit and strangulating the poor masses, threatening to penalize anyone found in the act of increasing the price of rice above the stipulated price. The Liberia National Police (LNP) also released a warning to those involved in hiking the price the rice that they will not hesitate to arrest them.
With all these strong statements coming from the Government of Liberia (GOL), it seems like the threats and warnings have been landing on deaf ears, as rice continues to remain scarce on the market and, arguably, at the highest cost ever in the history of the nation, with marketers selling a bag of 25kg rice between L$3,750 and L$6,000.
The situation has appeared to be uncontrollable. Even though it has been ascertain that a number of importers have a stockpile of the commodity in their warehouses, they have remained adamant in heeding the government’s order to distribute rice to the local market at the stipulated cost, and without demanding clients to buy other items before they are served.
However, the situation has claimed the attention of the “FixTheCountry” campaigners—a group made up of members of the University of Liberia’s Student Unification Party (SUP) and perceived to be heavily backed by critics of the Weah administration.
In a statement issued October 4, 2022, the vanguard SUP demanded that the Weah administration act accordingly as soon as possible in taking seizure of the rice crisis and rollout possible remedies to the situation, or it will rally the people of Liberia into a consistent militant revolutionary action until President Weah can act. “If George Weah cannot act in the ultimatum given, we will go to the marketplaces, communities, towns, and villages to rally our people and bring them out in the streets to demand the government to act. Like we did the previously held FixTheCountry protest, we are prepared to bring the Liberian masses out again to demand better,” SUP said in its press release.
According to the release, “The current Liberian state is in disorder; one of poor statecraft, with incompetent human agencies, and riff-raffs of the highest order who lack the discipline, thoughts and requisite knowledge to administer leadership in a third-world nation like Liberia. The outcropping of this is reflective of the horrible conditions our people are made to endure daily under ‘Don’t Care’ Weah stewardship. It has been over three weeks since this situation of rice scarcity and the unimaginable increment in the price of the commodity hit this country, yet, the government of Mr. Weah is yet to give the situation proper attention and remedy. Rice, which is the staple food for Liberians, is a commodity with a history in this country that has led to a social eruption because of the government’s inability to exercise decisive leadership. Again, we are seeing another rice crisis that has evolved in such a short time and the Weah regime has been unable to provide any feasible solution so far. Since the regime has played just lip-service to this plight, the crisis is pushing the people along the line of forceful mass action, with the government paying little or no heedfulness to the situation. The scarcity and heightened increment in the price of rice is not only generating hardship for the people but has also condemned them to a shameful situation of sleeping on the streets in long queues, jumping over fences and combating over who to be served first by the wholesalers. This is the first time in our country’s history for a cup of rice to be sold for 150LD and a 25kg bag to be sold for more than 4500 LD. The callous and lethargic tendency of George Weah’s government toward this crisis is not just a signal of administrative ineptitude but a gross demonstration of how the Liberian public administration has degenerated into the insolvency of carelessness and imbalances. This Weah’s garbage has once again shown our people how incompetent and incapable it is of providing genuine leadership for the Liberian people.
“It is against this backdrop that Revolutionary Vanguard Student Unification Party mandates the CDC-Weah government to act accordingly as soon as possible in taking seizure of the rice crisis and rollout possible remedies to the situation, or else SUP will rally the people of Liberia into a consistent militant revolutionary action until Mr. Weah can act.”
Pundits are likening the current rice situation to what led to the infamous rice riot in 1979, when a number of advocates took to the streets in demand for the price of rice not to be increased, which later turned out bloody.
In early April 1979, the then Minister of Agriculture, Florence Chenoweth, proposed an increase in the subsidized price of rice from $22 per 100-pound bag to $26. Chenoweth asserted that the increase would serve as an added inducement for rice farmers to stay on the land and produce rice as both a subsistence crop and a cash crop, instead of abandoning their farms for jobs in the cities or on the rubber plantations. However, political opponents criticized the proposal as self-aggrandizement, pointing out that Chenoweth and the family of President William Tolbert operated large rice farms and would therefore realize a tidy profit from the proposed price increase.
The Progressive Alliance of Liberia called for a peaceful demonstration in Monrovia to protest the proposed price increase. On April 14, 1979, about 2,000 activists began what was planned as a peaceful march on the Executive Mansion. The protest march swelled dramatically when the protesters were joined en route by more than 10,000 “back street boys”, causing the march to quickly degenerate into a disorderly mob of riot and destruction. Widespread looting of retail stores and rice warehouses ensued with damage to private property estimated to have exceeded $40 million. The government called in troops to reinforce police units in the capital, which were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the rioters. In 12 hours of violence in the city’s streets at least 40 civilians were killed, and more than 500 injured.