A Conversation with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
In her second and final six-year term as Liberia’s president, Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf has continued a heavy schedule of international travel,
despite seemingly intractable challenges at home. It is an uneasy
balance, she acknowledges – courting international investment and aid
while struggling with a fractious democracy still scarred by a war that
killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced two-thirds of the
population, and destroyed nearly all the country’s infrastructure. After
attending the Africa-Arab Summit in Kuwait, Johnson Sirleaf visited
Dubai, where she sat down with AllAfrica’s Reed Kramer and Tami Hultman
to discuss her priorities and principles.
Madam President, what do ties in this region mean to Liberia?
In Kuwait there was an opportunity to meet with leaders of the Arab
world, who are increasingly good partners to Liberia. The same thing
continues in Dubai, where conversation is ongoing between the Dubai Port
Authority and our National Port Authority, whose managing director
[Matilda Parker] is on the mission. We were honored to meet with the
Emir and discuss possible collaboration between Dubai and Liberia in
several areas, and with bankers – in terms of financial support of
investment and development. So this trip is meant to promote more
cooperation.
You’ve made job creation a top priority, so why does unemployment remain such a challenge?
The private sector and the substantial amount of direct foreign
investment – over $16 billion that we mobilized with an objective that
they turn into exports, into jobs – have been constrained by lack of
infrastructure. Full operation in the agriculture sector – the most
labor intensive – the mining sector and the forestry sector, all have
experienced difficulties.
Our agenda for transformation, which is the first phase of the
long-term Vision 2030, focuses on infrastructure – making sure our
roads, our ports, our power, are available – because these are the major
constraints for concessionaires that have been granted agreements [to
use land for economic purposes or to extract natural resources] really,
really moving at the rate that we anticipated to create jobs.
Have the investments further strained your infrastructure, because
they’re not, in most cases, directly infrastructure-focused. Can the
holders of those valuable concessions do more?
As we speak, there are ongoing meetings by the minister of finance with
all the concessionaires that have been granted agreements. They are the
mainstay of our economy. We are resolving land issues, resolving
financial issues for many small and medium-sized businesses, which are
job creators. We are very focused on this agenda for transformation this
five years, to ensure that Liberia achieves those goals that we have
set forth.
In concrete terms, what does that focus mean?
We have done a lot on developing infrastructure. Through bilateral and
multilateral arrangements – World Bank, African Development Bank,
development funds like the Kuwait Fund, the European Commission,
Germany, Norway and all of those – we’ve mobilized substantial
development in the area of power, for example. Plans are now being
executed for the restoration of our hydro [water-generated electricity].
With the support of Norway, Japan, World Bank, Kuwait, we are going to
be having an additional 38 megawatts of power that will serve as an
interim until the hydro comes on stream. So we’ve made a lot of
progress, but it’s not going to be enough.
We have four major mining companies that have investment in our
starting operations. They’re going to require a significant amount of
power. We have two major agriculture concessions – from Malaysia and
Indonesia – that are now well advanced in their planting. They’re going
to require power, because in all of these we’re looking for value-added.
The road sector is the same thing. We are committed to build all the
primary roads and connect them to the different [county] capital cities.
We’ve got a long way to go but are well underway toward the completion
of some of those.
Yet I can tell you, our own estimates show that to meet all of our
infrastructure needs in the next five years will take $3 billion, which,
of course, Liberia doesn’t have out of its own resources. So we
continue to work with our partners to mobilize as much of that as we can
to get our ports functioning, our power functioning, roads built.Until
we do that, we’ll not add value to our very vast natural resources where
the jobs come from.
You need investment. But community and environmental groups have
complained that international companies are pushing people off their
land. What about that?
We have a new land policy. Legislation on land reform is now being
prepared by the Land Commission which was established in 2009. They’ve
identified the different categories of land; they’re going to ensure
that communities have certain rights and access to land – that they get
title for land; they’re going to participate in those cases where the
government is going to negotiate land with external groups such as
concessionaires. And so progress has been made.
Taking the Pain to Right a Wrong
In our forestry sector, we’ve had problems because people have bypassed
the laws. Our forestry reform law requires ‘conservation,
commercialization, and community protection’. The laws are there, but
many times in the enforcement of those laws, we falter – whether it is
because of capacity or people deliberately trying to bypass the laws.
That’s what we’ve experienced with these ‘private-use permits’ in the
forestry sector. Because of that, we put a moratorium on the operations
of forestry. It’s cost us a lot of money because forestry is a major
source of our budgetary revenue. But we felt we had to take the pain
because we had to correct a wrong. And so the moratorium is still in
place. Those who were running our forestry department authority are now
before the justice minister for prosecution! So we are taking steps and
we feel satisfied.
You know, 43 per cent of Liberia’s land mass is forestry. Those are one
of our major assets. Twenty-seven per cent of our landmass is
agriculture – and only 4.3 per cent being cultivated today. So if you
look at that, you can say there is a lot of land. The big thing is to
make sure that in granting the land there is full participation of the
population and the communities so they know what benefits they get; so
they know what the responsibilities are; so they become the ones that
get the jobs and the social benefits that come from concessions.
What does it mean to be part of the Power Africa initiative announced by President Barak Obama in June?
We are pleased that Liberia was included. This has to be an ongoing
operation with a U.S. company. That we don’t have, but we have good
prospects and are talking to one or two American companies that could be
working with us to start some operations that might enable us to
qualify.
You also hope to get development assistance from the U.S. Millennium
Challenge Corporation (MCC), which is based on performance and progress
in key indicators of governance. In the latest MCC scorecard, Liberia
just missed passing the required ten indicators out of 20 developmental
targets to be “compact eligible”. What does that mean?
It means, for us, more determination, to make sure that we pass all the
indicators. Last year, in 2012, we passed 10 indicators – all of them
with an upward trend. This year, 2013, we passed nine. That’s because we
did not pass the natural resource sector indicator, as we did last
year. We have found that the reason for that is that last year they had
included in the report areas of our forests reserves designated for
conservation – designated, but not formally gazetted. This year, they
discovered the error [making it appear that progress in protecting
natural resources had been reversed]. But what is important to us is
that, again, in all the indicators, there are upward trends. And I’m
very pleased that Liberia has consistently passed a corruption
indicator, because without that your entire program could be
discontinued.
Are you satisfied with what you’ve been able to accomplish against corruption during seven years in office?
I’m satisfied that we’ve made progress. We’ve made correction a topical
issue. We’ve moved it from under the table and under the rug to where
it becomes an issue that everyone discusses and where disclosure takes
place regularly. We have put in place institutions of integrity, such as
an extractive transparency initiative and new public procurement laws.
The freedom of information act, the whistle blower’s act, promote an
open society, where everybody can report. On a sustained basis,
corruption is being combated.
We still have a problem with our judicial system – the punishment part
of tackling corruption. We have dismissed people or fired people and
sent people for prosecution, but the process is too slow. We need a fast
action court that will render judgment quickly and set an example as a
deterrent. We’re still working on that. But Transparency International’s
latest report and the MCC indicator demonstrate very clearly that
Liberia has made progress. It’s difficult, because it’s been entrenched
for so long in the society, but we’ve come a long way in addressing it.
Are there limits to your ability, as an executive, to handle
corruption? Like the United States, you have three branches of
government.
We do have three branches. But so far we’ve had support getting laws;
our biggest thing is implementing them! We don’t have executive fiat, in
the sense that we cannot take action fully in certain cases. If we want
to have prosecution, obviously we have to go through the court system,
which is independent from us. But we can try to make our cases strong
and our prosecution forceful enough that we make a convincing case. We
have a new chief justice who has been working with the judges and trying
to address improprieties within the judiciary itself. Our Constitution
protects our judges, so even if they have missteps or act improperly,
there’s nothing we can do without impeachment – and that can be a long,
difficult process. But there is more collaboration among the three
branches to try to tackle some of these long-standing issues that have
constrained us from achieving our development goals.
Since Liberia is a potential oil producer, what steps are you taking to
prepare for that as you await the results of the exploration now
underway?
Well in the first instance, the oil exploration started before this
administration. There have been 10 blocks granted to companies before
this administration came in. But what we have done is to look at those
blocks and to try to bring in the major players. That’s how we were able
to get Chevron to buy into several of the blocks and to get Exxon Mobil
to buy in, because we wanted to make sure that we had those that had
strict integrity laws and that they had financial and technical
capacities to be able to explore. Anadarko is another company.
But now we’re taking another step. We’re doing petroleum sector reform.
There’ll be a new petroleum law that will set the guidelines for being
able to give out oil exploration rights. There will be two institutions –
one that will manage state assets and another one that will have the
rights to grant concessions. These reforms are now in the process. They
went before our legislature before they closed. The Senate passed it,
but they did not complete their conference with the House. When our
legislature returns in January we hope that reform will be concluded and
we’ll have the acts ratified. And then after that, we’ll open up. And
at the same time, those that had blocks, like the companies I’ve
mentioned, have indicated that they will be doing drilling early next
year under the new reform law. That law will ensure not only that we use
the resources of oil for specific areas that will lead to sustained
development – such as infrastructure – but also preserve some of the
benefits from oil for future generations. To do that, we looked at the
practices in many other countries. So we’re very happy.
But you know, oil brings clamor! I mean, as soon as people hear “oil”,
everybody gets all excited and their own plans for how they can use this
oil. It leads to tension in society and to great expectations. I keep
trying to cool people down. For one thing, we’ve got to get the reform
through to make sure that we do it right. Secondly, when the first
barrel of oil gets exported – six, seven years from now – it will be a
new administration. So, my job is to protect those future generations
from all successive administrations after my time! That’s my commitment
to the Liberian people, and I’m going to do my utmost to keep that
commitment.
Does that involve the creation of a sovereign wealth fund?
Yes, it does. When I talk about protecting future generations, it does
involve setting a certain percentages of oil proceeds into a particular
fund that cannot be used except for the future.
We’ve talked about economic indicators. What about social progress that
you’ve been able to record in the last seven years–health and
education in particular?
Even in those areas, we’ve made quite a bit of progress. Our school
enrollment has increased, particularly the enrollment of girls.
Throughout the country, we’ve built new schools, renovated schools,
built hospitals and clinics. The issue now becomes the paucity of
trained people. We’re training nurses, we have reactivated our rural
teacher training institutes, and they’re putting out hundreds of
graduates every year, but they are not enough. For the enrollment we
have, over 1.2 million kids in school, we don’t have enough good
qualified teachers, and we don’t have enough materials in the schools.
So we are grateful that Peace Corps has come back, and they’re doing a
great job with some of our rural teacher training institutes, but
they’re not enough. And so it’s going to take time. The progress from
whence we’ve come to where we are today is tremendous. But the
challenges are still enormous, because we’ve got a much longer way to
go.
This is a principal legacy of years of conflict and war, isn’t it? You lost a generation, at least, in terms of education.
Absolutely, there’s no doubt about it. The Liberian experience is
clearly that it’s so easy to destroy but it takes so much longer time to
build.
You took office with a strong position on the importance of democracy.
What can you say about the challenges, both medium and long term, and
the prospects for building sustainable democracy?
Democracy is an important dimension of development promotion and
sustained growth and development. The freedoms that are allowed people
in a democracy – the freedom of choice, the openness of society – very
important, and Liberia is committed to that. I believe that Liberia has
one of the most open societies, certainly in Africa, where freedoms are
respected. Our experience does suggest sometimes that those who enjoy
such freedom do not exercise the level of responsibility that’s called
for in the exercise of those freedoms and called for by the
Constitution. That sometimes bothers us, but we also realize that this
comes from many years of deprivation, from the poor level of education,
and so we are very tolerant in understanding that. Our commitment will
remain. But there are times when those who knowingly violate the rules
and disrespect our due processes flagrantly, that they, too, would have
to be brought into check. So we keep trying to find a balance where our
commitments to freedom, to open society, to democracy remain strong.
You have an active, you might even say noisy, press. Is there a cost?
Yes, there is a cost, because people expect that the press and the
journalists who carry information and news in the press would exercise a
certain judgment, certain cautions, certain professional attributes in
putting forth the news. In countries like our own where the press is to a
certain extent commercialized, it leaves questions as to how far can
you go. But, I keep saying that we exercise tolerance and we will
continue to do so. We think we have to do more to support the press in
training, to make them more professional, to help them with their own
financial viability so they don’t have to resort to the things that lead
to bad journalism. That’s going to be our challenge.
But it has affected the country, because false accusations, stories in
the press that say things about the country that are not true,
sensationalizing the news because it makes a story easier to sell, hurt a
country. And they’ve hurt us. It’s created in some cases some very bad
images of Liberia based upon falsehoods, and that’s not fair to the
country. But, these are the times, those are the conditions. We have to
work with what we’ve got and try to make the best of it.
On the question of [post-war] reconciliation, you have said the process
is still to be completed. Where are you in that, and what still has to
be done?
We still have to deal with the lingering Truth and Reconciliation
Report. People do not realize how much progress has been made in the
implementation of the recommendations of the report. The recommendations
were hundreds, many of which we’ve already done. As far as we’re
concerned, the most important are the welfare of young people, of
children. But we’ve got to face up and give a report to the public:
‘These are what have been recommended; this is the progress that we have
made’.
The one area that has to do with a process of contrition and
forgiveness as an alternative to war crime [convictions] is an area that
we are still lacking. We called it the ‘palaver hut’. The Palaver
[discussion]
has been launched, but we need to give it much greater
momentum, we need for it to be more understood in the society, we need
to get more involvement of everybody That’s what we’re trying to do.
But Liberia is a very political environment. Even though we all share
the same culture, traits, habits, and whatnot, if people were to listen
sometimes to the noise in our community and the noise in our society,
they will think we really are going at each other. And that’s not true.
We get into the press, we get on the radio, and we verbally abuse each
other. you might say, then in the night you go into the entertainment
center and we’re all there dancing! That’s Liberia for you. You have to
see Liberia in its true context.
We need to do more for reconciliation. But one thing I believe Liberia
is very, very certain about, no matter where you are in the society:
Liberia does not want to go back to war. And of that we are determined
and everybody is committed to.
How does international media coverage of Liberia square with what you see as the reality?
I do believe that the international press writing on Liberia lately
need to do more to understand where we are, to appreciate the progress,
while also understanding the complexities and enormity of the
challenges. And you can’t do that by just reading things on the
Internet. A lot of stuff gets on the Internet, and some of it is just
garbage. You can’t form your opinions and your perceptions on that
basis. So, we ask you to go beyond that, to read reports like that IMF
report, like the World Bank report, the African Development Bank report,
the Mo [Ibrahim] Index governance report, because these are people that
take the time to go beneath what is read in newspapers and said on
radio to find the data, to look at the information, and to analyze it to
see where we are. And I dare say if you go into all of those
professional reports you will be able to understand the true level of
significant progress that Liberia has made, coming from a totally
devastated ‘failed state’ in 2006 to today, where we are up there
competing with most of the countries in every area of our development
indicators. I’ll pat myself on the back and say, “Hey, hey, we are doing
it!”
And the next four years we hope we can move it to the place where it’s
clear, completely conclusive, about Liberia’s progress, and that it
would be irreversible. That will be the real joy for me.
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