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Administrative Machinery for Development Planning in Liberia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Ozay Mehmet
Ozay Mehmet
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Windsor, Ontario
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Extract

Although the oldest independent African republic, Liberia ranks among the continent's poorest states,1 despite the existence of a small but prosperous foreign enclave dominated by iron ore and rubber plantation companies. Prior to 1950, even this sector was non-existent, with the exception of the Firestone rubber plantation at Harbel which was started in 1926.

Type
Africana
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , September 1975 , pp. 510 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

Page 510 note 1 In per capita terms, gross domestic product is about $260, but gross national product is about $210, the difference reflecting net factor payments abroad. In the large subsistence sector, income per capita is estimated at less than $70.

Page 510 note 2 The 1950 figures in this paragraph are taken from Clower, Robert W. et al. , Growth Without Development: an economic survey of Liberia (Evanston, 1966), p. 24.Google Scholar The 1972 figures are from the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs, Economic Survey of Liberia, 1972 (Monrovia, 1973),Google Scholar mimeographed.

Page 510 note 3 Liebenow, J. Gus, Liberia: the evolution of privilege (Ithaca, 1969), p. 172.Google Scholar

Page 511 note 1 Ibid. for a concise and penetrating study of the historical and social perspectives of Liberian society.

Page 511 note 2 This is the central theme of the celebrated book, Growth Without Development, banned in Liberia by President William Tubman.

Page 511 note 3 This is a World Bank calculation utiised in the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs, Indicative Manpower Plan of Liberia for the Period 1972–1982 (Monrovia, 1974), tables 6–7.Google Scholar

Page 512 note 1 The World Bank is currently providing a team of consultants to the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs in a renewed attempt to produce a five-year development plan.

Page 512 note 2 Publications by the M.P.E.A. include the annual Economic Survey of Liberia, the Quarterly Statistical Bulletin of Liberia, as well as the following: Public Sector Accounts, External Trade (Exports), External Trade (Imports), and other occasional reports. In addition, the M.P.E.A. has conducted Liberia's first and second population censuses, in 1962 and 1974 respectively.

Page 513 note 1 In practice, however, there is little resemblance to a free enterprise economy since this sector is dominated by private monopolies, owned wholly or in part by leading politicians, concerned with the importation of the nation's staple food item, rice, and the marketing of fish, as well as the supply of school textbooks, uniforms, cement, and so on.

Page 513 note 2 Quoted in International Labour Office, Report to the Government of Liberia on Total Involvement: a strategy for development (Geneva, 1972), p. 101.Google Scholar

Page 514 note 1 Ibid. para. 295, p. 49. See also Growth Without Development, especially pp. 19–21.

Page 514 note 2 Ironically, the origins of this political integration stem from the international indignation aroused during the late 1920S over the alleged forced recruitment of tribal labourers from the Liberian hinterland for work on sugar plantations in the Spanish island colony of Fernando Po. After an intensive investigation by a League of Nations Commission of Inquiry, the President and Vice-President were implicated in this scandal, and forced by public opinion to resign. Cf. Marinelli, Lawrence A., The New Liberia: a historical and political survey (New York, 1964), pp. 47–8;Google Scholar and for more details, based on the original documents, see Richardson, Nathaniel R., Liberia's Past and Present (London, 1959), ch. XVII.Google Scholar

Page 515 note 1 For example, the Rally Time Fund in 1973 when $4·5 million was raised for development purposes.

Page 515 note 2 Thus in November 1973 the Ministry of Public Works distributed to Superintends of Counties heavy-duty machinery and vehicles, bought with Rally Time funds and intended for use on development projects. However, it was alleged that some of this equipment found its way onto the farms of government officials and politicians. See the editorial ‘The Masses are Not Fools’, in Sunday Express (Monrovia), 2 12 1973, p. 3.Google Scholar

Page 515 note 3 Fraenkel, Merran, Tribe and Class in Monrovia (London, 1964), p. v.Google Scholar

Page 515 note 4 For a detailed and informed account of these cliques and interrelationships, see Liebenow, op. cit. and his ‘Liberia’, in James S. Coleman and Carl G. Rosberg, Jr. (eds.), Political Parties and Jvational Integration in Tropical Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), pp. 8–81.Google Scholar

Page 515 note 5 Cf. Liebenow, , ‘Liberia’, p. 457:Google Scholar ‘Those who advance on the basis of merit alone… are a potential threat to the regime.’

Page 515 note 6 See the interesting and frank article by Johnson, R., Assistant Minister of Finance, entitled ‘Government Job is not Welfare Benefit’, in Liberian Star (Monrovia), 23 11 1973.Google Scholar

Page 516 note 1 Berg, Elliot quoted on p. 6 in ‘Report on the Second Conference on Development Objectives and Strategy’, Monrovia, 19–23 04 1971,Google Scholar prepared by C. Campaigne, Resident Representative, United Nations Development Programme, Liberia.

Page 516 note 2 ‘An Act Repealing the Public Employment Law and Amending the Executive Law to Create a Civil Service Agency, Approved July 19, 1973’, Government Printing Office, Monrovia, 1973.Google Scholar

Page 516 note 3 For example, a U.S. A.I.D.-assisted Institute of Public Administration was established in Monrovia during the late 1960s to provide in-service training for Liberian public officials, but has been unable to play an effective role owing to bureaucratic jealousies and lack of departmental co-operation.

Page 517 note 1 The papers presented to the first Conference were published by the U.N.D.P., Liberia, under the title ‘Report on the Conference on Development Objectives and Strategy’, Monrovia, 12 1969.Google Scholar

Page 517 note 2 Examples include ‘Total Involvement for Higher Heights’ and ‘Wholesome Functioning Society’, keynote phrases in recent pronouncements by President Tolbert.

Page 518 note 1 A comprehensive series of reforms are proposed in the 1972 I.L.O. report on ‘total involvement’ already cited, with a strong emphasis on rural education and agricultural development.