IMF & LIBERIA: THE NEOLIBERAL AGENDA OF CAPITALISM

By: Andrew Borbor Werlay Jaye Jr.

This paper was originally a Political Science research work. But given the fact of the Liberia-IMF scandalmongering character of the Liberian crisis under the kleptocracy of Mr. Weah, this paper deserves public consumption for both the enlightenment and redemption of the Liberian political superstructure and economic base. It remains to be seen that it covers events prior to, and events after the Weah Government signed up to the neoliberal conditionalities of the Bretton Woods Institution (IMF) under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) in an effort to rebound the tattered Liberian economy. In foremost objective, as we will view below, this research paper argues that such neoliberal programs and measures have not offered or been offering macroeconomic stability or macroeconomic recovery as the Mount Washington Institution (IMF) and the Weah Government would have us to believe.

                    INTRODUCTION

The Liberian economy has continued to contract shocks and woes since the coming of the celebrated soccer icon in George Manneh Weah. Despite Weah promising the Liberian masses that “they would not be spectators in their own economy” during his victory speech (inaugural address) at the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Stadium, on January 22, 2018, the downward spiral of the economy accompanied by the scourge of the novel Covid-19 has produced many ‘hand-to-mouth spectators’ within the working class, the civil service, the middle class, the petit-bourgeoisie, the pension-fund-class, and the peasantry. These aforementioned strata which constitute Liberia`s vibrant population have been speedily riddled by the capitalist regime of Weah. This can be drawn from the structural adjustments which are recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as pills for Liberia`s economical illness. For the working class was drastic redundancies or lay-offs in the factories, industries, mines, etc. And amongst others poor working conditions, wage reductions, and wage freezes. The civil service has experienced the worst prolonged delay of payments since the economic balance under the administration of Mrs. Sirleaf (one who also saw the IMF as a credible advisor). The two chambers of the bicameral Legislature that are supposed to be sacred according to the definition of bourgeois democracy have been shattered away from all sacredness by clandestine protestations-mainly led by legislative civil servants that have blockaded senators and representatives from conducting normal businesses in demand for their cut salaries under the austere measures of the IMF. The members of the underdeveloped middle class have been pushed towards the categories of working-class or peasantry. For the petit-bourgeoisie, it has been a journey of political opportunism and going back to underemployment and unemployment with the collapse of their micro shops, mini restaurants, girly saloons, night clubs, cigar bars, pool resorts, seaside hotels, fueling stations, drugs pharmacies, auto garages, etc. Look at how soul-touching it was to see old and retired folks protesting at the gate of the Liberian Legislature

against their forceful retirement. One of the elderly protesters remarked that they were told by the government that the Fund urged for all 60 years and above to be removed from the government wage bill with the sole purpose of reducing government spending. Though the president`s economic and legal advisers in Charles Bright and Emmanuel Shaw are aged above 60 years, their good offices of the Executive remain untouched towards reduction in public expenditures. The peasantry, the agrarian group of people finds it difficult to engage in sustainable subsistence farming as the rapid growth of neoliberal globalization begets the primitive dispossession of their land spurred by the right of private property instead of the encouragement of people`s collectivization; the damage of their ecosystem by the right of private property; and the withdrawal of agricultural subsidies (financial discipline) to not support farmers being imposed by the IMF to meet their conditionalities. Lastly, the banking sector crisis in which there are shortages of both currencies-Liberian dollar and the US dollar-cannot be given a fair analysis without the bad austere measures of the IMF that have escalated the problem. One of the reasons only 5 percent out of 100 percent of the Liberian dollars in circulation are found within the country`s banks (CBL 2019 Report) is the reduced public spending imposed by the IMF to meet the balance of payments; something which has greatly help to culminate into fewer deposits and large withdrawals (distrust in the banking sector).

All Hail the Brutality of the IMF and Hosanna for Weah!!! The much-heralded harmonization policy of the IMF being praised by the third world nation`s president in Mr. Liar Man(George Weah) and his finance minister in Samuel Tweah is obscurantism to hide the bad effects of the unhealthy financial discipline of the IMF. The so-called financial discipline of the IMF can be simply defined as the cut in capital and social expenditures, the slash in wages and salaries, the downsizing of wage workers, the clearing of employees’ names from on governmental payrolls, the devaluation of the host currency, and the development of underdevelopment. The Chicago School of Thought, Neoliberalism, formulated by Milton Friedman and his Chicago schoolboys to rescue senile capitalism has not helped as humanity produces and evolutionary periods take place with the lack of the relevant correspondence of economic prosperity since the 1980s. And to make matter worse, Liberia is one of the worst peripheries of IMF-backed neoliberal capitalism. Yet the country continues to be recycled from one group of Yankee’s players to another batch of Uncle Sam`s stooges. Expectantly, the bourgeois opposition parties in Liberia are all about who must serve foreign capital and foreign demand well? Hence they have no criticisms for the catastrophic policies of the IMF! But a socialist progressive alternative cannot be overemphasized so as to put a ruthless end to barbaric capitalism in an agrarian Liberia.

            PRO POOR AGENDA IS POOR

In a garish style with a media brouhaha, a conglomeration of stalwarts of the Coalition of Democratic Change (CDC) and topnotch governmental officials of the Weah regime stormed Ganta, Nimba County to launch the long-awaited Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD) on 27 October 2018. (Weah to Launch 5-Year National Pro-Poor Agenda in Nimba, see www.liberianobserver.com) The one hundred and fifty-nine-page document outlines four (4) pillars; namely, 1. Power to the Power 2. Economy and jobs. 3. Sustaining the Peace and 4. Governance and Transparency as cornerstones to construct economic magic on behalf of Mr. Weah. The document articulates lifting a million peoples out of poverty (PAPD) and providing tens of thousands of jobs to the unemployed (PAPD). But the document does not comprise all of the promises of Mr. Weah to the Liberian people. With very few of the majors out of the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development are:

1. The construction of a twin city at Bali Island.
2. The construction of a coastal highway.
3. The building of seven (7) sports pitches in seven (7) counties.
4. The Two thousand street lights.
5. The Modernization of the Roberts International Airport (RIA) to VAMOMA House.

It is against this backdrop that the campaign for development funds began by Weah and his adherents who possess no scruples to utilize funds for their intended purposes. Not later, rather sooner, the government made a big pronouncement of the ETON & EBOMAF loan deals (which amounted to over a billion dollars) in fulfillment of the promise of Mr. Weah. Comments like ‘even the money come from the devil, we don’t care. We need our roads’ were the sayings of Weah`s zealots, kinsmen, and those of the opportunistic and sycophantic class who apple-polish for every president`s favor and a good book. But the stiffed opposition that met the racket-ridden loans prove strong in the end when the supposed lenders were nowhere to be found. (Sen. Lawrence Wants Eton, Ebomaf Loan Agreements Cancelled, see ww.liberianobserver.com; Mathew J. Wesseh, 2018). So much in need of developmental funds, the Weah regime announced a Chinese Resource Swap upon arrival from the China-Africa Summit after the Chinese had once again promised to render 54 million dollars for an overhead bridge at the Ministerial Complex, Congo Town, Liberia. (China Gives Liberia US$54M Grant to Construct Overpasses at SKD Boulevard, Ministerial Complex; see frontpageafricaonline.com) On another money spree in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and having been given a football to kick and a jersey to wear, footballing Weah paid a courtesy visit to the crown prince in Mohammed Bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in a bid to seek bilateral assistance for development initiatives. As usual back home, the Executive Mansion of Monrovia, Liberia dramatized the presidential trip as follow:

“The official visit of the President of Liberia, Dr. George Manneh Weah to the United Arab Emirates started to bear fruits on arrival as the government and private investors in that Middle Eastern state unveiled on day one of the visit enormous development interests in various sectors. President Weah and his entourage arrived in the UAE capital city of Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, March 19, 2019, to a colorful and exciting reception from the authority of the country including Crown Prince Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.”

One month later in April 2019, following a publication in Liberia’s most-read online newspaper, FrontPage Africa, the story went “United Arab Emirates Assistant Minister for International Affairs Sultan Al Shamsi said his team is diverse in its purpose and firm to deliver on their mandate of identifying viable investment opportunities that will create jobs, fight poverty and build capacity in Liberia. Minister Al Shamsi said individual groups of the delegation were interested in port development and expansion agricultural production with emphasis on food security road connectivity and support to education and health.” And according to Liberia`s Executive Mansion, the UAE visit was meant to explore the dreams of the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development. (UAE Investor Highlights Port, Road, and Agriculture Development in Liberia, see frontpageafricaonline.com) Up to now, the UAE investors have not come back after conducting so-called “feasibility studies” as to where investments can be good within the sectors of the economy. With all financial holes being sewed from vomiting funds to the neocolonial regime, the International Monetary Fund became a financial asylum for the West African country. But the asylum has become a narrative of a prison book.

                   WEAH TURNS TO IMF

Where to spend your money; where to carry on reforms; and where to effectuate them have been the order of the day. This is the ugly way of the IMF. And Liberia under Mr. Weah is no exclusion for its drastic demands. Before the spark of the novel coronavirus that has raged the global economy that is capitalistic, and Liberia being one of its neocolonial peripheries, the Liberian economy as a specific case study has been experiencing an ongoing crisis. Though at the same time the regime has been eyeing funds to explore its agenda.  On the heels of the much-publicized ‘June 7, 2019, Save the State Protest’, “President George Weah government gave his first major policy address Wednesday to declare his administration embrace of an IMF program tailor-made for Liberia.” Just in time, the then US ambassador, Christine Elder praised the Weah government for joining the IMF programs. She asserted: “the time is now to reverse corruption and its corrosive and contagious effects. The time is now to strengthen an economy that provides opportunities in more sectors and where open and transparent competition rules the day… I applaud you, Mr. President, for opening discussions with the International Monetary Fund regarding measures that could restore confidence in the economy and the stage for growth.” Then the inept regime thought that everything would be okay. The Americanization of Liberia-once it comes from America it is all rosy and super.

Over the period of time, the Weah arrangement has shown its unwavering support for the neoliberal institution (IMF). No matter how bad their policies have grossly affected the Liberian statehood. On 11 December 2019, the executive board of the Fund gave approval for a US$213.6 Million of a four-year arrangement under the ECF to Liberia. Sadly, the loan doesn’t come in full swing. It is given to an indebted country bit by bit. Hence that country does not spend according to her wishes. So for Liberia, the loan was a drop in the ocean, but it was also damaging for the ocean with the coming of covid-19 in the New Year. A press release called by the fund announced “a US$50 million to Liberia to address the covid-19 pandemic” on June 5, 2020. Out of the disbursement of the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) thereof, the government squandered (evident from the fact that the people were holistically excluded from the distribution of the rice, beans and oil) US$30 million in conjunction with the World Food Program (the collection of US$ 9millon for transporting activities) with the bogus talk of the stimulus package. Nationalist movements like the One People Revolutionary Movement (OPRM) brought the World Food Program (WFP) under the microscope of scrutiny. Here is the OPRM: “Even UN WFP Liberia that was contacted to conduct the food distribution is treating the entire rice distribution with secrecy this lingering more questions than answers. Why has the UN WFP Liberia shamelessly failed to make public its contract with the government?”

Furthermore, the fund projected -2.5 percent growth for Liberia in 2020, “largely due to the lockdown at home and abroad which are negatively impacting domestic demand, net remittances, capital inflows, and the banking sector. In the absence of support, the poorest will feel the impact the most as there is a little social safety net, and the food security of those relying on uncertain daily income is a pressing concern.” In its Country Report No. 20/202, the fund also talked about “a balanced of payment need of US$150 million (5.1 percent of GDP) in 2020, which largely arises from a domestic revenue shortfall projected at US$119 million. Interestingly, for 2021, the very fund would forecast a growth rate of 3.2 percent for Liberia with the mentioned economic contradictions which have not been sharpened like the little social safety net, the low capital inflows, reduced domestic revenue, etc. Of course, here we think of corporatocracy (profits over people) as the author of “Confessions of an Economic Hit-Man”, John Perkins would refresh our minds:

“Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillion of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet`s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder.”

PROTESTS AND STRIKES GREET IMF AUSTERITY MEASURES

The poor nation went on accordance with the austere measures of the IMF to reduce the salaries of thousands of civil servants on the government payroll. And those affected were mostly civil servants and not the new clients of the patron regime. The headlines of the FrontPage Africa “Liberia: Finance Minister Samuel Tweah Admits to Implementing Harmonization Policy, Cutting 9,000 Civil Servants’ Salary and the other “Liberia: Ten Thousand Civil Servants Salary Reduced Through Government`s Harmonization Plan, Rep. Koffa Discloses”  grew more concerned from all spectrums of the Liberian society. As many wanted to know if they were cut in the scissor-squeeze of the austere measures of the Fund. In the industries, at the mines, and on the plantations, the capitalist multi-national corporations used the economic crisis to bring down their respective workforces in consonance for profit-making. The rich must get richer. The poor get poorer. Labor became cheap. But let us now put the deadly impacts of the austerity measures under Weah–Liberia in a chronicle:

                       LEGISLATURE

At the legislature, there are two kinds of employees. The staffers of political offices and the civil servants of the central administration do not work for lawmakers, rather for the running of the first branch of government and the society by and large. But those who have been leading the protest against the cut in salaries are predominantly of the central administration. For Liberia a political territory where genuine agitations against bosses are forbidden, it is understanding that the employees of representatives and senators will fear losing their jobs if they protest. Though such protestations and strikes do not necessarily affect their corrupt bosses. However, these radical protests come as psychological troubles for these bosses as they seek the good book of the patron Executive. Throughout 2019 were grumblings in the corridors of the legislature. Nevertheless, 2020 was and 2021 has been confronted with legislative strikes and protestations against the IMF measures on the grounds of the Capital. Before the grumblings, protests, and strikes began, it was aired “the harmonization of the wage bill is one of the measures that is being introduced by the George Weah-led administration. Under this measure, civil servants are expected to increase civil servants` salaries of the health and security sectors who had been grossly underpaid.” Still, those who were grossly underpaid remain at their old levels or were punched harder by the IMF brutal conditionalities. Realizing that the harmonization policy was a schema, legislative workers like Charles Brown and others have been championing the cause for the return of their constitutional salaries and criticizing the IMF-imposed salaries. The UL Progressive Student Unification Party promised to join the marginalized legislative workers. And on other hand, Pro-Temp Albert Chie tried to water down the tempo of the protesting workers. But as it stands, the future doesn’t look promising for the legislature if these workers` plights are not resolved.

                          EXECUTIVE

Obviously, the Executive has faced few protestations. The reason can be simple: many executive workers are employed by ministers, directors, and heads of autonomous agencies and entities based on political clientelism. Hence some of these executive workers possess no political morality. Others have, but contemplate the consequences-losing their jobs or being wrongfully targeted at job sites. Nonetheless, one area where the workers of the executive have brave the storm has been the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC), and occasionally the Liberia Telecommunications Corporation (LIBTELCO). (Labor Declares LIBTELCO Workers` Strike Illegal; see hotpepperliberia.com) Most notably, in November of 2019 angry workers of the LWSC booed their bosses and protested for their arrears of several months. One of the aggrieved protesters raising his fist while shouting, held in the air a placard with the inscription “SINCE JUNE 2019, NO PAY!!! LWSC”. The wage freeze of the IMF has also slapped these workers of their monthly incomes. But their bosses would dare not explain such a situation to them emphatically. That it is the leaders of the state that brought in such harsh policies in exchange for micro developmental funds from the neoliberal IMF. Their leaders worked at the corrupt pleasure of Mr. Weah and his cabal. This situation can be described as the Great Tipo would say “monkey work, baboon draw”. (Tipoteh, 1981)

                        JUDICIARY 

It is no secret that the Judiciary has been the most terrible result of the IMF austerities. The case of a civil rights activist in Mr. Leroy Archie Ponpon.  A person who should be the distributor of justice within the Republic of Liberia, Chief Justice Francis Korpkor warned of grave repercussions if judiciary workers would take to the Temple of Justice to protest their wage freeze and salary delay. The Temple of Justice where it is stated “Let Justice Be Done For All” metamorphosed to ‘let justice be done for few’. Many were astonished by the Chief Justice`s childish and outrageous outburst. Among those leading the judiciary workers in defiance of the Chief Justice`s reactionary position was the civil rights activist, Leroy Archie Ponpon (the man who burned the Norwegian flag in a demonstration to the Nobel Peace Prize of Johnson-Sirleaf). The judiciary workers, ever ready, stormed the yard of the Temple of justice within the forefront-Archie Ponpon sitting on the bare ground with the placard “We protest Chief Justice Vengeance to dismiss protesters of the judiciary! I will set myself at the blaze on Nov 8, 2020.” A few days later, the world witnessed the attempted self-immolation of Archie Ponpon. As the Liberian public chastised the neocolonial government for denying the workers of their just salaries. With Archie Ponpon commenting from his hospital bed “I Wanted to Die”, Chief Justice Korpkor disgracefully played the act of sorrow and concern. Since then, the Judiciary has been a place of quietude, but with disdain, grief, and a bad indelible print left in the hearts of the workers. However, the battle of the judiciary staffers against the capitalist Weah-IMF austerity policy remains to be seen as wicked as a kleptocracy.

                    WORKING CLASS

In the industries, at the mines, and on the plantations, for discussion, it has been the news of foreign capitalists dominating the export sectors of the economy. But laying off Liberian workers whenever a crisis emerges, rather than reducing production and exportation reflects the routine or the normal of the foreign capitalists. Yet past and present Liberian leaders go to the Fund for loans in such circumstances.  Liberia has the second spot in Africa that holds the record “5 out of every 6 businesses in the country are foreign-owned.” On top is just the euphemism (Foreign Direct Investment), while underneath has been the continued “Growth Without Development”. (Mayson, 2010) but let us move on from here. Below is an outline of neoliberal assaults since the regime adopted the policies of the Fund:

FIRESTONE. “The 65,000 workers at the Firestone rubber plantation in Liberia are bracing for job cuts after the American-owned company announced it will substantially reduce its workforce.” BBC Paye-Layleh goes on:

“The impending layoffs are a serious blow to Liberia, whose economic growth has been projected by the IMF to drop to 0.4 percent this year, and a shock to employees on the Firestone Plantation, whose rubber production remained operational even during Liberia 14-year civil war.” The world’s single largest rubber plantation has nothing to offer the Liberian people except for a school that the tappers’ children would barely attend and a hospital that would never meet the starved wages of the tappers who all-day labor for the latex to be exported. A worker who goes by the name Bongorlee has explained how life is a waste on the Firestone Plantation, as he says: ‘some people have spent 25 to 30 years here and they have nowhere to go.’

THE BEA MOUNTAIN. On May 2, 2019, the mining company, The Bea Mountain laid off 132 workers and by June of the same year the mining concession laid off in total 384 of its workforce. The Kinjor Mining Company is alleged to have one of its owners or shareholders as Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf. If this is true, klepto-corporatocracy manifested itself during the Sirleaf administration in Liberia like the nefarious days of the Old True Whig Party.

GOLDEN VEROLEUM. The Palm Oil Company lowered its workforce in May of 2020 by laying off 440 workers. Not all. The company has been carrying on what the leftist progressives all over the world term ‘environmental degradation in the southeastern part of the country, Sinoe County, thereby destroying indigenous communities.

MNG GOLD. A very tricky Turkish Mining Company which after reducing a great part of its workforce in May of 2019, denied by September of 2019 it was not contemplating reducing furthermore, carried on the redundancy of 250 workers by August of 2020.

With this situation, the workers of Liberia should unite in the ‘revolutionary spirit and be led by a radical vanguard to bring an end to the exploitation of man by man.

THE CURRENT STAGE OF THE LIBERIAN ECONOMY

The International Monetary Fund in its Liberian glance: Liberia’s 2021 projected real GDP (% Change): 3.2; Liberia’s 2021 projected consumer prices (% Change): 9.5; Liberia’s outstanding purchases and loans as of December 31, 2020: 204.37 million; Liberia`s special drawing rights (SDR): 136.89 million; Liberia`s quota (SDR): 258.4 million. To add, Liberia`s inflation rate, average consumer prices (annual percent change). On 21 December 2020, in an article dubbed “Four Things to Know on How Liberia Is Reforming Its Economy Amid COVID-19”, Mika Saito of the IMF African Department gives us an insincere analysis in four strands: 1. The COVID-19 pandemic hit Liberia at a time of pre-existing fragility. 2. The government has worked hard to meet humanitarian needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. 3. The government`s decisive actions and reform efforts have begun to bear fruit. And 4. Reform efforts at the central bank have focused on rebuilding confidence in the banking sector.

Firstly, the IMF has been failing to arrive at its forecasts in recent years. But it seems like the multi-lateral institution looks apathetic about this failure, as she continues to engage on such footing. An Article written by brother comrade Yahmia would better explain:

On June 13, 2018, the IMF projected a 3.2% GDP growth for the year 2018. On March 8, 2019, the actual GDP growth was revised down to 1.2 percent for the year under review because according to the fund macroeconomic stability proved elusive. Also, economic growth for the year 2019 was projected at 4.7 percent but based on the economic policies of the government the Fund revised such projection down t5o 0.4 percent. 2019 ended with a -2.5 percent economic growth rate.

To conclude, as comrade Yahmia draws down the curtain “the current policies of the economic management team coupled with the global economic recession caused by the pandemic have pushed the Liberian economy to a grinding halt economic real GDP growth which was placed at 1.4 percent at the start of the IMF is now placed at -3.0 percent. Based on these objective facts and the current outlook of both the Liberian and world economies, a 3.2 percent IMF projected growth rate is neither cast in stone nor a surety.”

Secondly, bow-tie bureaucrats like Mika Saito should comprehend that an underdeveloped economy in the case of Liberia cannot be zero on in a four(4) strand while basking in one of Africa`s capitals.

Here is why: 1. In Liberia, inflation is two-fold as the price of a commodity in the urban center and the rural countryside is different. This can be due to the high cost of transportation of goods to the rural countryside. 2. To sluggishly say that Liberia is bearing fruits from the austerity measures is to ignore the high cost of living of civil servants and workers of whom salaries were drastically reduced under the IMF-Harmonization policy, and to ignore the cancellation of subsidies in the educational, health, agricultural and other major sectors of the country. 3. It is a blatant falsehood for Saito to assert that the Weah government has been doing ‘humanitarianism’. There have been no humanitarian gestures from the angle of the regime during the course of the pandemic. The million dollars given to teachers was from the backdrop that these teachers were not receiving their salaries for several months. The Stimulus package which was corrupted is a fund that will be paid back by the Liberian people. Indeed, it is political tokenism which Saito calls ‘humanitarian needs’. 4. There has been no concrete step taken to build confidence in the banking sector as claimed by IMF`s Saito.

In fact, as of July 2020, the Central Bank of Liberia infused an additional 4 billion into the economy to settle the crisis of liquidity. Such a venture proved futile. Then the Central Bank of Liberia again requested 48.733 billion to solve the problem of the shortage of Liberian dollars within the economy, before the power to print banknotes was granted to her by the Liberian Legislature. As stated elsewhere, there is only 5 percent of the 100 percent of the Liberian dollars that are found in the banks.  And according to Liberian economist Samuel Polypheus Jackson, there are three (3) financial structures operating clandestinely in the republic which need to be smartly tackled. Namely, the Lebanese, the Indians, and the Fulanis. In essence, the banking sector crisis is more than just printing excesses of the local currency.

CONCLUSION

Liberia secured her membership with the Fund in 1962. The underdeveloped capitalist nation has had 24 agreements with the IMF. These agreements have mostly yielded rotten economical fruits and have dangerously extended the external debt stock of the poor nation. At the time of the writing of this paper, the country`s external debt stock stands at 1.58 billion USD. As many economists and intellectuals perceive that the once debt relief nation is sliding back to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC), the country`s current leadership seems bereft and inept of mobilizing domestic revenues and raising development funds. Disgracefully, Liberia`s relationship with the IMF is far removed from closing as even the supposed government-in-waiting “opposition” sees nothing wrong with the policies of the IMF. But the “opposition” goes on to act as the spokesman of the IMF in the sense that ‘the IMF didn’t say this, the IMF said that’. This is the fate of Liberia and many other nations across the globe.

On a global scale, the IMF-backed policies have steered tumultuous and riotous scenes from Liberia’s 2.13 million Loan to Ecuador`s 4.2 billion loan which led to the cancellation of fuel subsidies; from the largest ever loan of the Fund attempted in Argentina to the Egyptian 12 billion loan; from the Lebanon government under Hariri following the 2018 Article Four IV Report to the IMF-supported wage bill in Tunisia; it is only conscious to say that the IMF is no friend to the Third World.

Finally, the neocolonial and neoliberal policies of the Fund are representations of that of the crisis measures of the multi-national corporations, as can be seen in Liberia and elsewhere. These neocolonial, neoliberal and neo-mercantilist policies can only benefit the centers (the USA, Europe & Japan) of capitalism at the expense of the peripheries (Latin America, Africa & Asia). That is why the late Prof. Claude Ake described this kind of economics as maintaining the bankrupt state of order, instead of changing the state of order. That is why the prolific economic scholar in Samir Amin saw the International Monetary Fund as a financial wing of the Collective Triad (the USA, Europe & Japan). That is why Liberia`s foremost security expert and one of the greatest intellectual minds the African continent has ever birthed in Dr. Jaye, criticized the IMF and her sister institution, the World Bank, as the main culprits of Africa`s backwardness. And that is why Prof. Mayson called out these policies of the foreign capitalists for callously disrespecting the ‘creators of wealth’ upon which every society depends on. With poverty being a billion dollar industry, the writer of this paper sees the Fund as one of the poverty-stricken industrialists of senile capitalism. And suggests that Liberia should look the other way round-the agrarian question and the better management of her resources!

Main Photo: IMF Headquarters /DW

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36. House Seeking Update On Expunged ETON, EBOMAF Loan…; see www.faapa.info
37. President Weah Signs ETON, EBOMAF Loan Agreements; see www.emansion.gov.Ir
38. The Corruption-Loaded Eton Ebomaf And Loan Deals Could Be Revoked By A Future Liberian Government, By Mathew J. Wesseh; see www.the perspective.org
39. IMF Country Report No. 20/202
40. MNG Gold Liberia Begins Redundancy of Employees; see frontpageonline.com
41. IMF Cuts Liberia`s 2019 Growth Forecast; see www.africanews.com

42. Liberia: MNG Gold Lays Off Over 160 Employees; see frontpageafricaonline.com
43. MNG Gold Denies Plans to Exit Liberia – FrontPageAfrica; see frontpageafricaonline.com
44. Firestone in Liberia…..; see foxbussiness.com
45. Confessions of An Economic Hitman by John Perkins; PREFACE
46. Tipoteh, 1981; Page 33
47. The One People Revolutionary Movement Criticizes Pres. George Weah Over Delay To Submit National Budget To the Legislature; see www.parrotnewsonline.com
48. Yahmia, 2021

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