Former President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has indicated that the prudent and transparent use of a country’s natural resources is the most important thing to ensure its transformation.
She said that a country that makes good use of its natural resources is able to address developmental challenges.
She said that what is vital for a country’s transformation is “the ability to use the nation’s own natural resources in a very transparent manner and to put it to the use of the country. There is too much diversion of natural resources either because of bad concessional and contractual agreements or because of the leakage through dishonesty and corruption.”
“And I believe that examples of some of our countries that use their natural resources for the good of their countries are able to address issues of education, infrastructure, and institutions. Those that do that are able to achieve their goals,” she stated.
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Ms. Sirleaf stressed that West African countries had to position themselves in alignment with their economic conditions as the global financial structure does not favor African countries or countries that are poor.
“So whether you are dealing with bilateral support through the partnerships that you have with other countries, with diplomatic relations, or whether you are dealing with multilateral support through the Bretton Woods institutions, they are still so organized in their decision-making that you don’t get the scale of help that is required for transformation in our economies.
And so anytime there is a major crisis, you find yourself unable to overcome it and slip into debt, and you have to start debt relief all over again,” she added.
The former president indicated that in Liberia, for example, they had two decades of war and their debt had not been serviced. Therefore, they needed the fiscal space to be able to start the process of reconstruction.
“So I had no choice but to go for debt relief, and I was so glad that I was able to persuade all of the creditors, including the private sector creditors, to provide the relief that we needed to get the fiscal space to increase the level of our domestic revenue and to take on that process. And I think we were close to $4.6 billion in revenue. And for a country at that time when I took over, its budget was only $800 million. And our debt was multiples of our revenue,” she added.
