Boost for Weah ahead of runoff

By Othello B. Garblah

Liberia jumped two places on the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) scorecard for Fiscal Year 2024, passing 14 out of 20 indicators, according to the MCC official website, compared to 12 out of 20 for FY 2023 indicators.

For the first time since 2007, Liberia recorded a pass in the Fiscal Policy indicator. The country recorded similar feat in 2022, when it passed the Rule of Law indicator for the first time.

This is the second time Liberia has successively passed the MCC scorecard after failing to obtain a passing mark in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 under George Weah’s administration.

The MCC scorecards measure policy performance on the eligibility criteria established in MCC’s authorizing legislation. Countries’ performances are assessed in three policy categories: Ruling Justly, Investing in People, and Encouraging Economic Freedom.

The Country Scorecard is used to consolidate an individual country’s scores for each of the policy indicators, which the MCC uses to determine eligibility for its assistance programs.

To be eligible for select assistance by MCC Board of Directors, a country must demonstrate a commitment to just and democratic governance, investing in people, and economic freedom.

According to the MCC scorecard, under Economic Freedom, with eight indicators: Fiscal Policy; Inflation; Regulatory Quality; Trade Policy; Gender in the Economy; Land Rights and Access; Access to Credit, and Empowerment Opportunity, Liberia passed 7 out of 8, failing in Regulatory Quality obtaining 46% with a score of -0.03.

Under Ruling Justly with six indicators: Political Rights; Civil Liberties; Control of Corruption; Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law and Freedom of Information, Liberia scored 5/6 recording a failure in Government Effectiveness obtaining 30% with a score of -0.04 

In the third category which is Investing in People with six indicators: Health Expenditure; Education Expenditure; Natural Resource Protection; Immunization; Girl’s Primary Education and Child Health, Liberia scored 2/6 passing only in Health Expenditure and Immunization, while failing in Education Expenditure, Girl Primary Education Completion, Child Health and obtaining zero in Natural Resource Protection.

The government is yet to make any official statement on this latest scorecard which was published on the MCC website on Tuesday, November 7, but it could be recalled that while commenting on the FY 2023 scorecard, Liberia’s Finance and Development Planning Minister Samuel Tweah noted that the MCC scorecard signifies that the government and the country were moving in what he termed as an “upward trend.”

Mr. Tweah said at the time during an interview on state broadcaster ELBC that the country’s success in the MCC scorecard will give a different sense of direction.

He argued at that it will also give a different thought to individuals who always have a negative perception of the country and the government.

Tweah, however, admitted that passing the MCC scorecard has been a difficult thing for the country.

He noted that Liberia has only succeeded once over the past 15 years in the Millennium Challenge Corporation scorecard due to the country’s low budget.

This FY2024, which shows some upward movement in the country’s performance could be a boost for incumbent President George Weah ahead of next week’s Presidential runoff.