By: Togba-Nah Tipoteh
Light, electricity, or current is necessary for the growth and development of any economy, especially the poor economies of Africa. Most people in these African countries do not have access to electricity. In 1996, the people of Sub-Saharan African countries had 28.4% access to electricity, and this access increased to 40.6% by 2021. In Liberia, this access increased from 3% in 1996 to 29.8% by 2021 (WB, 2023).
This access to electricity in Liberia is associated with costs, as no choice is without cost in any country or in any decision-making situation. High costs are associated with national decision-making in most African countries, with their respective money-driven decision-making situations. These situations are at once bad and very costly. They are bad because they are in the realm of bad governance. They are very costly because less costly choices could have been made. Less costly choices were not made and are not being made because the bad governance of state management remains corrupt. In the absence of electricity, most persons do not have access to schooling, health, food, and other basic needs.
Liberia is faced with three options in terms of access to electricity: two short to medium-term options and one long-term option. The first set of options come from the United States of America (USA) based company High Power Explanation (HPX) and the Turkish based company Karpowership. The long term option is from the CLSG Group of countries. HPX has a problem of access to the use of the railroad for transporting from ore from the Mifergui Mines from the Liberia-Guinea border to Liberia when the railroad is controlled by Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel production company. All of the companies are profit-oriented. State management is Liberia is at once money-seeking and corrupt. The situation in Liberia forces State management to engage the first two companies because Liberia is seeking finance, even budgetary assistance. Yet, the State management is Liberia announces its preference for the CLSG option. What an irony!
State management in Liberia has announced stated preference for the CLSG option but has no plan to eradicate corruption, especially in its financial assistance seeking. Therefore, Liberia can not take advantage of the CLSG option that has a lower cost situation because of its lower cost of production situation based as it is in La Cote d’Ivoire. Liberia talks the electricity talk but like other States talks but does not walk the talk. Here remains the implementation problem.
The best and only way to get rid of this bad implementation problem is the use of awareness raising to get the people motivated to take actions through the Rule of Law to transform the prevailing unfair electoral system into the enduring fair electoral system. It is only through this transformation that persons with good records can get elected to bring in the Justice system, the indispensable ingredient for Peace and Progress in Liberia and in any other country.
