By Kruah Thompson
The President of the Liberia Business Association (LIBA) James Strother says the institution is ready to work in line with the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD) in realizing President George Weah’s promise to Liberians that they will not be a spectator to the economy.
Mr. Strother says LIBA is taking the lead with all the business people and farmers of Liberia to inform government that they are ready to make sure what is contained in the PAPD about Agriculture comes to reality.
“Liberians are tired of being spectators. We want to take over our sector, the process has started and we are not going to stop until we see the success becomes what we are hoping for”, he stresses.
Speaking in Monrovia recently, the LIBA Boss noted the idea of Liberians producing food on a commercial scale had been in the public discourse for several decades without much result, but today, he says the road map is well articulated in several policy documents of the Administration and in public speeches of President George Mannah Weah.
He recalled that during the 7th Round of the Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD), held in Yokohama, Japan in August 2019, President Weah emphasized the need to get the Liberian private sector to play a lead role in the food production effort of the country.
The President of the Liberia Chamber of Commerce Cllr. Oswald Tweh said billions had been spent in the Agricultural sector for the past 30 -40 years without progress.
“You can’t do the same thing continuously and expect to get different results, so all the monies that we have been spending in the sector and nothing had changed is because we are doing things the same way, and until we do things differently twelve years from now, we will come back to the same place”, Cllr. Tweh emphasized.
He wondered why Liberians should import pepper and tomatoes, among others when the nation has very rich soil, saying “We can do it differently than we’ve been doing for the past 50 plus years.”
However, he laud LIBA for the beautiful initiative that he said could make a difference when executed properly.
Cllr. Oswald noted that the initiative needs support of government without which it will not survive.
Speaking also, the Agricultural Economist at the Ministry of Agriculture Francis Mwah said, if the country will move forward, Liberians should work together, adding that some of the problems in the sector surround policy implementation.
Mr. Mwah narrated that lots of projects had failed because people are not willing to work together.
