Click Here to Make TheLiberianTimes.com Your Homepage

Liberia: Can the President-elect Break Liberia’s Embedded Patronage Networks, Which Threatens Good Governance & Prosperity?
Nov 22, 2005
Author: Francis W. Nyepon

Who would have expected such good feeling in a country whose name has for a generation been a synonym for evil, ruthlessness and hopelessness? But, the freeness, fairness and peacefulness with wish the October 11th elections and the November 8th run-off election were conducted, demonstrated the will-power, determination and healing power of the Liberian people.

When Liberians entered the voting booth on November 8th, one can envision the sacredness with which they consider the dilemma, and plight of our country, and asked themselves whether political isolation, economic stagnation and rotting internal infrastructure were necessarily wise growth strategies for moving our country forward in the 21st century.

The decision of our people as a collective was spectacular. Our country has gained the international respectability, we once enjoyed. We are ecstatic and overjoyed with the decisive and overwhelming election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as Liberian’s 23rd president-elect. Liberians are feeling good about themselves and their country. One can see and feel this enthusiasm and excitement on the faces of ordinary Liberians throughout the country. We can now challenge our people and invite them to join in the efforts of nation-building and economic recovery. Liberia needs every able-body citizen on board. Our country stands to witness its greatest period of prosperity ever. Hence, we cannot afford to squander this opportunity because we may never again be so fortunate or privileged.

Characterizing Patronage Networks:

Historically, our system of governance has been sustained by hand-outs, nepotism, string-polling, positive discrimination and rewards. Is has been mired in numerous forms of wheeling and dealing and granting of favors to keep large segments of the population down. Patronage networks in Liberia were effectively utilized to manipulate state power, and use national resources to benefit particular individuals and prop-up successive regime. They did not benefit the country in any way except for keeping our people mired in poverty, rife with disease and resistant to persistent efforts to rise out of their appalling state of underdevelopment and misery.

Our bankrupt system of autocratic rule allowed patronage networks to flourish throughout the country at the expense of qualification, ability and expertise, thus resulting in inefficiency of production, lagging export, trade, and payments, deficits and stagnating per capita incomes. Our country has not being able to acquire or sustain prosperity due to the misuse of the patronage networks and their political ramifications on the people. These networks have left the majority of our people overwhelmingly impoverished and alienated.

Patronage networks have depressed our productive capacity. Their underlying cause lay deeply imbedded in our economic, social and cultural arrangements. Their effective utilization in our political and economic arrangements, allows officials to exploits national resources and services for personal benefit thereby permitting widespread extortion to exist, which causes enormous social dislocation, instability, monopolistic business practices and uneven pricing system to thrive at the expense of ordinary Liberians.

The Liberian constitution provides for three branches of government, with no effective system of checks and balances. In the past the judiciary has been subjected to political influence, economic pressure, inefficiency, and the lack of resources, which in many cases, prevented due process and fair trial. The bicameral legislature has also exercises little or no independence from the executive branch, thereby remaining subjected to the same plight of the judiciary.

Combating Patronage:

The Sirleaf government should make every effort not to rend the fabric of our society as has been done in the past by successive governments. The policies which it is about to promulgate and implement must lay the foundation for removing and preventing patronage networks.

Liberia was once regarded as the mother of African patronage network system, where the national treasury became the personal bank account of officials, and governance institutions, converted into private businesses while state employees operated as couriers and gofers.

Patronage and corruption poses an immediate danger to gains made by the international community over the past two years. Together they adversely impact our urban and rural poor, our majority population base. Jointly, they have a tendency of suffocating development and stifling growth, leaving all attempts at poverty reduction in an unfixed state.

Areas for Policy Change:

The government-elect must end Liberia’s embedded patronage networks in order to sustain democracy and prosperity. A lot is at stake for Africa’s first female president. She must immediately set an agenda for change, through accountability and transparency, by seizing this opportunity to challenge all Liberians to view education, skill, qualification, experience, and ability as the alternative to misplaced expectation of goodwill and the granting of favor without pragmatic acquisition.

The President-elect can not afford for her government to be tainted by individuals with unscrupulous public record, especially certain individuals who recently quit the NTGL after causing enormous controversies and ECONOMIC distress to our people. Liberians are prepared to resist individuals to high office whom have contaminated our system of government for personal gains. These individuals also need to be rehabilitated and re-educated along with ex-combatants, war-affected youth and their masters.

The president-elect should initiate an irreversible strengthening of key governance institutions such as judiciary, parliament, commerce, law enforcement, economics affairs and trade in order to ensure that patronage networks are not viewed as the alternative to political and economic success. Positions in these key institutions of governance must be based on knowledge, experience and ability to perform.

Confronting Corruption:

The lack of transparency and accountability in official governmental transactions is the biggest barriers to rooting and promoting social change. Much of the corruption that occurs in Liberia is related to domestic and international procurement. It is common practice in Liberia’s political life for battalions of unscrupulous officials to raid the national treasury, and suppress standing laws with impunity.

But, corruption has broader social ramifications on our society. It impedes economic growth, basic services; to the detriment of our war ravish people. It has become a plague in our society as a result of kickbacks and bribes. It provides an avenue to unscrupulous businessmen to influence policy makers and politicians whom are “at the ready” to manipulate official policy and in many cases influence the law.

Policy Recommendations:

The new government needs to establish reporting mechanism and obligations which addresses public servants as well as all other citizens, regarding the detrimental effects of corruption on the state. It should specifically promulgate laws which assist police and prosecutors act effectively when corruption suspects are wealthy businessmen or prominent politicians. It must impose punitive measures for failure to comply.


The government-elect must enact specific statutes to criminalize acts of corruption where public bribery is treated as a criminal offense punishable by prison and confiscation of illegally gotten wealth or property takes place. These statues must also criminalize bribery by unscrupulous businessmen for operating in a conniving manner that suffocates economic growth and promotes economic stagnation and dislocation.


The president-elect should insist that the Ministry of Justices along with an “independent counsel” begin to investigate and trace proceeds of bribery by officials, because only to the extent where bribery is treated as a crime can the full machinery of government, including police and the judiciary be mobilized to fight it. In addition, this must occur in conjunction with new mechanisms to investigate the current heads of public corporations, and Ministers of Commerce, Finance, Land, Mines and Energy along with Post & Telecommunications and Foreign Affairs, which should include their principle deputies. This is the kind of example which must now be set by the new government to send a message that puts incoming officials on guard, while notifying ordinary Liberians that the president-elect is serious about combating corruption head on.

Contact Information

1.646.225.9684 (USA) / editor@theliberiantimes.com

TheLiberianTimes.com is a LoneStar Liberia >> Global Media Company