"Some animals are more equal than others"

During the years I have often reverted to this novel by George Orwell, Animal Farm. For those of you who have never read it, I can summerize it as follows: The animals on a farm oust its "owners" the farmer and his family and take over the day to day running of the farm. Very soon, the revolution is hijacked by the pigs on the farm that start to oppress all the other animals. Not long after, the pigs start dressing up in the farmers clothes, eating his food and drinking his wine behind locked doors. The other animals peek in at the windows at their nightly feast. This describes the events in our country once again.

You can fool some people sometimes...

L$202.4819/US$1.00 ...but you can´t fool all the people all the time. (B.Marley) Nuff said.

Law business

L$194.7185/US$1.00 What make it that we like law business so? Wherever you turn, everybody arguing about law business. This one and that one. Everybody can just be invoking different laws. You go this side, this other one know it. What?! But when you go look, nobody know how to make farm. Nobody knows how to make anything but trouble. We bringing all kinds of foodstuff from abroad. When we go look, our paper money just getting useless. That it now oh.

Our neighbor

L$182.6281/US$1.00 Meanwhile in Sierra Leone. After eleven months in office, the new Sierra Leonean president has put measures in place to encourage a boost in agriculture. They have also implemented a central govenment account for the collection of revenue. These measures have gained approval from the IMF and World Bank. Things are looking up for our neighbors, for us, not so much. We are concentrating on building mansions for ourselves.

Whats wrong with Liberian business

I came across this snipet of an interview i a Liberian Quarterly Magazine called "Business Liberia Magazine" that pretty much sums up my thoughts. I know very well who he is, but he pretty much hits the nail right on the head.

Read more here

Unemployment challenges facing the country

As a country where we have never had a middle class, let alone a producing middle class as in all other countries, this is a tough one. We import the lion’s share of our fresh produce from Guinea; we do not grow it ourselves. Most of our people have for various reasons flocked to Monrovia in search of livelihoods. Most academics here have studied here and abroad with one purpose, to land jobs in government or international organisations.

These are, as you know generalisations, that of course have many exceptions all around us, but in general this is the picture. What is missing here is the entrepreneur. It is hard to find entrepreneurs among people who have studied law, political science and accounting. Sure, we have businessmen/women, but in reality these are traders. Here I mean the Lebanese, the Indian, the Fulani, the marketwomen, the wheelbarrow boys. They import or buy wholesale, and sell wholesale/retail. There is no value added.

What we are missing is a group that invest and risk capital on projects that use local produce/raw materials and produce products for the domestic or international market. The first that comes to mind is the food processing industry. The farming industry is also neglected.

Sure, there have been numerous concession agreements signed. This is positive, but still the jobs created thus far have been marginal. What we need are large scale, labour intensive industries that produce what we need here.

Enough said, but the morale of the story is study business, come home and invest in your ideas for the good of the nation.