MONROVIA, 6 June (IRIN): Liberia plans to host an international conference with donors in mid-July to seek ways to fund reconstruction after 14 years of civil war.
– The government is keen on attracting development aid for reconstruction as compared to the usual humanitarian or relief aid, Finance Minister Antoinette Sayeh said on Tuesday. The government has invited various donors to the planned conference and is waiting for their responses.
The World Bank has already granted Liberia 30 million US dollar to repair roads and restore water and electricity to the capital, Monrovia. The government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has begun rehabilitating the city, including filling potholes and reconstructing buildings destroyed during the war. Sirleaf has issued an executive order suspending tariffs on the importation of cement.
In April, the government released a short-term recovery and development agenda that includes revitalizing the economy, combating corruption, restructuring the West african countrys security forces, rebuilding infrastructure and strengthening governance and rule of law.
Sayeh said that in order to secure additional funding Liberia needed to demonstrate how it planned to repay its foreign debt of 3,5 billion US dollar.
– The government is preparing a key element of its poverty reduction strategy and finding ways to settle its external creditors, Sayeh said.
On Monday, Planning Minister Togba McIntosh released an Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy, which involves improving the economy, governance, infrastructure, social services and security, within the framework of the UN millennium development goals.
The goals have been agreed to by all the worlds nations and leading development institutions. Aims include reducing poverty and child mortality, improving education, combating disease and developing a global partnership for development.
With the presence of international financial experts from the International Monetary Fund under its staff monitoring programme, Finance Minister Sayeh expressed hope that by the second quarter of next year Liberia would qualify for interim debt relief.
Meanwhile, Liberias Anti-Corruption Task Force claims to have uncovered alleged fraud worth nearly 1 million US dollar (henved 6 mio. DKR) at the Ministry of Finance under the former power-sharing transitional government.
In a letter to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the task force called for a full-scale investigation after discovering several fraudulent vouchers on foreign travel and goods and services that were never supplied to the finance ministry. Former and current employees of the ministry were linked to the scandal.
The task force is an independent group of economists and security investigators that was formed during Liberias transitional period.
Additional allegations of corruption have also surfaced. The General Auditing Bureau has released a report stating that the former transitional government spent more than 11 million US dollar for public service vehicles but that 132 of the 552 vehicles purchased could not be traced.
Prior to its dissolution, the former transitional parliament passed a law enabling the new administration to carry out a financial audit of the transitional government. Graft has long been a problem in Liberia and helped trigger civil war in 1989. The fighting ended 14 years later.
Sirleaf has made rooting out corruption a top priority of her government. In May, the government released a financial report of the first three months of its administration revealing a dramatic increase in revenue generation and collection. It was the first such report issued by a Liberian government for more than 20 years.
Concerns about corruption in government prompted Liberias international partners and donors in September to draw up an anti-graft plan known as the Governance Economic Management Assistance Programme (GEMAP).
Sirleaf has thrown her support behind GEMAP under which international supervisors will monitor key ministries and lucrative concerns such as the port, airport, customs office and forestry commission as well all state expenditure for the next three years.
Kilde: FN-bureauet IRINnews
