Saturday, 21 September 2024

 


Official Initial Reaction to Naymote’s Report on President JNB’s 8 months Performance[1]

By

Prof. Dr. Thomas Kaydor, Jr,

Assistant Professor, IBB Graduate School of International Relations &

Adjunct Professor, AMEU Graduate School of International Development

20th September 2024

In the absence of Government of Liberia’s National Development Plan, I welcome the NAYMOTE’s President “Meter Project Report on promoting accountability, improving governance performance, and inclusive service delivery in Liberia.” The report sets a baseline for the public to track government’s progress and the Government should therefore welcome such report and keep an eye on implementing all the promises made as are being tracked by the Civil Society Group. Like it or not, that report will be used by the public. If the promises being tracked were all really made by the President as claimed by Naymote, then this Government must implement all those promises. The Government is obliged to fulfil its promises made to Liberians by the Head of State and President of the Republic.

The Naymote’s report benefits the Republic of Liberia in many ways. For instance, it helps the people of Liberia to keep track of what H.E President JNB promised the people of Liberia. It also sets a gold standard for holding the government accountable. According to Naymote, “the promises fall under six key pillars of the ARREST Agenda.” The civil society team has grouped the promises under six thematic areas including:

“1. Macroeconomic Stability & Infrastructure Development (67 promises)

 2. Health, WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene), Environment, and Climate Change (12 promises)

3. Human Capacity Development (11 promises)

 4. Governance and Rule of Law (16 promises)

5. Gender, Youth, Children, and Social Protection (9 promises) and

6. Fight Against Corruption (4 promises).”

Why I welcome this initiative, I have some critical concerns. For instance, according to the report, “Liberia made history for a second peaceful democratic transition in the third republic (2017 and 2023)”. This comment is on page 7. Historically, Liberia has only had 2 Republics: the first Republic from 1847-1980 when Liberia’s first Constitution was dissolved and the second from 1980s to present. Therefore, that assertion in the report is politically and historically misleading.

Also, the report on page 8 says that “this activity adopted several distinct yet interrelated monitoring and quantitative data collection tools to track and document the promises.”  This report is more qualitative as I see it. It did not indicate the interrelated quantitative tools as claimed. I think it should have indicated the tools. The Report did not indicate the research methodology adopted to conduct the research or evaluation. There is a need to clearly define the research methodology used to undertake such important research or evaluation that Liberians will use to pass a judgement on the current government at some point. The International Community could also use the report to measure progress being made by the government.

Additionally, the report indicates on page 39 that “president Boakai promises New Dormitory at Regional Maritime University’s Graduation” but he did not meet this promise according to the report. To best of my knowledge, JNB was the Guest Speaker in Ghana, and he promised that the Liberian Government will build a dormitory as an annex at the University in Ghana. Naymote says it lacks data on this promise. How come Naymote did not know this? In a SPEECH DELIVERED BY HIS EXCELLENCY JOSEPH NYUMA BOAKAI, SR., PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA, AT THE 18TH CONMENCEMENT CEREMONY HELD AT THE PARADE GROUNDS OF THE REGIONAL MARITIME UNIVERSITY IN GHANA ON SATURDAY 29TH JUNE 2024, the President said “distinguished ladies and gentlemen, graduates and families, at this juncture, I would like to pause, as you wait with bated breath, to pledge on behalf of the Republic of Liberia, the construction of an additional dormitory for students here at RMU”.[2] The failure of the NGO to know this brings into question how concretely and accurately Naymote tracks the promises made by the President and the Ruling Party?

Equally, what is the frequency of this report? It did not say. It needs to say because we look forward to future editions. The Ministry, Agencies and Commissions (MACs) need to provide more feedback to Naymote to enrich its tracking or evaluation subsequent reports. What is the validity and reliability of the report? As an Assistant Professor who lectures Quantitative Political Analysis and Public Policy Process (POSC 508) as well as Introduction to Social Science Research Methods (POSC 509) at the nation’s premier graduate school, I think that Naymote needs to further strengthen its research methodology and clearly indicate it in the report going forward. I think Naymote staff seem to be relaxed. They need to aggressively track the promises. The NGO needs to have outcomes, outputs, inputs, goals, objectives, indicators, deliverables and means of verification. Most of the indicators and or deliverables not reported on show that there was no data to report on them. Why? Naymote must and needs to get updates on all promises as the NGO is based here in Liberia and that such work should not be done in a rush.

Such national evaluation report must be evidence based because it will go a long way and it will be used or cited by national and international  bodies. Therefore, Naymote must endeavor to do a job grounded on sound programmatic insights or principles and acceptable public policy processes. Did Naymote approach the government to validate the deliverables or promises prior to evaluating them? Or is the NGO hastily reporting to meet certain deadlines? Did the NGO go the extra mile to collect the necessary data required? If it did not do, there was a need to do so and indicate the government’s responses accurately. The NGO needs to refine this process further in the future.

The Report has indicated three successes that are termed as completed deliverables by Naymote. According to the report, Health: “president and Vice President will be the first to take a drug test.” This is indicated on page 35 of the report. The Government needs to address the suspension of the three most important officials at the Drug Enforcement Agency. It has taken too long. One man as an Acting Head should not be left to run LDEA. . Agriculture: “Develop National Strategy for Agriculture Development Based on Regional Comparative Advantage.” This is another completed promise on page 25. I have read the about $700m NADP but did not see an investment in sugarcane farming. Some of us are into sugarcane farming. What should we do?

According to the report, the third completed promise is Youth Empowerment: “Strengthen Institutional Frameworks to Effectively Implement Programs and Policies to Develop Young People into Productive Citizens.” This is indicated on page 45, and Naymote commented that “(National Budget, FY/2024 – Page #: xxviii & 248 (MoYS $7,048,201); (FLY $50,216) ;(LINSU $49,216); (MRYP $75,000); (NMYS $30,000); (YMCA $2,461); & (YWCA $1,969)” is the evidence for the completion. Why is such action considered completed, but the action on “train up to 10,000 young people in various digital skills in the first half of 2024 as indicated on page 45 is said to be ongoing when Naymote itself has commented that “the Liberia Digital Transformation Project through LTA & MOPT has trained 10,000 young people in various digital skills by the first half of 2024 awaiting graduation” and rated this deliverable as ongoing? Is the NGO interested in the completion of events only? National development process is like a continuum rather than an event.

Regarding the promise to Audit outgoing government officials, the Naymote report says on page 47 that “Liberia: GAC Audit Report Shows Executive Protection Service Cannot Account for US$24M and L$621M. The Joint Public Accounts, Expenditure and Audit Committee (Joint PAC) lunched public hearings for over 180 audit reports spanning from 2018 – 2021”. Government has audited the CBL for instance and is still auditing other government entities. Why did the NGO not mention those ongoing audits anywhere in the report. Why? The audit processes are slow. The government needs to move faster. Six years are not long for some of the major reforms that Liberians expected. Are there concrete actions taken by the government on certain things not promised by JNB but done? The NGO needs to include such key national actions in its next report if any. It is good to track promises and it is also important to report on certain key actions implemented even though not promised accordingly. Such actions could be reported under other things.

Once again, I appreciate Naymote for its work. I welcome the evaluation report. The NGO needs to make notable improvements on preparing its future reports. The Swedish Government and or other donors have funded this initiative with their taxpayers’ monies. This money must therefore be used effectively and efficiently in the context of program management as this case calls for. Finally, I urge the government to review the full report and act on it. If all the 119 promises were the key or main promises made by President during the campaign period, then the JNB led government must implement those promises on which we elected him. Now that the second annual budget will be developed and passed, the National Legislature needs to allocate the resources required for the execution of the promises made thus far by our elected officials. There is still time to achieve all these promises. Just three have accordingly been archived with 70 ongoing. Thank you very much Naymote for the effort thus far. The government needs to support this NGO and other NGOs in Liberia to rightfully do their jobs. We should not rely on donor support only. “Let us think Liberia, Love Liberia and Build Liberia.”[3]

Note: Prof. Dr. Tom Kaydor, Jr. is the current Vice Chairperson for Administration of the National Democratic Coalition. The NDC has the New DEAL Movement and the Free Democratic Party as its current constituent parties.

Shalom,

Professor Thomas Saidy Bah Kaydor, Jr.; PhD.

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