22 Mins Read
ADNews-Monrovia: The Liberian Finance and Development Planning Minister, Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan, has characterized the first Liberian President (Deceased) Joseph Jekins Roberts as the world’s richest man ever in terms of empathy and giving.
Serving as Guest Speaker on Saturday, March 15, at the occasion marking the Late president’s 216th birth anniversary, Ngafuan expressed his profound gratitude for being associated with President Roberts’s wholesome and visionary ideals for the benightment of the Liberian children.
Bellow is the Minister’s Full Statement
Let me begin by expressing my profound honour for having been selected by the trustees of the JJ Roberts Educational Foundation to serve as Guest Speaker at this auspicious occasion marking the commemoration of the 216th birth anniversary of Joseph Jenkins Roberts, venerable statesman, philanthropist, and first president of our beloved country, Liberia.
Being a JJ Roberts scholar myself and a beneficiary of this great Foundation, I am ecstatic as today feels like homecoming. I am proud to be associated with the wholesome and visionary ideals of President Roberts for the benightment of the children of Liberia. The work of this Foundation stands tall as a shining light, giving hope to every Liberian child that has ever out in the quest for education.
Let me thank the Roberts Family, the Members of the Board of Trustees of the JJ Roberts
Educational Foundation and the leadership of First United Methodist Church for your
stewardship over what our benefactor bequeathed to the children of Liberia many, many years ago.
One of my friends, Dorsla Farcarthy, also a JJ Roberts veteran scholar, sent me a picture a few years back. That picture was taken on March 15, 2000 in the yard of this very First United Methodist Church. On that picture, you will see a much slimmer me and other colleagues including Henry Saamoi, John B. S. Davies, and many others. On the picture young people of little means, little attainments and achievemnts. On that picture, you will see young men still heavily shackled by the excruciating chains of poverty. But all of us on that picture never felt poor, although poverty was etched on our very faces. All of us on that picture were men of hope who knew that the key to success was hard work mixed with the grace of God. All of the fellows on that picture have contributed and are still contributing positively to our country in one way or another. Two persons on the picture – Henry F. Saamoi and myself are today the two captains of the two most important institutions that run our economy, the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning.
CBL Governor Saamoi and I and our fellow veteran JJ Roberts Scholars managed to go through University because more than a century ago, someone had a heart; someone could look centuries beyond his days on earth to bequeath his wealth to the education of the Liberian people. Maybe, just maybe, if JJ Roberts had not done what he did, the hardship and poverty of the time could have prevented some of us from graduating from college.
In fact, I might not have had the opportunity of even being able to go through high school were it not for the support of a group of people who had heart; a group of people who did not equate poverty to laziness. When I was on the verge of dropping out of school in 1986 when it became evident that my recently retrenched father could no longer afford to pay the tuition and fees to keep me at the Booker Washington Institute (BWI), a group under the banner American Women in Liberia (AWIL), a group comprising American female employees and wives of American working in Liberia, stepped in and gave me a scholarship for the four years I spent on BWI pursuing an academic and vocational diploma.
Thanks to the resuscitation of the JJ Roberts Education Foundation under the visionary and dynamic leadership of Mother Gertylue Brewer, I became one of the beneficiaries of the JJ Roberts Foundation’s scholarship program and my undergraduate education was funded by the Foundation.
At this point I would be remiss if I did not pay homage to the late Mrs. Gertylue Brewer and her able team of trustees that included Mr. Eric Johnson (now the current head of Foundation, who resuscitated the Foundation after the war and expanded the JJ Roberts scholarship program too many indigent and deserving Liberian students.
My story of gratitude will not be complete if I did not recognize another person with heart, my former bossman at the CBL Governor Elie Saleeby. His commitment to professional excellence and merit did not only afford me the opportunity of automatic employment at the newly established CBL in 2000 but also made me to benefit from the CBL Graduate Scholarship program that enabled me to acquire a master’s degree in Finance from a prestigious American university.
In short, I count myself truly blessed to have been the beneficiary of scholarship awards from high school straight to graduate school. What would I have become if at various junctures in my life had men and women of heart, including our honored dead, JJ Roberts, not extended a hand of support.?
I was poor, yes; but I was certainly not lazy; I was a seed in the ground that needed nurturing and support. Today, as was the case yesterday, there are many young lads across the country that are poor, but not lazy; they need our hand; they need our support.
Today, the world has become a very strange place indeed; a place where some would have us believe that to be poor is to be lazy; to be weak is not to be smart and that monies spent on the poor should be conveniently categorized as waste. Today, the very concept of Leave No One Behind, the undergirding principle of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, is itself being left behind. Rugged individualism is rearing its ugly head and motivating the posture and actions of some in our one world. Today, programs meant to give scholarships to deserving students and teachers in Liberia and elsewhere have been labelled as wasteful spending that qualify for the chainsaw of the most powerful.
That all of this is happening today in our one world is more reason to appreciate and celebrate JJ Roberts and all men and women of heart in Liberia and across the world. JJ Roberts was certainly not the world’s richest man on earth in terms of cash and other assets, but JJ Roberts was one of the world’s richest men in terms of the empathy and care. JJ Roberts had a heart of gold.
But no matter how we try, we cannot make everyone in this global space to behave like JJ Roberts. We cannot retreat in a corner to wail because some person or persons have decided to helping weak and the poor is anachronistic. When others retreat on us, especially as has recently happened with the gutting of a significant amount of aid under the USAID support to Liberia, that’s precisely the time to take ourselves more seriously.
Our approach to addressing the present USAID aid cut focuses but is not limited to the following: Rationalizing expenditure, Stepping Up Domestic Resource Moblization, Forging Stronger Partnership with other bilateral and multilateral partners.
Rationalizing Expenditure: Even before the announcement of the USAID aid cut, we proactively begun to take steps to reduce government spending on items and activities considered less critical. We issued Fiscal Rules that are essentially a package of belt-tightening measures that reduce spending on such items as fuel, scratch cards, foreign travel, and other non-essential goods and services. In budget execution, we are prioritizing expenditure on roads and bridges and stepping up support to the health and education sectors to help mitigate the impact of the USAID aid cut. More belt-tightening measures could be announced and implemented in the coming weeks as the situation evolves.
Domestic Resource Mobilization: Last year, through improved domestic resource mobilization efforts, the government raised nearly US$700 million in domestic revenue, the highest ever in our nation’s history. This year, we are taking more robust measures aimed at meeting or exceeding our ambitious revenue generation targets. Our strategy quintessentially involves leveraging technology in revenue generation, plugging revenue leakages, demanding more for the government in negotiation of concessions and other agreements, and tapping on new revenue sources.
Forger Stronger Partnerships: Liberia’s bilateral and multilateral partners assisted the country immensely in coping with past shocks including the Food, Fuel, and Financial Crises of 2009/2010 as well as the Ebola and COVID health crises., The partner community is again showing us genuine partnership in this period of need. Some partners, including the EU, have begun stepping up support in areas from which USAID is stepping down. We are planning a Partner’s Roundatable in April to rally the partner community’s support to Liberia’s ARREST AGENDA for Inclusive Development. We intend to forge stronger partnerships with new bilateral and multilateral.
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, in this ever-challenging global environment, the theme for this year’s celebration, ““Forging greater partnerships for the development and enhancement of quality education for Liberian children” could not have been more appropriate. Ultimately, the surest way to take our people from poverty and high dependency on the generosity of others is to spread the light of education to a greater number of our people. The Chinese philosopher, Confucius, was right when he said, “If your plan is for one year, plant rice; if your plan is for ten years, plant trees; if your plan is for one hundred years, educate children.” In short, what Confucius is saying is that the dividends a country reaps will be long lasting if it puts more emphasis on the education of its children, or to put it more broadly, on the development of its human capital.
It is in recognition of this fact that over the five-year duration of the ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development (AAID), which was launched by President Boakai in Buchanan exactly two months ago, we intend to mobilize and dedicate around US$2.36 billion in domestic and external resources to achieve the targets we have set under the Human Capital Development pillar of the Agenda. The total cost of the AAID is US8.4 billion dollars and the Human Capital Development Pillar will be the second highest beneficiary, next to Infrastructure Development, of the domestic and external resources we are mobilizing to fund the AAID.
To improve human capital during the next five years, the government intends to, among other things, build, renovate, or expand several climate-resilient educational infrastructures across the country; equip school facilities with Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM); improve the rate of enrollment of children with disabilities by 10%, establish TVET streams at secondary level and build/upgrade TVET in some parts of the country.
To achieve our human capital development goals, the the government will forge strong partnerships with all stakeholders including private sector and philanthropic organizations like the JJ Roberts Foundation.
The Ministry of Education, supported heavily by the Ministry of Finance and partners, is the Pillar lead for the Human Capital Development Pillar and, so far, I am very happy with the level of coordination that exists between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance. This excellent partnership was key to our attracting a combined total support of US$93 million in the latter part of 2024 from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and the World Bank to fund foundational learning n Liberia under the Excellence in Learning Project (EXCEL). The EXCEL program, as currently designed, will focus on Foundational Learning at the levels of Early Childhood Education (ECE, i.e. Kindergarten) and Basic Education (Grade 1-6). Under the EXCEL Project, the Government will
Renovate, extend, and build new school facilities across all the fifteen counties of Liberia.
Improve the curriculum producing new teaching and Learning Material (TLM), including through digital teaching and learning.
Strengthen education systems through robust school standards, timely data collection, and effective planning, supervision, monitoring and evaluation.
In 2011 when I last served as Minister of Finance, we forged a partnership with the JJ Roberts Scholarship Students Association and granted internship opportunities at the Ministry of Finance to eleven (11) JJ Roberts scholars recommended by the JJ Roberts Scholarship Association and the JJ Roberts Foundation. Upon my return to the Ministry of Finance in late September 2024, one of things that brightened my soul was to find out that the JJ Roberts interns of 2011 had become an integral part of the Ministry’s work force and that most of them had grown quickly up the professional ladder.The partnership we forged with the JJRSSA and the JJ Roberts Foundation in 2011 yielded positive dividends and its transformative impact gives me more reason to announce today that the Ministry of Finance will resume its internship program in 2025 to give some young people including JJ Roberts scholars the practical experience they need to ease their transition from the classroom to the work room. Our intention is that the internship program we are about to pilot this year will morph into a bigger GOL Internship/Vacation Job program to form a permanent fixture of the National Budget beginning 2026.
So, from my vantage point as Minister of Finance, I am hopeful for the future of our country because in spite of the challenges of today, the government led by President Boakai is working diligently to ensure that we achieve our overarching development goal of transforming our dear nation from its current state to a lower middle income country in the next five years. While we are on this journey, the road will be bumpy sometimes and the skies will be cloudy sometimes. But just as turbulence does not stop good pilots from steering the plane safely to destination, we will certainly achieve our development goals.
What would achieving our development goals in the next five years and beyond in the midst of herculean challenges entail? It will require everyone in the public service, from the highest officials to the lowest civil servant, going home everyday asking these simple questions, “What did I do today to better my country?” and “What could I have done better? It will require all of us in public service never forgetting the humbling thought the there is always someone or many persons among the more than five million Liberians who could or can do better in the jobs we currently hold; and that it is a privilege to be called or voted to serve our country. Individuals occupying high offices in the public service should never lose sight of the fact that the we are mere tenants, not landlords of the government institutions we head or work for. The real landlords are the Liberian people. We should therefore consider ourselves public servants, not public officials. As public servants, we should never get offended too much by public criticisms, as unfair as they may seem sometimes, but should be open-minded enough to shape up or adjust course in the face of fair criticism.
But what does achieving our development goals require of those who are not in public service?. Liberians, whether in public or private service, must be fair to the country. It is fair to expect Liberians in public service to work hard, to work selflessly and to avoid and tackle corruption. But hard work, selflessness, and integrity should not be seen as only good for the public service. If we as a society normalize laziness and corruption out of government, we will make it doubly difficult to fight these vices in government because those who enter government come from various institutions out of government. If a person is intrinsically corrupt before entering government, more likely than not that person will attempt to extend their corrupt behavior to government.
In government, there are the good, the bad, and the ugly. Similarly, out of government, there are the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are the good, the bad, the ugly in the ministries, just as there are the good, the bad, the ugly in private corporations, in the press, in the church, in the mosques, and everywhere. The location of a person matters less as compared to the character of a person. Being in government does not necessarily make a person a bad person. Being out of government does not necessarily make a person a good person. What matters most is that the good people in government and out of government should forge stronger partnerships for the good of the nation. The good people in and out of government should forge stronger partnerships to resist bad practices in and out of government.
Zooming on the negative in government to ensure that corrective actions are taken is the right thing to do. And I urge the vibrant Liberian press and private advocates not to relent in exposing the bad. However, I will not be fair to the to the nation if I did not urge the press to acknowledge the good when good things also happen. For instance, the recent cut of USAID aid generated enough coverage in the media and on Liberian talk shows. Last year, I signed a US$114 million aid agreement wih the US Ambassador for support to education, health, and agriculture. Interestingly, some of the media entities and talk shows that have dedicated countless hours reporting and discussing the aid cut did not dedicate a single minute on reporting or discussing the aid gain. When many trees in the forest are good and only a few trees are bad; a balanced reporter will report that the good forests has a few bad trees. Another reporter could only take the picture of the few bad trees and label the entire forests as bad. The eye that is incapable of seeing the glaring good is not fit enough to unbiasedly report the bad.
Fellow citizens, some of the development challenges we confront as a nation cannot realistically be addressed in the tenure of one administration, no matter how excellently it performs. Some of the challenges we face will require decades of consolidated progress.. Therefore, we as a people must stop treating election year as the only year that matters. Election year is when politicians achieve their ambitions through victory at the polls. But in a given election year, how many persons are announced as winners? Only 105 persons provided we hold presidential and legislative elections in which all senate seats are up for grabs. What happens to years after or before election years? Who wins during those years? Those years and even the election years themselves must be dedicated to fulfilling the ambition of the people. The people have ambitions too and the people can be winners too. When we build more schools and give more scholarships to deserving and needy students, we fulfill the people’s ambition. When we pave more roads to make it easier for our people to move across our country, we fulfill the people’s ambition. When we make more and more people to have access to cheaper electricity thereby making it easier for business to boom and create more jobs, we fulfill the people’s ambition. When we make progress in tackling the menace of corruption, we fulfill the people’s amibition. In short, everyone in public service needs to be guided by the mantra that the public service is an opportunity to first and foremost work for the ambition of the people and to be fair to country is an obligation and not an act of folly as some in our society would have us believe.
JJ Robets, the man we honor here today, was not a perfect person. As a mortal man like all of us, he too had his failings. But in spite of his failings, he did well for Liberia. His vision did not end at the tip of nose or with his generation. JJ Roberts’s saw centuries ahead. JJ Roberts understood as John F. Kennedy did that “if a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” So, my fellow compatriots of this generation, let us strive to do right by our nation. As mortal men and women, we may slip sometimes; we may falter sometimes. But as men and women of courage and patriotism, we should never give up on doing the right thing, forging the right partnerships, for the benefit of today’s generation and the generations of the future.
Thank you Very Much
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