The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
November 14, 2020

In Liberia, news about squeezing money from the poor is frequent. I guess, it is regular because the government allows profiteers to squeeze money from the poor. For example, currently, money exchangers are stealing from Liberians L$170, which is about 23% (L$920 minus L$750 Divided by L$750), when they change US$5.00. At the beginning of October 2020, Liberians got L$920 in exchange for US$5, but now L$750. In 2014, the foreign-based Audit Firm, Moore Stephens reported that profiteers will be stealing money from Liberia because the government had awarded 66 fraudulent concessionary agreements out of 68, for example. In less than six months in 2019, Liberia did not have the cash to pay its employees, even though the high-paid-foreign-investigator, Kroll Forensic Audit Firm, had deceptively reported that Liberia’s Central Bank Officials deposited the L$16B banknotes.

Another profiteer, World Food Program (WFP), in June 2020, paid itself US $7.8M, instead of US$1.3M, which is based on 6%) as an administrative expense to store, transport, and distribute US $21M in food items. Another group of profiteers, according to 2013 through 2018 Liberian Citizens’ Budgets, received and spent US $612M on agriculture in Liberia, but Liberians are still importing food items, local newspapers reported in October 2020.

One of the greedy methods of squeezing money from Liberians took place in October 2020. It affected market women, students, senior citizens, etc. This squeezing happened in October 2020 when GSM Companies and government Officials increased fees for telephone voice-net calling and internet browsing by 200% and 150% for respectively. Customers paid US$3 to make 45 minutes voice-calls within three days, a 200% (US$2/US1$) increase. For using the Internet, customers paid US$5 for 1.2MB Gigabytes for them to browse the internet for seven days, a 150% increase. But before the  LTA order 0016-02-25-19  Laws, users paid US$1.00 and used 45 minutes to call for three days and paid US$2 to receive 1.2 Gigabytes to browse the internet for seven days.

Government-mandated GSM Companies to impose surcharges of $0.008 per minute on voice-on-net calls and $0.00065 per MB. Each of the surcharges was less than US one cent. In fact, the combined surcharge was less than US one cent (US $0.00065 PLUS US $0.008). However, the Companies collected US$3 for 45 minutes of voice-net-calls and collected US$5 for 1.2 MB Gigabytes based on the surcharge fees of US$0.008 and US$0.00065. But how did the surcharge of one cent ended up resulting in US$5 ($2 plus $3) fees? Moreover, were the additional fees (US$2.00 and US$3.00) comparable to the surcharges of US$0.008 and US$0.00065? No

Rightly, so, the public reacted against the huge increases. The government decided to act. Sadly, instead of the government questioning the 200% and 150% increases, it demanded the Companies to absorb the increases. Businesses, on the other hand, stated that they should be allowed to pass the huge increases to customers, which is the preferred business practice. Customers might not have rejected if the fees were comparable to the imposed surcharges. In any case, why did the Companies increase the fees by 200% (i.e., US$2 divided by US$1.00) and 150% (i.e., US$3 divided by US$2) respectively? That is the US$100M question. Were the Companies looking for more profits? And/or did Officials of government intend to use the increase in prices to reduce Liberians’ interaction on social media? This is not an imagination if one reviews Liberia’s economic arrangements. For instance, illiteracy is high because Liberia declined to build more public schools and poor children could not attend expensive schools. Either to help protect increases of real estate prices in Monrovia or help to reduce real estate ownership of the poor, the government has not invested in real estate, especially in Monrovia, where jobs are available.

Did GSM Companies include other costs (i.e., expenses not used in computing profits) in calculating the increase in the new prices, which is a normal business practice? For instance, some NYC landlords do not increase the rental payment of elder/senior occupants because they (landlords) benefit from tax incentives. Or were the 200% increase and 150% due to human error? If not, did the telecom Companies intentionally inflate the costs? Are there published regulations that list punishment for anyone who intentionally overstates costs?

What role did government play, if any, to review, evaluate, and prevent overstated cost? Is there any training manual or employee’s guidebook, which should detail how and when to prevent errors and correct overstated cost? Moreover, do GSM Companies provide financial information to government ministries/agencies along with proposals to adjust the costs of services and products? Is it possible for the nongovernmental agency to monitor prices if institutions do not publish their financial statements?

Are there records to prove that the government’s failure to recognize the inflated US $3.00 surcharge was not frequent? Or, was this failure similar to the failure by our Officials to investigate WFP’s US $7.8M “Operational Cost?” Did our Officials ask WFP why it did not use its own advertised international rate (6%) to calculate the “Operational Cost” for the US$21M food item? The operational cost could have been US$1.3M (US$21M multiplied by 6%) if WFP had used its own international rate.

Worst, even though our Officials were aware that the foreign-based NOG did hire local nongovernmental agencies to perform the required functions, they argued that WFP was contracted because local NGOs could not perform the tasks. Did our Officials investigate which functions local NGOs could not perform since WFP hired them to store, transport, and distribute the food items? Predictably, both the WFP and the local NGOs received administrative costs (i.e., double deductions), since each organization had overhead costs.

Recently, I read stories about the Government’s sponsored Workshops organized to improve transparency and accountability. I thank the Government for the efforts. However, Officials should encourage important institutions, especially utility companies to publish audited financial statements. It is not clear why Liberia’s state-owned entities, especially public utility companies ended publishing their audited financial statements since 2014. Neither, is it clear why the government took down the original 2018 Annual report of the Central Bank of Liberia?

Government entities setting bad practices is not good. This is because it would be difficult for private institutions such as the GSM Companies to publish their financial statements if public institutions are not implementing Laws enacted by Liberin Lawmakers. And, of course, government employees might not deter overstated costs if they cannot review and investigate proposal institutions such as GSM Companies. Equally too, the government ends up creating the environment conducive for profiteers to squeeze money from Liberians, if monitors and regulators have limited information from public institutions and private entities.

---