‘Public Enemy #1’

Departing outspoken US envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Tuesday said corruption and lack of transparency remain ‘public enemy number one’ in Liberia, and urged the government to seriously tackle these vices.

The American with years of working experience in Liberia, told this paper in an exclusive interview that accountability and graft remain problem areas despite the progress, which the government has made in these areas in the past six years.

“I think transparency and corruption continue to be a problem,” observed Mrs. Thomas-Greenfield who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in prewar Liberia.

“President Sirleaf declared it as public enemy number one…it still continues to be the public enemy number one. Much more needs to be done to address this issue, ” she emphasized.

She expressed the hope that in years to come, the Liberian government will take concrete actions to deal with the corruption virus, which has been a “problem in many places in the world. Liberians cannot afford to have corrupt people in the government.”

She encouraged the government to take people indicted for corruption to court and hold “guilty people accountable in a much more public way than has been done in the past”.

Assessing the economy, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield sees progress but added that much needs to be done concerning job creation.

“The economy is progressing. I think the economy is good,” she said, adding that a debt free Liberia and a continual increment in the national budget are good indications of a good economy.

“You are pretty much debt free, there are companies--large companies coming to invest in Liberia. I think we have something to be proud of,” she said.

But she stressed: “What more needs to be done is to create jobs. What we have realized over the last years is job creation. This is a yet component of economic success in Liberia and I hope efforts will be made over the coming years to see how we might improve the economy to increase jobs for young people who have none.”