Ebola and the state of governance in Liberia

By Cecil Franweah Frank

This article examines the state of governance in Liberia in light of the Ebola crisis. Liberians are experiencing the worst public health safety crisis in living memory, and possibly since the country declared independence in 1847.

This crisis like the civil war before it has cast the issue of governance into the spotlight. Liberians are now asking: what went wrong? Why has Ebola been allowed to threaten public safety and grip the entire country in fear? Has Ebola shown that contrary to what we have been made to believe by “international experts,” post-conflict Liberia like pre-war Liberia is experiencing low quality governance?

This article will attempt to address these questions as it sheds light on the correlation between the Ebola epidemic and the state of governance in Liberia today.

BACKGROUND

Ebola virus disease (EVD) was first identified in 1976 in areas between the Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), formerly known as Zaire. The World Health Organization (WHO) described the current Ebola outbreak in Liberia and other West African countries as the “largest and most complex.” (WHO fact sheet No.103). The average fatality rate is said to be around 50%. This means that if the current outbreak is not contained, half of Liberia’s population could be wiped out when all is said and done. This will be a national calamity.

In West Africa, EVD came to light in late December 2013 after the death of a 2-year old boy in the village of Meliandou, Gueckedou Prefecture in Guinea. Since that time, the disease rapidly spread first to Sierra Leone and then to Liberia. In Liberia, the first cases of EVD were reported late March in Lofa and Nimba counties. By mid-June, the disease had spread to Liberia’s capital Monrovia. The Liberian government undertook series of measures in respond to EVD once it appeared on Liberian territory.

The country’s borders on July 27 were ordered close and social activities that involve crowd-gathering was banned on July 30; and a state of emergency was declared on August 6. The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the Disaster Relief Commission are the primary organs of the government in charge of responding to the Ebola health emergency. The Ministry of Health is a long-standing statutory agency of government, but was never designed to handle health disasters of the nature and magnitude we are experiencing in Ebola.

The National Disaster Relief Commission (NDRC) does not have statutory standing in Liberian law. It was created in the late 1970s. While the ideas behind the creation of this organization are laudable and lofty, Liberian public policymakers did not implement these ideas fully as seen by the organization’s continual inactiveness. The NDRC, like many other commissions such as the Governance Commission, turned out to be talking shops used mostly within Liberia’s patronizing system of government to channel funds to pay President Sirleaf’s cronies and political ‘yes men.” The NDRC did little or no work on planning for disasters in Liberia. Notwithstanding, the government was caught flat-footed by Ebola.

THE LINK BETWEEN EBOLA AND GOVERNANCE

The success of the Sirleaf administration will ultimately be judged on the following eight key elements of good governance: Rule of law, Transparency, Participation, Responsiveness, Equity and Inclusiveness, Effectiveness and Efficiency, Consensus, and Accountability.

This article will focus on two of the 8 tenets to explain the relationship between Ebola and the state of governance in Liberia – responsiveness and accountability. The Liberian government under all circumstances and conditions is obligated to secure and protect the best interests of Liberians at all times.

Since the outbreak of EVD in December 2013 and its appearance in Liberia in late March, the Liberian authorities only began taking concrete actions in respond to EVD in late July. All of the measures undertaken appeared too little, too late and showed the sluggishness of the government’s response to the outbreak. Moreover, and perhaps most damaging was that the government’s response appeared uncoordinated and not organized. Since the government failed to build the required structures and processes for both the Ministry of Health and the NDRC to respond to disasters, both were not able to respond to the epidemic within a reasonable timeframe.

As such, both institutions not only became symbols of the monumental failures on the part of the Johnson-Sirleaf administration, but the interests of Liberians were not served well. Thus, the government’s half-hearted response left the impression that the Sirleaf administration had underestimated the scope and scale of EVD. President Sirleaf is yet to publicly acknowledge this. That such is the case shouldn’t come as a surprise because this is a continuation of the “done-care attitude” and shortsightedness exhibited by Liberian public policy officials in dealing with national issues. This attitude speaks to the second ingredient of good governance –accountability.

Accountability is a crucial element of good governance. One of the reasons the government has found it difficult to fight Ebola and get the cooperation of the general public is that there is a perception the government has not transparently utilized public and non-public resources earmarked for Ebola, and has not felt the need to provide accountable reports to the Liberian population.

Government officials in Liberia feel that they are doing the population a favor, and not the population doing them a favor. This explains why President Sirleaf is yet to publicly acknowledge the failings of her government in dealing with Ebola and apologize to the Liberian people for those failings. This is a reason there is a great trust gap between the government and the population, as well as between Liberians in the Diaspora and the government.

Confidence in the government by non-Liberian donors is also very low. Example of such is the recent U.S. government’s decision to send its own personnel and troops to Liberia to help tackle Ebola rather than provide resources to the Liberian government to do the job. The lack of trust in the Liberian government was a key factor for this decision followed by the lack of technical capacity.

Writing in the August 27 online edition of the Washington Post, an American student in Liberia Leah Breen, noted that the Liberian government’s “containment strategies were dubious and the impacts potentially harmful.”

Amid widespread allegations of pervasive corruption, including outright theft of Ebola funds, and suspicions by Liberians both within and outside the country that the government is making little effort to improve their quality of life, the actions by the Sirleaf administration have allowed Ebola to spread fear in the population and widen the gulf of distrust.

That Liberians do not view their government as accountable is no longer in doubt and this essential ingredient for post-conflict reconstruction continues to remain absent in Liberia’s political culture. This in turn has undermined the assessment by “international experts” that Liberia has turned the corner in bad governance and has become a great impediment in tackling the Ebola outbreak.

CONCLUSION

After almost eight years in office, Ebola has rudely unmasked the Johnson-Sirleaf administration’s failure to build working institutions to cope with extraordinary circumstances and national disasters, as well as to provide overall good governance and stability for Liberia. The Ebola outbreak while devastating to Liberia has offered its citizens another opportunity to examine the flaws in the current governance system and take corrective actions to address the situation.

The first such opportunity Liberians had was the 14-year civil war . However, judging from the Ebola epidemic and many other public policy mishaps, it seems the lessons of the root causes of the civil war were never learned. The idea that Liberia has turned the page on bad governance as widely promoted by international financial and governance institutions has turned out to be false thanks to the current Ebola crisis.

We should remember that any nation that doesn’t have a credible checks-and-balance system and functioning governing institutions, which are the missing links in post-conflict Liberia’s experience, cannot attain good governance that is responsive and accountable to the citizens’ needs and interests.

While the Sirleaf administration is hard pressed for time as its term of office is running out, there is still hope that the Ebola crisis can be turned into an opportunity. The first thing that needs to be done is to reform public institutions; that includes eliminating those that are not needed and creating those that are needed.

For example, the government needs to boost the capacity of the Health Ministry, reform the health system as a whole, and create the Ministry of National Emergencies to replace the National Disaster Commission. The Ministry of National Security should be converted to a national emergencies ministry.

Finally, in the mist of the health crisis, Liberians should be mindful of misguided politicians that are trying to sow the seeds of perpetual instability through agitating the population to engage in unlawful activities, or calling for regime change that is outside of the constitutional process.

Cecil Frank is a Law and Public Policy PhD candidate at Walden University, and a founding member of the Coalition of Concerned Liberians (CCL).

Category: Editorial, News Headlines