MONROVIA: Liberia made a significant improvement in the annual scorecard of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), breaking a 16 year jinx with a massive pass under the fiscal policy component just as the country passed 14 out of 20 required indicators which now puts Liberia in a competitive position for possible additional funding after the expiration of the first compact some 2 years ago.
A breakdown of the complete scorecard on the website of MCC, Liberia passed the following indicators including, Fiscal policy which it had failed consistently since 2007, inflation, trade policy, gender in economy, child rights and access and employment opportunities.
Other indicators are political rights, civil liberties, control of corruption, rule of law, freedom of information, investing in people and immunization.
In terms of the percentages recorded by each indicators, employment opportunities recorded 100% which indicates that the government practices equal employment opportunities between gender and status of citizens especially opportunities for people with disabilities, while freedom of information got 93 which shows that the government does not operate in secrecy as citizens can readily access public information from government sources and the huge impact of women in the economy was highlighted with the high score of 84%.
Further, land related issues which hitherto constitute to many communal crises were improved during the period under review with the high score of 78% recorded by the land right and access indicator and access to credit which provides opportunities for local businesses to get ready funding from financial institutions came higher too with 73% just as health expenditure a key component of social services to the people got an appreciable 62% just as the combat against corruption by the government was rewarded with an impressive 59% score while rule of law got similar percentage at 59%.
Government’s immunization program against child sicknesses and mortality was improved over the year at 59% while civil rights and political rights were recorded at 33 and 27 percentages.
Interestingly, the rate of inflation was recorded at a single digit of 7.6, which showed that the government had a strong grip on the economy with respect to controlling prices thereby increasing the purchasing power of the citizens.
Pundits as well as other ordinary Liberians believe that the huge reduction in the inflation rate of the country from a whopping 29 percent in 2020 to 7.6 percent in 2022 serves as a driving force behind the country’s success in the MCC scorecard.
Many Liberians view the pass in the scorecard as a strong commitment from the Government of Liberia to reduce poverty through broad-based governance policies as well as sustainable economic policies and growth.
However, per the report, it encourages Liberia to do more in child health, girl primary education completion rate, national resources protection, education expenditure, government effectiveness and regulatory quality.