A Liberian political economist of international repute, Dr. Togba-Nah Tipoteh says Liberia continues to go through the violence-oriented experience of depreciation rather the peace-oriented experience of appreciation because the wrong people are put in positions that they do not merit.
Dr. Tipoteh indicated that wrongly placed State decision-makers support the poverty generating system of the country because they and their foreign shareholders benefit from the system. As a consequence, Dr. Tipoteh noted, “The poverty generating system of production of raw materials for export continues with no value addition, first of the human resources and then of the natural and other resources
The Liberian economist added, “The persons who were elected to represent the people have access to USD1000 a day while the people who elected them have access to less than USD2 a day. As for the foreigners in the commercial sector alone, they account for at least USD50 million a monthly doing work and owning businesses in violation of the Constitution of Liberia.”
Tipoted who made the assertion in a commentary titled, “APPRECIATION NOT DEPRECIATION” started by saying simplifying his thoughts: The good thing to do when someone helps you is to help yourself by showing appreciation to the person who is helpful to you. A simple thank you is a good way to show appreciation. However, if it were to happen that you would become someone in the position to help the person who helps you to rise up, then you should show appreciation by helping him or her to rise up as well.
He continues, “Some persons show appreciation to a helpful person by giving the person money and/or placing the person in a public position. To merit being placed in a public position, one has to have a public record of working in the interest of the vast majority of the people who make up the public. When a person merits a public position, he or she shows commitment, willingness, and preparedness to work in the interest of the people who make up the public:”
Dr. Tipoteh, a right wing progressive radical stated further that whenever people who make up the public experience suffering, poverty, it is due mainly to being placed in State power to bring depreciation, the lowering of the value of the person’s performance rather than appreciation, which is an increase of the value of the person’s performance.
“These wrongly placed persons bring depreciation to the public space because they do not have the commitment to help the people who make up the public. The results of the December 8, 2020 election were against the depreciation caused by the ruling political party rather than the appreciation of the non-ruling political parties, he averred emphasizing that Liberia continues to go through the violence-oriented experience of depreciation rather the peace-oriented experience of appreciation.
He explained that the poverty generating system of production of raw materials for export continues with no value addition, first of the human resources and then of the natural and other resources as the wrongly placed State decision-makers support the poverty generating system because they and their foreign shareholders benefit from the system.
According to him, “To show appreciation to someone who helps you is to help the person to help himself or herself with work or a business that he or she merits.”
Depreciation, he said, comes from misplacement of human resources, “Depreciation comes when you give someone who helps you an engineer’s job when the person is a carpenter; when you give someone who helps you a medical doctor’s job when he or she is a doctor of law; , when you give someone who helps you a road construction contract when the person is an canoe paddler, and when you give someone who helps you a Minister’s job when he or she is a rogue, having been found guilty in a fair trial through a legitimate Court,” he explained.
Dr. Tipoteh indicated that the correct way to show appreciation to someone who helps you but does not merit what you want to give him or her is to arrange education and training for the person so that the person can learn correctly what is given him or her.
“To do otherwise would be wrong and would end up in the depreciation of the person who helps you, by lowering his or her value and doing damage to society, which would end up bringing violence-oriented frustration and suffering, that would be used as the pretext for intensified violence, even civil war,” the experienced economist reasoned.
He concluded, “Let us work together to promote appreciation and not depreciation by sharing the knowledge that we have to encourage people to take non-violent actions to get good leadership that can bring Appreciation rather than Depreciation to make Liberia Better for All.”
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