Who Controls the Markets, As Market Forces Determine Exchange Rate? -Tipoteh Delves into Prevailing Economic Realities and Farce

MONROVIA – A legendary economic czar, Dr. Togba Nah Tipoteh, has cast some light on basic economic realities that continue to be ignored by authority in the sector but burdening the ordinary people of the country.

While the authority finds justification in the fact that the market forces determine the rise and fall of the exchange rate in the country, the authority takes little or no responsibility for controlling the markets.

He said: “There is plenty news about the low exchange rate in Liberia. Last year, the rate was as high as LD200 to USD1. Now, the rate is LD176 to USD1. The Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) is correct. The market determines the exchange rate. But the CBL fails to indicate the entity that controls the market.”

In Liberia and elsewhere, the former Planning and Economic Affairs Minister said, it is foreign powers control the market, and they do so in their own interest.

“Their own interest continues to be profit making,” he noted. “The truth is that when people run after a currency, the currency plays hard to find and the rate goes up. The opposite takes place when people run away from any currency.”

From the slave era to the colonial era to the present era, the element of control remains, the veteran economist further said, indicating that the Constitution of Liberia calls for equal access to the market but the powers that be continue to control the market.

“The theoretical basis for this control comes from the book of the Scottish economist Adam Smith, as seen in his book The Wealth of Nations,” the Chairman Emeritus of University of Liberia Economic Department said. “In this book, the economist Smith says that the laissez-faire/laissez-passez economic system is the best for the world because it provides equal access to all. But the truth of the matter is that when the workers wanted to form unions in the Smith era the government of Great Britain brought in soldiers to prevent such action on the part of the workers, but it did no such thing when medical doctors and other professionals wanted to organize themselves. The truth is that the poor masses do not have access to the market and to the ballot.”

Under the Margaret Thatcher State regime in Great Britain, Dr. Tipoteh said in an opinion piece published just yesterday, half a century later than the Smith era and a century since then, when the workers wanted to organize themselves into labor unions, the State regime brought in soldiers who brutalized the workers to stop their organizational activities.

“Following the bad and illegal action of the British government, the colonial power, the government of Liberia sold poor Liberians as slaves to Portuguese slave buyers in Fernando Po. This is why we see people from Liberia living in Fernando Po, Gabon and Benin, not forgetting other West African countries to which Liberians were sold as slaves.”

According to him, this slave mentality is being put out through awareness raising, adding that the people who love Liberia continue to raise awareness to motivate people to take actions within the Rule of Law to transform the unfair prevailing electoral system to the fair enduring electoral system.

“This transformation method is working well, as seen in results of the October 10, 2023 Election. As the corrupt practices of the National Elections Commission (NEC) were exposed and reduced, persons with good records were elected. This is the reason for the setting of the world record voting when 76.86 per cent of the voting age population in Liberia voted on October 10, 2023 in Liberia.”

He also said this awareness raising led to the non-re-election of almost all of the National Legislators in Liberia in the October 10, 2023 Election.

“This transformation is the best and only way that persons with good records can be elected to bring in the system of Justice, the indispensable ingredient for Peace and Progress in Liberia and in any other country,” he concluded.