Why young Liberians feel let down by their leaders

this week on the 77% Street debate and you see young people are all around here you check here 80% are not doing permanent work because there is no means to get work there were people placing incompetent people placing hard places in government I think if you are criticizing Jorge where for for such a policy you should also say the better one that he has also done in our Direction Where in you as a student you are here free President elect baa who is who is you know of a very experience there there the expectations are had and I can assure you if he doesn't live up up to the expectation what happened to to George Rah in 2023 will definitely happen to [Music] him hello and welcome back to another episode of the 77% Street debate we are at the University of Liberia and in the country's capital now six years ago President George WEA came into to office with the promise of a youthful and dynamic leadership one term later the former footballer was given the red card by uh the voters here and in his place a new president is now going to take over and so the question today is was that promise of youth leadership false who else to answer this question for me than some liberians and I want to start with ezar to just give us an overview of how you would say how would you rate George we's uh term in office first of all uh the government came to power on the shoulders of the young people there were four pillows the first pillow power to the people the second pillar is uh job creation economy the third sustaining the peace and the fourth uh pillow has to do with u uh transparency accountability if we go back to the second pillow about job creation today a little or nothing there were people placing incompetent people placing high places in government the streets are dirty the cities have been abandoned there hasn't been resources for Education um and little more you know uh uh has been done to eradicate to reduce poverty especially among Young University graduates all right let me actually ask the University students most of whom are here today if you believe that the country is now better off after George we's presidency please lift your hand if you think the country is better off today after George we's presidency please lift your hand absolutely no one believes that I mean musu that must not be easy for you to hear where did it all go wrong I know that Josh we as a young man because looking at his age I classify him as a young man he did something very tangible that I always speak of looking at you know young ministers especially we have several of the guys who he appointed as Deputy ministers like Ain R and the other guys as deputy and then we also look at the uh employment rate right the salary harmonization most of the old fce think that it was ating for Josh weah to cut off the salary but I would say no because the the salary harmonization also brought more young people to the employment world yes people who weren doing anything when they cut off those o4 salary they brought those people on board and then they were all working yeah okay so uh let me speak to TBA here for a second because when I spoke to you earlier in preparation for this debate you sounded really angry you know you're currently unemployed would you ever uh vote for a young leader again well the expectation of voting for a long young leader young lead coming to power they came to power with a very great ideas telling Liberian people that in the next couple of years 75% or 80% of the youth will be employed so Liberian voted George or wom at the end of the day what unfortunate that the number of people you talk about employing we didn't reach that number so definitely employ in 14 another young leader will find it difficult in the particular scenario okay so I want to hear some practical examples of where you think the government could have done better you know ezzar earlier you outlined what the promises were how did they not fail I mean how did they not work Faith let's hear from you so I think the the promises that were made by this this ongoing government where they did went wrong as was the fact of implementing some of the promises they did so we had a lot of promises that were made by the government in terms of FR tuation at the University of Liberia and other public university in Liberia and that of the was fees where were pay any wasse children from 12th grade school wise fee to go and sit free of charge so you see sometimes you make good uh decisions but then if you don't have a strong implementation teams it becomes a problem so I think that was the problem the implementation the people who are surrounding people who were in the direct control of the implementation process fail us okay I've heard that said a lot actually that the former president or the outgoing president might have surrounded himself with people who weren't necessarily up to the task but as citizens of this country you have systems in which you can hold your government accountable why didn't you Prince well uh first of all let me let me just Express that um the the issue of uh unemployment was visible because uh we all know developing countries developed countries uh the issue of job creation is basically driven by the private sector but uh you you you get to understand in the in the six years of the the George we Administration uh take for for example there was there was no concession signed because we all know that it is the private sector that drives the economy that that leads to you know job job creation so there were there were many young people who who were not able to get job and and uh to to answer you directly concerning what are some of the actions that were that were taken by citizens now it is it is inscribed in our in our Constitution that uh citizens have have the right to gather to to petition their their leaders there was a very big protest in Liberia the the June 7 protest where where citizens along with some big politicians felt that the government was was was was not proceeding rightly so uh uh government's attention was called so yes there were there were there were many calls to government to make government understand that yes the issue of of of unemployment was very high let me let me just draw you back uh no I'll come back to you because I need to give other people a chance to speak uh and I want to get to Raymond here on this corner because we've talked about job creation and as an entrepreneur you're doing your part right you're not getting formal employment anywhere so you create your own employment is it easy to do business in this country and do you feel that the government is supporting young people like you well I find it difficult for for me because my my business I'm doing is a is a printing business I find it very difficult with customers uh even at times when people come over to do business with you they will all want like in our little man Liberian way we say last price last price what's that oh discount discount discount last price last price okay we found it very difficult in getting machines because uh they are very very expensive to get a kind of quality of work and uh some some of times when we even go to the bank and to apply for loan business loan is kind of difficult for us because there there are too many of policies there are too many document we ask for that we cannot present and you cannot easily get a help okay let me ask a Rand off the same question do you think it's easy if you want to go out on your own path uh as a young person here in Liberia no it's not easy let I I run an organization called C have sanitation we are into health awareness and other things but one of the main thing that have been so uh frustrating to us is uh this person government have not placed trust in the young people when it comes to entrepreneurship or laboral small businesses and for foret about the small businesses that been R by local by the common Lian people so one we can tackle this thing is by putting trust in young people one building trust in the entrepreneurs that already in the country like Ron have already said and these are things that that that if these Cho have been built you know that there will be more more people coming into the system and people can can create job excluding from what the government can be to give okay so before we continue I want to hear from the young people in the audience some of the challenges that you experience experiencing as young citizens of this country because of quote unquote poor leadership any takers so the young people are not pay attention to like when this government the Jo Le government came I was excited because he was a young man and we had high expectations we had high hope that he was going to bring change to the young people that wish he promise us but we we fear that he fail us and you see young people are around here you check here 80% are not doing permanent work because there is no means to get work the free policy tuation policy is good but I need transportation to come to the free school and so that I don't have transportation so the policy is there but there is no money to come to school at times we have to sit down to buy pamplet because we are not working and I have to buy pamplet to come to school I have to pay my hor R to come to school to maintain myself to come to school it gave a good policy but there was no implementations all right thank you for that any more comments on this side oh good first of all what I want to say is that chya government fail because of the people that he elected most of them couldn't fulfill some of their they couldn't do what they what they were supposed to do all right and when I supported Jorge we 2017 I was very sure that Jorge we could do more uh but uh you know when the government When government comes into Power the expect of the people can be high right even right now the government that is coming into power is saying to us we should manage our expectation so what I want to say is that yes judge we have failed in so many places too if I may say that but trust me judge we have also done something that we all hear one way of the other especially the University student of the Republic of liia L have benefited immensely I think if you are criticizing judge where for for such a policy you should also say the better one that he has also done in Direction Where in you as a student you are here free the only thing you are doing register and come to school that's what is happening why would you say the man should should give you free free tuation and school then the man go to your house and pay your way or whatsoever you as a young man you can also you are a Liberian you can also struggle to find something to do to get to school oh I like that he's talking about personal responsibility you've been wanting to talk to me for a second one of the problem I have with government one is education system before we have our good education system education were going well with us even at high school student were passing the end of the year but right now because of the free duration other things even government School other student have dropping they are not learning well some teachers if we get in class they always ask us to buy Mar so they can teach her on board so uh let me just come back to the front here no I was just wanted to you know um speak to what that was saying she said high school students now the day they are failing so who's responsible who responsible for a child to fail we have the PTA how much classroom teacher right on mcss we have the PTA parents teacher Association so if you send your child to school as a parent you should also do a followup on your child when she or he or come home from school yeah so you don't you don't put that unprecedent we here saying that okay he's responsible for that he created a platform an opportunity for young people to be educated what led to Jos shya losing this election was the people around him his ministers they didn't do well in our VAR communities but for Josh we he did extra well and I will appla him there's a few things that have been said which I just want to bring us back to right the fact that perhaps the expectations of young people were way too much that there was absolutely no way George we was going to ever meet those expectations if young people if young people are really what was saying they are why then did more than half of the country elect a 78y old man if young people can be trusted Prince let me hear from you job creation was a serious problem and I think it is it is because of of that George we was was elected out and then Mr baa who is a very president president baa President elect baa who is who is you know of a very experienced you know States man there there the expectations I high and I can assure you if he doesn't live up up to the expectation what happened to to George weah in 2023 will definitely happen to him okay let me hear from uh this gentleman he's really been trying to get my attention there were so many reasons why Joya government fails and uh one of the major reason was the fail in systematic governance when Joya took over in 2018 he dismissed all appointed officials without prop turn over not to the people that coming to replace them so that was a m and he was bringing people that had no experience and he dismissed those that were supposed to succeed so uh we've spoken about some theories I see your hands and we'll come to you in a short while uh I I really love your enthusiasm uh but I I have to ask a question you know we're talking about the theories as to why the government might have failed Mary I want to hear what the consequences of this are we've touched on this earlier with ezzar talking about the crime rate going up what else has happened as a result of that that's six years of things not working yeah so six years of things not working if you read a principle of democracy we have um 10 major ones which having been to do with accountability transparency the rule of law giving people the safety to protest and all of that we saw the sporadic appointment of young people into government but unfortunately a lot of them did not perform according to the Liberian people exportation because they did not have the required knowledge as well as skills to perform in those capacities okay uh so I have to ask I mean this country has an anti-corruption agency it has a public management fund uh program why not use those bodies in place to correc ify what is going wrong the those institutions like the uh LCC labal anti-corruption commission the uh Financial I mean the FIU they had couple of them here um it was the lack of a political will they conducted audits the general auditing commission all the other Integrity institutions implementation became a problem the president had he he he inner circles involved in to those acts of corruption so it was difficult to pursue any prosecution and B of those cases of corruption are left unsolved okay uh so faith I just want to come back to the point that's been made by musu do you think that young people then gave too much power too much hope too much of everything onto this one person was that fair so there are too many expectation that was put on this government that didn't provide no platform to us truth be told there were debates that were organized by people prior to President we ele government he didn't attend debates there was nothing the government could tell us that he was going to do but when he took office we saw a lot of young people being bled chuo a lot of young people they were even ministers Deputy ministers I'm talking about at the ministerial level so we had a lot of young people being appointed in this position and they were to work in their VAR communities they were to even sit on the M that they met at these VAR ministri and be able to prop themselves up but unfortunately these young people also fail us they actually fail us because let's say you are given an opportunity as a young person to serve as a deputy Minister for agriculture even if you don't have the the the experience and you have six years make use all of the we have Internet that we can make sufficient research to be able to make impact in our country but they didn't do it all right so ebena let me come back to you does this mean then again the question I keep asking faith has articulated it very well that even the young people in his government really failed you are we doomed then as a continent to be led by octogenarians certainly not uh there is still disbelief in the young people except that President we had chose lot of young incompetent young people there are lot of young people that are qualified there was no proper vetting process he took people to T areas that they had no knowledge like they said there was no turn over note uh people just ran into Ministries ran people out turn the entire country over to human resources officers in these VAR Ministries and agencies so the breading to take responsibilities on the president is not on his appoin in six years he didn't re for the cabinet people left in positions of trust unaccounted for there were cases of corruption there were no actions taken so we cannot blame the people we elected the president he owed that responsibility to us as a country not the appointees and if there were mistakes he should have taken steps the president does not address the media he uses a church a church po to address National issues those were weaknesses in the in the regime and so to speak we must admit to to to those so we've spoken about a lot of problems today right and I want you to tell me if I'm correct as to how I understood you that some of the biggest problems in this country today are corruption yes nepotism there's a problem with poverty as well but we also agree that there were some things that were done right including education right all right so I want us now to think about some solutions what are some of the things that you would like to see done differently in order to to move this country forward let me start with my panelist here and then I'll come to you guys thank you so much one of the thing I would like for this president to do is first thing we have to leave all this political thing and go back to teaching our people how to vote one of the major problem in our country we don't know how to vote what do you mean you don't know how to vote okay majority of us in this country only vote because of they know that particular person now what the person can bring to to the the the population if that pres give you $5 Liberty you you have complete interest in presid that have been our the foundational problem this is what led to us electing president Jorge because we love him and when we don't care what he'll be able to give to all nothing at that we elected him so if we know how to vote when when to vote who who to vote at this particular time to save us in our country we can have a country free from from all BL all right uh let me hear from you what are some of the things that you would like to see done differently in this new regime all right firstly with just for election what I want to see is that reconciliation first because there was a split during the election process other people went separate way other people were defending and there was a serious Kos in Monrovia reconciliation first should be the first regim after reconciliation the next thing is talking about Ro connectivities after you connect the rules you talk about employing the people after you employ the people you provide education for the people and a better education okay that why I wait to see you in the next government all right ezza I started with you and I would like to conclude this debate with you in the next six years so that we are not here talking about the same things what would you recommend that young liberians do to more Empower themselves in the political sphere so I think it starts with the government and I want the government to make investment in education but in a different form uh investment in in in vocational technical education because the engine the economic engine or growth in the country is been propelled by investment in Technical and vocation education the carentry the carent the Masons the the uh plumbers they build the country from the grassroot and the government attaches great importance to education that will help because the education the budget for education in this country has not crushed 13% I think that's the service the second thing I want young people to do is to take advantage of the opportunities that will be provided the new president has a platform already uh it is called a rest I mean the A is for agriculture role education and sanitation uh and so I think that the young people should take advantage advantage of the various programs that will come take advantage of the Li take advantage of higher education and they can contribute meaningfully and of course bring Integrity to the table because some said there were a lot of young people appointed in government they didn't have the capacity to drive the economy or to drive growth in their respective areas okay now at the beginning of this debate I asked a simple question was the promise of youthful leadership sort of flawed well what we've heard here today is that a lot of young people were disappointed but there's also a lot of expectation and Hope from the same young people I don't know about you but I really enjoyed that thank you for [Music] watching

Channel: DW The 77 Percent

Views: 23,111

Keywords: DW, DW Africa, Africa, liberia, liberianyouth, liberian, activism, streetdebate, monrovia, westafrica

Id: OUfb8S0kOMM

Length: 21min 10sec (1270 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 23 2024