2007年VOA标准英语-Analysts Generally Give Liberia's Johnson-Sirle

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By Nico Colombant
Dakar
16 January 2007

One year into the term of Liberia's post-war President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, many foreign analysts¹ and aid workers are joining Liberians in giving her good marks for a job well done. But they also point to several mistakes and warn of many challenges ahead. Nico Colombant reports from our West Africa Bureau, in Dakar.

 
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is congratulated by Liberians in Monrovia
In terms of governance, Tania Bernath from London-based Amnesty International, says Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has reacted very quickly to anything that could be seen as an internal obstacle to her aim for a better, more transparent², more efficient and less corrupt³ Liberia.

"When problems have arisen, there has been an effort to address them, immediately," she said.  "Maybe, if there is ethnic⁵ tension, then a commission was formed immediately. There have not been delays on things and I think with former governments that has been a problem. Things have not been slipped under the rug. There are just efforts to address problems before they become too large."

Phillip Samways, from the British charity group Oxfam, says President Johnson-Sirleaf has sometimes almost reacted too quickly.

One of her promises during her Inauguration⁶ Day speech was to quickly restore electricity. This has only happened in a small part of the capital, Monrovia.

 
Liberian youth hope for better future 
"This is serving a very small [part] of the slightly better, wealthier end of the city, with some limited amount of street lighting⁷ and some traffic lights. It is high profile," he said. "The president actually said in her inauguration speech, this government will get power back on within six months. And, they did actually achieve that, but at a very considerable cost. The generators⁸ they brought in are not as efficient as they had hoped and the fuel bills are just exhausting their meager⁹ financial resources at the moment, so it is possible that the power may have to go back off again."

Samways says many in the aid community feel some of the electricity money may have been better spent on the gargantuan¹⁰ task of getting more schools, roads and hospitals operational.

He says most slum-dwelling Monrovians and Liberians outside the capital have seen little immediate⁴ improvement to their lives since the newly-elected government took office.

Economists¹¹ point out the new president has been working on renegotiating resource contracts for the long term and also creating a better business environment.

Another one of President Johnson-Sirleaf's first actions was to fire hundreds of officials from the Finance Ministry¹², because of alleged¹³ corruption¹⁴ and incompetence¹⁵.

Rolake Akinola, from the London-based Control Risks Group, says she has also worked closely with foreign monitors in key ministries¹⁶, despite the risk of alienating¹⁷ even more Liberian civil servants.

 
Liberians depend on foreign aid 
"It is quite important to know that Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has faced a lot of obstacles. A lot of externally-backed policies are not entirely¹⁸ popular with the Liberian population, itself," she said. "These are really hard, crunching¹⁹ reforms we are talking about and we do know that Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, through her hard-hitting reforms, is stepping on a lot of big, heavy political toes. She will continue to face an uphill task. But, as long as the country's external donors²⁰ continue to be involved and engaged in the process of reform, I think we should see major breakthroughs over the next couple of years in key areas."

Aid workers warn there is a gap right now between emergency funding that is drying out and longer term development aid that has yet to start arriving as massively as is needed.

They also say tens of thousands of former fighters remain outside the rehabilitation²¹ process that was supposed to give them training and jobs. Some of these youths initially²² protested President Johnson-Sirleaf's election victory, alleging²³ widespread cheating, even though no proof was given. But resentment²⁴ and frustration²⁵ remains²⁶, which some analysts say, could boil over into street protests and higher criminality.