On June 29, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, announced that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have erased $4.6 billion of Liberia's debt. In hailing the news, “Today is a great day for Liberia. Most of our debt is gone. A huge burden had been lifted and the world can trust Liberia again. As we look forward to our 163rd year of independence, we can proudly celebrate a new dawn of freedom and independence.”
Africa's only female president added, “This is a day for us, as Liberians, to celebrate. For the first time in decades we can rejoice and say that we have broken the decades-old cycle of financial mismanagement. We have all earned this day.”
You can read more about Liberia's debt relief at this link.
This is an important step in rebuilding post-war Liberia. Hopefully the nation's leaders will not take our struggling homeland back into debt. Instead, our national leaders should step up and pay off the rest of whatever debt Liberia still owes. The debt balance is about $300 million.
~mogama~
