In her New Year message to the Liberian people, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf outlined the five topmost priorities of her development agenda for 2013. She expressed a sense of conviction and unwavering determination towards the achievement of those goals, come next year.
Land-reform, the correction of key mistakes in the concessions sector, ensuring that national reconciliation succeeds, infrastructural development and ensuring that development is not limited to Monrovia, but expanded to benefit the vast majority of the population, were amongst those top priorities listed.
“For 2013, we want to see progress in the areas of reform included in the Agenda for Transformation, among them, land reform. This is vital to everything we do in our mining and agriculture sectors, as well as in maintaining peace and tranquility. We also hope to conclude reform of the concessions sector, to correct past mistakes.
“We hope that 2013 will be a year of true patriotism and reconciliation that will accentuate the positive things that unite us. We will push ahead with our reconciliation program by implementing the Roadmap which aims at accounting for the past, managing the present, and planning for the future,” she said.
She added that “For 2013, we are placing great emphasis on infrastructure, with power, ports and roads as our three areas of concentration. These, in turn, will facilitate the education, health and agriculture sectors. We expect 2013 to be a good year of demonstrable progress, so that our people will see what this government is doing, what we’ve accomplished not just in Monrovia, but elsewhere in Liberia,” she continued.
In her message, President Johnson Sirleaf did not deny that there are basic problems in the country that still need fixing. With that in mind, the President expressed the hope that this New Year grants her renewed vigor and greater determination “because I know the potential of Liberia, and I know that we can renew this nation if we all work together as one people, one nation, united for peace and sustainable development.”
“And after all is said and done, my fellow Liberians, it is in the younger generation that I have my faith and confidence, when I look at today’s primary school children – those who don’t know anything about a gun, and who never had to run,” she noted. “Wars and divisions are not part of their consciousness. They represent the new Liberia, the new generation that we must nurture, even as we try to keep peace and stability through decentralization, through the fight against poverty and corruption, and through the recognition of our shortcomings as well as our potential.”
The Liberia leader has meanwhile asked Liberians to conduct themselves well throughout the month of January.She said the country will, at the end of January, host meetings that will feature the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the President of Indonesia, and prominent individuals representing various regions of the world.
“In the same way that Liberia was commended highly when we hosted the International Women’s Colloquium in 2009, we call upon our citizens to display the hospitality for which we are known, as we welcome our international guests to our home,” she told Liberians.
The meetings will focus on coining a new global development agenda to succeed the Millennium Development Goals after 2015.
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