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A response to one Lee
Williams on the Appointment of Hon. Amara . Konneh as
Finance Minister-designate of Liberia
By: Manyou MAS Bility
27 January, 2012
 My
attention is drawn to Sunday, January 22, 2012 publication
of the Africa Standard News outlet captioned: Irony of Prez.
Sirleaf latest appointments-Guinean Mandingo heads Liberia’s
financial sector in which one Lee H. Williams ignorantly
delved into issues way above his understanding.
Well, as a residence of the cyberspace, I believe God, the
almighty have sent some of us here to serve as the mirrors
to reflect the realities on the little minds of the likes of
Lee. We have been here for long and will stay to address
insanity of such nature.
While penning down his nonsense with confidence, Lee wrote
“The post of Finance Minister is perhaps the most important
in Liberia besides the presidency as the finance minister
has a herculean task of rebuilding a tattered economy and
soliciting assistance from the international community.”
Lee, Thanks that you didn’t say that the post of Finance
Minister is the most important besides the presidency but
instead chose to use the word “perhaps” leaving rooms for
corrections. Well, I am here to make those corrections.
That’s why I am a resident of the cyberspace.
The burden of rebuilding a tattered economy sits more on the
Ministry of Planning and Economy Affairs not the Finance
Ministry as you and your senders believe. When talking about
cabinet positions (ministries), the functions, roles or
responsibilities of a specific ministry tell how important
it is. In solidifying your lack of understanding of our
ministries, you insinuated in your poorly written diatribe
that the Ministry of Finance management requires more
Herculean tasks thank than that of Planning and Economic
Affairs. Where did you learn that from? The Ministry of
Planning & Economic Affairs (MPEA) was established by
Legislative Act on February 14, 1976, as the Ministry of
Planning & Economic Affairs (Chapter 32; Executive Law), the
defined role of the new Ministry was “to undertake economic
studies for planning and economic policy to foster, promote,
and develop the Liberian economy.” The legislative mandates,
couple with some of the works performed by the MPEA, and
suggest that the Ministry's operational/functional mandate
can be characterized as listed below:
• Initiating and coordinating the development of
policies, plan and programs for the economic, financial,
social, cultural and physical development of Liberia.
• Undertaking research on national development
issues.
• Providing technical and research support to the
Cabinet.
• Undertaking consultant activities for local and
foreign government entities.
• Managing external cooperation agreements and
programs.
• Collaborating with external funding agencies in the
identification and implementation of development projects
that support Liberia's Poverty Reduction Strategy.
• Maintaining a national socio-economic library. etc
Mr. Ignorant, let me take you back to the first
operational/functional mandate of MPEA: Initiating and
coordinating the development of policies, plan and programs
for the economic, financial, social, cultural and physical
development of Liberia. If you are someone with the ability
to read with understanding, the first function of this
ministry will tell you that it is the nucleus of the
government. If you look at the following words: Economic,
financial, social, cultural and physical development of
Liberia, you and your senders will understand that Finance
(under the Finance Ministry) is a subset of the economy!
Planning Ministry is connected to all of the ministries. If
anyone successfully executes the functions of a Planning
Ministry, he or she can work at any ministry with
distinction. This is why the president said, “if this guy
could outstandingly execute economic studies for planning
and economic policy to foster, promote, and develop the
Liberian economy after picking it from a moribund state by
connecting with all of the sectors of governments, I am
confident that he can handle any area with distinction!!”
This is what that got Amara the job!!! He is qualified!!!
The ministry of planning is not a place for children. It’s
for real men who are technocrats and qualified with strong
economic backgrounds. We all know that economics which is
the father of all business courses is all about managing
finances. The question now is, does Amara has economic
background or is he just an IT technician that you have
illiterately spoken about?
The issue of the Ministry of Finance being the most
important ministry is harbored by corrupt people and their
disciples. This is because they consider the position to be
so lucrative that money is always flowing around, so,
lucrative that they have many opportunities to steal. We saw
their reactions when Hon. Augustine K. Ngafuan was
appointment as the Finance Minister. They stupidly argued
that Ngafuan was not qualified because he had not handled
any ministerial positions and other bla, bla, bla!! That’s
their area, corruption!!! They don’t want anybody so loyal
to the president who wouldn’t work with anyone to steal our
money. But what they had forgotten at the time was that Hon.
Ngafuan had earlier managed the mitochondrion (the power
house) of the Finance Ministry, the Budget Bureau.
The Ministry of Finance’s operation is based on the
projected revenues and expenditures of government that are
traced and analyzed by the Budget Bureau. How can you say
that a financial analyst is not qualified to manage a
financial entity? The intention of these belleh-driven
cynics and their paid agent like Lee is clear –jealousy and
corruption!!! But for Amara, the tribal card is used because
they feel at some point in the past; it has been successful
forgetting to know that real and patriotic Liberians have
rejected that tribal card.
Who is Amara Konneh?
In your malicious article which was written to purposely
besmear the good works of our brother during these trying
times of our national economic recovery, you wrote under
your inappropriate question “who is Liberia’s new Finance
Minster that “Three days into her new six year
administration President Ellen Johnson named Amara Konneh a
Mandingo from the Kankan region of Guinea as the new finance
Minister of the Republic of Liberia.”
Let me first address the inappropriate nature of your
question. Liberia doesn’t have any new Finance Minister for
now. We only have an acting Finance Minister and a Finance
Minister- designate. Under our law, when a person is
nominated by the president to serve as a cabinet Minister,
you are still a nominee pending your confirmation by the
Liberian Senate. But a person like Lee with a Chinese name
doesn’t understand Liberian law due to language barrier. Let
me properly ask this question and provide an educative
answer for the benefit of the reading public since you do
not understand English.
The question should now be who is Liberia’s new Finance
Minister-designate or who is Hon. Amara Konneh since the new
Finance Minister-designate is Hon. Amara Konneh?
Minister Konneh was born in Bassa Camp (Weasua), Gbarpolu
County to the late Majumah Konneh and the late Mamadee
Konneh. He started school at the age of 10 and attended
Liberian public and private schools before becoming a
refugee in Guinea, and later, the United States. He
graduated from Drexel University and earned a graduate
degree in Management from Penn State University. He returned
to Liberia in 2005 and was a key member of the Sirleaf
Campaign. After the election, Hon Konneh was appointed as
Deputy Minister of State for Policy and Communications.
Before coming to Liberia, Hon. Konneh served as policy and
financial systems analyst at the Vanguard Group of
Investment Companies in Pennsylvania, United States, a
company whose Asset Under Management (AUM) value was 1.6
trillion in 2011 This man was working with a company whose
asset is in trillions. As a policy and financial system
analyst you are responsible to analyze past and present
financial data of organization and estimate future revenues
and expenditures, applying principles of finance, run and
document financial analysis projects, aid organization with
financial functions, such as assessing, auditing, planning,
budgeting, taxes, consolidation, cost control, and project
control. Evaluate and analyze capital expenditures,
depreciation, proposals, investment opportunities, rate of
return, profit plans, operating records, financial
statements, etc What kind of financial experience should
this brother look for now?
After over a year as Deputy Minister for State for Policy
and Communications, he left the country to continue his
study at Harvard. At Harvard, he earned a Master’s degree
from the John F Kennedy school of Government in Public
Administration with emphasis in Economic and political
development. He who has a blood of economics in him, has all
of the financial courses in him because, economics is the
father of all financial fields. That was at the time Harvard
was the number one university in the world. Today it is
second to Cambridge University. Which University in the
world you wanted him to study economics before considering
him as someone with economics knowledge? In 2008, he
returned to Liberia and was awarded the position of Minister
of Planning and Economics Affairs. His performance earns him
what you are fussing about today.
In 2010, he was honored by
Global Book Publication in DC as one of the new generation
of savvy, sharp and entrepreneurial leaders that are
emerging across Africa. This is base d on his hard work and
experience in revitalizing the economy of Liberia. One May
continue to write about the qualification of this brother
without an end but our readers have other things to do. Now you can see that this brother is over qualified!!!
For the issue of his citizenship, I won’t spend anytime
chasing your misinformation. I don’t give credence to
irrelevant issues because they have the tendencies of
distracting people’s attention from the real issues. I am
sure that none of our senators will fall for such a childish
argument. Your target was Minister Konneh this is why you
couldn’t understand yourself when you wrote, “Our staff
writer now looks at the first four appointments made by
President Sirleaf beginning with the important post of
Finance Minister.”
The entire article only focused on Hon Konneh or maybe you
do know the difference between singular and plural nouns. He
wasn’t a Guinean Mandingo when he was a Deputy Minister of
State for Policy and Communications; he wasn’t a Guinean
Mandingo when he was at Planning because at Planning, no
money flows, so, so paper and technical works. Corrupt
mindset!! It doesn’t make any sense for someone like you
struggling with understanding written and spoken English to
raise an issue about Hon. Konneh’s citizenship status but as
a feature of the New Democrat says “This too is Liberia!!
Manyou MAS Bility
manyoumoham@yahoo.com
Milwaukee, WI
414 530 1728
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