Port Nightmare—Nine Fees Between the Ship and the Pot

THE MARKET WOMAN at Red Light does not read inflation tables. She reads the price of a bag of rice and a gallon of oil, and she tells the truth about them every morning. When Senator Amara M. Konneh repeated what one such woman told him, that rice cost more under the last government but people could find the money to buy it, and now they cannot, he was not passing on market gossip. He was delivering a verdict this government cannot afford to ignore.

THE NUMBERS the government likes to quote are real. Inflation is in single digits. The Liberian dollar has steadied. Revenue is growing, and the national budget stands at a historic US$1.2 billion (L$218.83 billion). Yet the ma selling at Duala and the trader restocking at Gobachop feel none of it. A recovery that cannot be felt in the pot is a recovery on paper, and paper has never filled a hungry stomach in this country.

WE KNOW WHERE a large part of the problem sits. It sits at the Freeport of Monrovia. Senator Konneh told the Senate Plenary that a 20-foot container from China that once cost an importer about US$2,800 (L$510,608) to land now attracts another US$1,900 (L$346,484) in local charges before it leaves the port gate. That puts the landing cost at US$4,700 (L$857,092) before a single item reaches a shop in Waterside. He counted up to nine separate fees, collected by APM Terminals, MedTech Scientific Limited, Global Tracking and Maritime Solutions (GTMS/CTN), the National Port Authority (NPA) and the shipping lines. Add the congested yards, the delayed dredging that keeps bigger vessels away and the weeks of demurrage, and Liberia has built itself a toll gate between the ship and every kitchen in the land.

NO IMPORTER PAYS these charges out of charity. Every dollar is passed down the line to the woman with the basin on her head. In the Senator’s words, goods meant to sell for $1,000 now sell for $1,800 “because no one wants to trade in losses.” The duty waivers government grants on rice are too easily swallowed between the berth and the market stall. The President gives with one hand; the port takes with the other.

THIS PAPER WELCOMES the Senate’s decision to summon ministers, revenue officials and port operators. It is long overdue. But Liberians have seen this film before. A committee is constituted, cameras roll, officials sweat for an afternoon, and the matter quietly dies in a drawer while prices keep climbing. If this inquiry ends the same way, the Legislature will have done more harm than good. It will have taught every operator at the port that oversight is a show they only need to sit through.

WE THEREFORE PUT the Senate on notice. Hearings are not reform. The Legislature must demand, in writing and on the public record, the full schedule of every fee charged on a container at the Freeport, the law or contract that authorizes each one, and the account into which each dollar goes. Any fee that cannot produce its legal basis should be suspended until it can. APM Terminals must show how its concession commitments on yard space and efficiency match what importers face today. The NPA must table a dated timetable for dredging, with a contractor and a budget line attached. And the committees must report back to plenary within a fixed period, with a name beside every promise made.

THE EXECUTIVE CANNOT hide behind the Legislature either. Senator Konneh warned that “somebody is not telling government truth.” President Joseph Nyuma Boakai should take that warning personally. If the officials around him bring good figures to the Mansion while the market cries outside, the President is being managed. He has the authority to order an immediate, consolidated review of every charge at the port, and he should order it this week.

LET NO ONE mistake this for a quarrel over shipping paperwork. Port charges decide whether a mother buys a full cup of rice or half a cup. They decide whether a petty trader restocks her table or eats her capital, and whether a child’s school fees are paid this semester. Senator Konneh put it in words every Liberian understands: without fixing the port, “if we kill 1,000 cows to make sacrifice to God to judgment day, nothing will change here.”

THE SENATE HAS opened the gate, and it must not close it until the fees are cut, the berths are dredged and the market woman at Red Light can say with her own mouth that prices have come down. Our people have been patient with statistics long enough. Anything less than results, and this “economic paradox” will become the record by which this government is judged.