Free Democratic Party of Liberia

THE FREE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF LIBERIA

DECENTRALIZATION OF GOVERNMENT AND GRASSROOTS EMPOWERMENT

Arrange government of the Republic of Liberia to manage social, economic and political opportunities; facilitate consensus on public concerns; preserve and enhance popular participation in the polity of the Republic; and ensure equal opportunity in a free democracy.

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Citizens of the Republic of Liberia will be provided equal opportunity for meaningful participation in the polity of the Republic irrespective of diversity in life style, ethnicity, residence or profession. Policies and programs of the nation should posit a government whose bureaucracy is controlled by the people and their elected leaders. Control by the people will involve the protection of civil rights, enforcement of contracts, as well as control of the exploitation of natural resources and pollution of the environment.

The use of modern developments in communications and information will provide citizens and their elected leaders with access to the data, trained education, and literacy necessary to control government decision making.

National Telecommunications Network

Reconstruction of the government of Liberia requires modern telecommunications technology in service of citizens to enhance their governing capabilities and those of their elected leaders. The distribution of relevant information via communications technology will facilitate direct access for citizens and their elected leaders to the documentary information necessary for effective educational, medical and industrial institutions. Citizens will use this national telecommunications network in interactive modes so as to have equal access to educational and medical benefits, industrial and financial data, and political decisions. By utilizing telecommunications technology from the village and township level to the national level, the government will maintain open and complete options for the citizen to facilitate personal educational development and political expression.

Laws, Institutions and People

Public policy will be managed by the smallest possible unit of government. It is necessary to decentralize the exisiting local government structure of the Republic by devolution into effective counties established by equal and cartographically determined rules. All counties will be linked by the national telecommunications network.The primary obligation of the elected county officials will be to protect individual rights and liberties, as well as to secure the greatest happiness for the greatest number. When citizens elect responsible officials, and a telecommunications network is provided to monitor the behavior of these officials, there will be incentive for all officials to act in the common interest.

By the terms of devolution of local government authority, each county, and its elected leadership, will exercise primary authority over intra-county decisions about public safety, election of local officials, judicial matters, food security, elementary education, the environment, transportation, health, housing, and property. The National Government will ensure that full faith shall be given in each county to the records, judicial proceedings and public acts of any other county. The counties will in turn facilitate National Government jurisdictions over taxation, fiscal and budget management, civil defense and national security, foreign relations and international trade, higher and technical education, and national telecommunications management.

Devolution will permit opportunities for equitable fiscal policies and fair budgeting procedures on the National Revenue. Considering that efforts to administer revenue collection on a decentralized basis will lessen the number of tax dollars collected per dollar of administrative cost, fiscal management will focus on central disbursement of funds to the counties. Counties will have primary choices of program methods and program goals, but National Revenue will be disbursed and managed by formulas based on relative county needs and priorities as determined by the national and county governments. Devolution of local goverment authority will be offered by fairness, dignity and security in the administration of local justice. Petty and Administrative courts in each county will be headed by elected judges whose tenures are conditioned by set terms and the threat of recall. Trial and Appellate courts will be constituted in districts encompassing more than one county. All persons shall be entitled to rights of appeal to the Supreme Court of the Republic, as well as of public defender assistance.

Devolution will also affirm that our traditional elders determine and guarantee the hegemony of the people of Liberia. Land tenure, expression of culture, and the definition of our history, should remain theobligation of our traditional elders.

To protect gains derived from devolution, the National Government will sponsor incentives to encourage experts within bureaucracies, both public and private, to come forward with facts about activities in their agencies or organizations which are deemed to be contrary to the common interest. Rules which determine when that interest is abused will offer obligatory protection to the economic wellbeing of the experts. Data on the national telecommunications network will make it easier to verify or disprove any charges of abuse.

To induce private corporations and public enterprises to act in the common interest, public policy will mandate placement of one or more public representatives on their policy boards. Terms of service of public representatives will be of limited duration with limited possibilities of renewal, and their salaries will be paid out of public funds. Public representatives will inject into policy deliberations considerations on the common interest from the inside instead of imposing them from the outside. Rules will forbid those who have served as public representatives to serve in turn as regular employees of the same corporations and enterprises.

To determine the value of public services, fiscal policy at all levels of government will specify methods of accounting which include environmental costs as well as the costs of private appropriation of publicly financed goods and services. This accounting will assess how tax monies and public funds are being spent, as well as determine the appropriateness and effectiveness of these expenditures.

Politics of Renewal

Administration of the Government of Liberia will be centered on the actions of individual citizens, from the villages and townships to the cities and counties, through their elected local, county and national leaders.

The Republic's program of economic, financial, agricultural, industrial, and educational recovery will be constantly evaluated at the local, county and national levels by a process of popular participation and national consensus, which implies all political parties accepting the rules of democratic pluralism for all Liberians, defending and serving the national interest, as well as fostering economic democracy whereby all of our people are involved in production, the accumulation of capital, the distribution of revenues, and in the promotion of employment, liberties, and leisure.