The Liberian army is a peacetime army. The biggest threat to Liberia today is not invasion by neighbors or dissident groups. The biggest threat is poverty. I am interested in seeing the extent to wish our army can participate in the development of our country, specifically expanding road networks across Liberia.
Addressing Liberia’s infrastructure needs, it will require substantial expenditures between $350-$600 million United States dollars annually, most to fund roads and electricity. We need to be creative about how we leverage domestic resources to support infrastructure investments.
I would like to see the large portion of military expenditure devoted to support infrastructure investments, to be executed by the military. Some examples are Senegal, which has a long-established tradition of the military helping to build infrastructure while large section of the armies in Eritrea and Ghana are also engaged in development activities. In Uganda, a defunct college has been revived and converted into the University of Military Science Technology managed by the Uganda People’s Defense Force.
This should be done intentionally by policy, not by accident and requires thinking seriously about building capacity in engineering on a large skill.
Questions to the army from Sen. Amara:
- Do you see a role for the AFL in equipping the next generation of our army recruits with skills to solve practical development problems, particularly in engineering sciences?
- What is the army’s policy on welfare, specifically as it relates to salaries and other benefits?
- What is the army’s recruitment policy and what is the size of the force?