Tuesday in Monrovia - Energy and Telco

It’s now October 3 – After a nice little dinner and a drink last night, I was the first occupant of the newly renovated Chateau De La Genesis. The AC wasn’t hooked up, so I hope my Deet was protecting me as I had to have some air in the room. The location is pretty amazing (see photos if you don’t believe me). They’ve done a lot to restore this set of buildings, the previous occupants, apparently soldiers, had subdivided every room into tiny rooms. As you can see, from the pics, the area around the compound is still in a bit of disrepair. With unemployment running at around 85%, you can understand why.

I awoke early and had a chance to snap some photos as the sun was coming up. The ocean is some 50 m away, so I slept last night to the sound of the waves crashing. Very pleasant, but I’m just not used to it! That, and every time I had an itch I couldn’t help but think about mosquitoes…

This morning met a nice young lady who is a junior at the United Methodist University, majoring in accounting with a minor in economics. She is from Liberia, but spent a number of years in Nigeria (near Lagos) during the war. She’s very optimistic but knows it will take some time to rebuild the country. She hopes to be able to pursue a graduate degree overseas and be able to come back and use what she learned to help out.

I also spent some time with Abraham, a young man who is in networking – primarily sounds like he deals with satellite networks. As with a lot of people, he also spent some time elsewhere during the war and is back.

Both Abraham and Joisei(sp?) are very interested in technology. I ran my Phonopoly idea past them and they seemed genuinely interested. There are times where having access to an account of some kind would be very useful. For example with the universities, many web sites require some type of account. It truly is amazing how prevalent the mobile phones are. They confirmed this, noting that they use them for both voice and texting.

Phones here are not cheap since the phone companies don’t subsidize them. This in turn helps propagate the cell phone thievery. Sam (the economist fellow) mentioned that it is the number 1 item for theft in the country. The young lady showed me a scar (it was on her neck before you ask!) where a thug had cut her to get her cell phone.

Anyway, the generator isn’t on yet, sometime during the night it stopped. I’m on my second battery so I have a bit of time left. My cell phone, however is on it’s last leg – stupid charger doesn’t seem to be working, and my other phone *still* isn’t unlocked! And my IP phone won’t work until they get the network back alive….



Now, preparing for a press conference on Energy. Met a gentleman, Will James from IRG in DC. He’s an energy lawyer. I promised him to send him an article on the Dark Land, about the forgotten land of Africa. Will has a slide of the nighttime view of the earth.

Also met Dunstan L. D. Maculey, the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC). He spent a number of years in Atlanta (circa 95) and led the Liberian delegation at the Centenial Olympics.

A discussion ensued about the upcoming National Forum. Hydro power (~60%) was the key generator pre-war power source (413 Megawatts ish). Now they have about 4 Megawatts. Rural electrification has always been an issue in Liberia. Petroleum production stopped many years ago. 2004 Energy workshop came out with some options. Issues to tackle include:
1) sector reform and restructuring – liberalized with competition
2) market development – measures to establish market structure within electricity and petro subsectors
3) increase access to rural – renewable energy resources
4) establish independent regulatory bodies
5) strengthen legal and regulatory framework


Several members of the press followed up the speeches with some hard questions about implementation, not just policy. The answers were a mix of ‘we’ll try’ and ‘we know’ about both the perception and the reality of the scorecard on implementation. Pledges to do better…

Sam Jackson drove me to the National Investment Commission building. I’m to meet with Ben Wolo (head of LTC) who will also be meeting with LTA and World Bank.

I was able to meet with Ben Wolo of the LTC briefly. I was more of a fly on the wall during a discussion between LTC, LTA, and World Bank. I can’t say more, but I was appreciative of the chance to participate.

I then made my way over to visit with Zotowan Titus, the Assistant Minister of Telecom. The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications building has a dual image…many areas are in disrepair, yet the offices are in good shape albeit spread around on several levels. Unfortunately, the office does not have Internet access – but I was thoroughly debriefed by Mr. Titus who graciously walked me through the policy process as well as the process by which the provisional government had enacted certain bills.

Back to the office, a number of scheduling calls and debriefs, some note taking, then to a quick dinner and back to bed….