Monrovia: September 5, 2014 POSITION OF THE NDC ON THE NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO KILL EBOLA IN LIBERIA In response to the invitation of the President of the Republic of Liberia for a conversation with leaders of political parties on the ongoing efforts by government to contain and/or rid Liberia of the Ebola Virus as well as solicit their suggestions for the enhancement of this campaign, the National Democratic Coalition (NDC) puts forward the bellow suggestions for the consideration of the Government of the Republic of Liberia. The present thoughts of the NDC on the national campaign to kill Ebola in Liberia aims at reinforcing the earlier position of the NDC on the fight against Ebola and the state of emergency that was issued on August 12, 2014. Highlights of the NDC position include the need for government to: • Completely remove the curfew, lift the state of emergency and open up the country for productive economic activities as the fight against Ebola is enhanced. The curfew has provided criminals the opportunity to brutalize peaceful citizens and interrupt their lives in these difficult times of national scare; and there is absolutely no constitutional bases for the state of emergency. • Demilitarize the campaign against Ebola and redirect all available resources to medical responses and prevention campaigns. • Mobilize the enormous energy of youth and students in the fight against Ebola. In an already existing emergency with adverse consequences on a national economy that is inflationary and import-oriented, where every basic consumable commodity is imported, formal proclamation of a ninety-day state of emergency does more harm than good in addressing the national catastrophe. Moreover, a formal state of emergency also has the propensity to create unnecessary national panic, instigate fear and anxiety in an already unemployed, sick and impoverished society, scare people away from Liberia, and further isolate Liberia. In actual fact, Liberia would have been better of dealing with the health emergency situation through practical actions than evoking a Constitutional State of Emergency. 1. The threat posed by the Ebola pandemic on the citizenry of Liberia, and the continued devastating impacts caused by the virus on the lives of Liberians now amounts to a declaration of war on the Country by the disease. What the Government of Liberia has sought to do in response to the Ebola threat has only been to declare a state of emergency void of formal declaration of war on the disease. As an approach, we must, as a matter of urgency, announce a formal declaration of war on the Ebola Virus; such a declaration must essentially play the national card, and serve as a rallying point for the mobilization of the entire population and all national resources of the State to be directed in the battle against the Ebola national calamity. 2. Politics aside, if the National Government does not rise up to the occasion now, through an effective and forceful leadership, to urgently and decisively address the Ebola catastrophe head on collision, the health crisis will engender a serious political crisis whose consequences could be so disruptive to the point of severely undermining a smooth constitutional governance process, and eventually lead to possible regime change. Where have we gone wrong in the Anti-Ebola National Campaign? 1) The Government of Liberia failed in the initial state of the Ebola outbreak in Lofa County to act with sufficient and decisive actions. • Government should have immediately quarantined and isolated the limited affected areas in Lofa, as well as close Liberia’s border with Guinea in that specific location of the country; • Government should have put in place a National Anti-Ebola Program Strategy informed by practical experiences from other countries with relative knowhow in the fight against Ebola (example, DRC); • The initial Anti-Ebola Public Education Campaign launched as early as March, 2014, was limited and did not include thorough exposure of health practitioners to the dangers and manifestations of the virus. Consequently, the health sector singularly received the most devastating blows in terms of deaths. This brought fear and panic within the Sector and the entire population; in fact, the entire health Sector has virtually collapsed, with virtually all referral hospitals in and out of Monrovia (JFK, Catholic, Redemption, ELWA, etc.) have been closed to the public; 2) As the Ebola pandemic spread like wild fire in some of the most populated communities of the Country, we seem to lack a well coordinated national plan to respond to the challenges: • Inadequate Ebola referral outlets, • Inadequacy of logistics and finances to reach and care for Ebola victims; • Rather than responding to the rallying call, health practitioners, as a result of fear, have been running for their lives; • Those health workers who dare venture the challenges were not properly cared for in terms of support, protection and material incentives to work); 3) The Anti-Ebola National Taskforce, presided over by the President, should have been led by the Ministry of Health, with adequate actions taken to include all other major health-related programs and structures in the Country, including the Medical College of the University of Liberia; Cutting University Medical School; TNIMA, Mother Pattern Nursing School, and many other medical institutions. In other words, the Taskforce was not broadly based and inclusive from the medical perspective. 4) Ebola is fundamentally a health problem, not a military and security problem. Our national strategy to fight Ebola from all indications essentially took on a military and security approach, rather than a health approach. We unnecessarily proclaimed a State of Emergency, with serious economic, trade, transportation, security, and military implications; by that singular action, we created the pretext and the basis for countries to close their doors to Liberia due to the state of insecurity the State of Emergency portrayed. Technically, the Liberian Constitution while providing grounds for declaring a state of emergency did not in any instance include health hazard or other natural disasters as grounds. This is exactly what Article 86 (b) of the Constitution says: “Only where there is a threat or outbreak of war or where there is civil unrest, affecting the existence, security or well-being of the Republic amounting to a clear and present danger”, can a state of emergency be declared. No where does the Constitution say a state of emergency could be evoked as a result of a national health crisis. The NDC is on record as the only Political Party that questioned the rationale for such a decision by Government. 5) The Government also declared a nation-wide curfew from 9:00 pm to 6:00 am, and began to deploy the military and security forces in combat positioning. All of this required huge financial and logistical support. If the resources spent on the securitization and militarization of the Anti-Ebola Campaign had been prioritized and directed, as a matter of urgency, at the health, medical and other vital components of the Ebola campaign, lots would have been achieved. We are not oblivious to the fact that there were areas in which health workers needed to be protected by security forces; wherein they were threatened and the equipment and logistics looted and ransacked by lawless sections. However, the security and military component was over played compared 6) The chronic legitimacy crisis being suffered by the national governance system in general, and the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Administration in particular, due primarily to the lack of an effective social contract relations between the governed and the governors on the hand, the perception of the majority of the Liberian population that the Sirleaf Administration is insensitive to their needs, and is very corrupt, on the other, has been primarily responsible for the trend of denial about the existing Ebola pandemic as pronounced by the Government on the part of the down trodden masses (both rural and urban) – including deliberate refusal to adhere to Government pronouncements on the Ebola virus. Other factors have been due to primitive religious and cultural attributes; with gross ignorance and illiteracy have had their share in the challenge; 7) The lack of sovereign national media facilities and infrastructure (radio and television) capable of communication coverage in every nook and corner of the country has adversely affected a serious fight against the Ebola threat. This national challenge has time in memorial undermined Government’s ability to effectively communicate with the population both in time of peace and emergencies. 8) The lack of a national identification and registry (biometric) program or system that regularly documents both citizens and foreign residents alike residing within territorial jurisdiction of Liberia represents a major structural problem and security threat to the Country. There is an existing Act (NIR) which has put in place the requisite legal framework for carrying out this major program. There has however been the lack of political will in Government to carry out this urgent national task. A documented population structured in communities would have substantially re-enforced the fight against Ebola in Liberia. This should become a post-Ebola challenge. What is to be done in face of some of the challenges outlined in the Ebola fight? A. The government needs to do a postmortem on its fight against the Ebola pandemic since March 2014 to date and determine successes (if any), challenges, and draw up a new National Ebola Program with a timeline for the final eradication of the disease from the country, and thereby return the country to normalcy. B. Such a postmortem review should include identification of structure lapses, weaknesses in coordination, re-structuring of the Ebola National Task Force, for possible inclusion into the National Task Force other major institutional stake-holders that have been excluded from the national campaign. Such a re-arrangement of the National Ebola Task Force for example, should involve the entire health sector, including the Medical College of the University of Liberia, TNIMA, Mother Partern College of Health Science, Cuttington University College and all other Professional Medical Institutions of the country who would work directly under the Ministry of Health to drive the health program component of the National Task Force. C. Ebola is a health problem and not a military and security problem; as such, budgetary support to the health component of the National Taskforce should be prioritized and take precedence over the security component. In order words, the MOHSW and its auxiliary bodies should take the lead in the technical and operational program of the National Taskforce. This should be followed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and all of its local governance structures throughout the country including County, District, Chieftaincy, Clan, Municipal and community structures. The fight against the Ebola pandemic should take a foot-to-foot, neighborhood-to-neighborhood and community-to-community approach. This would require empowering the communities and their leaders to take the lead on a community basis to fight the pandemic. D. Design a National Ebola Training and orientation program for social and medical workers in the field. The implementation of such a training program for the anti-Ebola, social and health workers could be done on a regional and county basis so as to ensure proper coordination and standardization of the National Ebola Campaign. Besides, all county health Administrators, local governance authorities (Superintendent, Commissioners, Chiefs, Municipal authorities, etc.) should be invited by the National Task Force to a National Seminar where the new program strategy on the fight against Ebola will be properly discussed and consensus arrived at as an approach. E. We must do everything to work with existing structures of the MOHSW and the MIA of government throughout the country, rather than creating new structures in addition to the old ones we already have. Where some of the old structures are weak we should strengthen and improve them. We should also work with and empower existing community leaders throughout the country that have legitimate influences over their people instead of sending people from Monrovia to other counties that they are not familiar with. F. We should, as a matter of urgency, identify and recruit high school and college students who are on the Ebola break and deploy them where necessary as part of the task force initiative of taking the battle directly to Ebola through the youth national volunteers. Obviously, the people’s children deployed in the communities to fight Ebola should also be properly trained, protected, supervised and cared for. G. We call for the establishment of a National Ebola Central Command Post. For the purpose of proper information dissemination, data collection, program and logistics coordination to compliment and national task force. The Central Command Post to be jointly composed of both local and international experts. H. The fight against the Ebola pandemic in Liberia cannot be done without specifying a timeframe or timeline set as a targeted period for the eradication of Ebola in Liberia. We should therefore make a deliberate determination on a timeframe within which to eradicate the Ebola threat. (One, Two, Three, Four, Five or Six Months). I. The government must forthwith end all plans to militarize the process in the fight against Ebola; by that we need, deployment of the military to help in the fight against the Ebola should only involve the civil component of the AFL including the Engineering, Construction, and Agricultural sections to help with relief and other disasters work. J. Design and execute a robust foreign relations campaign through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Information and the Office of the President particularly against the global isolationist stance against Liberia and other countries of the Mano River Union on account of the Ebola threat. Such a campaign should seek to rally international support during the fight against Ebola and to reduce stigmatization. K. The National Legislature would also take a special break and form part of the National Campaign in the fight against Ebola on a nationwide basis as direct Representative of the people. L. Prioritize all National allocations, disbursements and expenditures of national resources toward the fight against Ebola for the specific timeframe identified within which to fight the Ebola virus in Liberia. M. Put in place mechanisms to mobilize support from the public including the corporate sectors, local and foreign, to drive and sustain the national Ebola Campaign. N. Take punitive action where and when necessary against any unscrupulous who would venture in the misused and diversion of resources allocated to the Ebola campaign for personal benefit. Signed: _______________________________________ Ciapha S. Gbollie Vice National Chairman for Administration / NDC Issue by the Authority of the National Executive Committee National Democratic Coalition (NDC)
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 15:32:35 +0000