The Economist UK - 10.08.2019

40 Middle East & Africa The EconomistAugust 10th 2019

1

U

nder thecorrugated-iron roof of the

Bong Intellectual Centre, a tea house in

Gbarnga in northern Liberia, the air is thick

with anger. Dozens of people sit on plastic

chairs, discussing politics. They complain

that their businesses are failing, corrup-

tion is rising and food prices have doubled

in recent months. “The hungry man is an

angry man,” says Augustin Jalla, a 55-year-

old social worker. “If something does not

change there’s going to be an uprising.”

That is alarming talk, in a country that

suffered an on-and-off, 14-year-long civil

war that killed about 250,000 people—al-

most a tenth of the population at the time—

and destroyed the economy. Liberia’s con-

flict also devastated the region. The coun-

try’s former president, Charles Taylor,

started or fuelled wars in three neighbour-

ing countries: Sierra Leone, Guinea and

Ivory Coast.

After the fighting stopped in 2003, the

world poured in aid to support Liberia’s

transition to democracy and to prop up the

administration of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a

wily World Bank veteran who was elected

president in 2005. By 2010 the west African

nation was receiving $360 in aid per per-

son. Helping to keep the peace was a un

mission that cost more than $500m a year.

Since then, however, the world has lost

interest. By 2017 aid had slumped to just

$132 per person. In 2018 the un’s peace-

keepers packed away their blue helmets

and went home. Left in their wake are a fail-

ing economy and a weak state that has been

hollowed out by corruption and is still riv-

en by enmities.

Start with the economy. Between 2010

and 2014 growth was galloping along at

6-8% a year and was forecast to go into dou-

ble digits. Then the country was hit by two

enormous shocks. The first was an out-

break of Ebola in 2014 that killed almost

11,000 people in Liberia, scared off inves-

tors and aid workers and caused a reces-

sion. The second was the withdrawal of

peacekeepers, whose average annual bud-

get was equal to almost a quarter of Libe-

ria’s gdpbetween 2007 and 2018. The imf

expects growth of 0.4% this year.

Widespread corruption makes every-

thing worse. Last year a poll by Afrobaro-

meter found that half of Liberians had to

pay backhanders for public services.

In 2017 Liberians elected a former foot-

ball star, George Weah, as president. Mr

Weah promised to help the poor and give

corruption the boot. He is doing neither.

Scandals have blighted his first 18 months

in office and soaring inflation, which

peaked at 29% in December, is hurting the

poor in a country where more than half the

population lives on less than $2 a day.

The president’s conduct has not helped.

He has built about 50 houses in a com-

pound in the capital. He says he used mon-

ey he had earned during his days of football

stardom. But citizens cannot be sure of

this, since he has refused to publicly de-

clare his assets. “It raises eyebrows,” says

Anderson Miamen of Transparency Inter-

national, a corruption watchdog.

Governing a country as poor and frac-

tious as Liberia is an unenviable task. But

Mr Weah is simply not up to the job. He is

said to forget key facts, bungle media inter-

views and drift off in meetings.

In Gbarnga, Mr Taylor’s base during Li-

beria’s first civil war between 1989 and 1997,

social workers say crime and hard-drug use

are rising. David Brown, a 25-year-old

salesman who voted for Mr Weah, says this

is because people have lost hope. Keba Col-

lins started her business selling handbags

on the streets. Two years ago she was mak-

ing the equivalent of $75,000 a year. Now

her business is near to collapse—as are

those of several of her friends—because of

high inflation and the costs of corruption.

Frustration over graft and poor governance

led to people staging huge, peaceful prot-

ests in June (pictured).

St Peter’s Lutheran Church in Monrovia,

the capital, is filled with children and wor-

shippers. But its windows, pockmarked by

bulletholes, hint at a dark history: in 1990

government soldiers massacred 600 peo-

ple here. Isaac Dowah, the pastor, points at

two white stars marking the mass graves

and frets: “We’re at a breaking point.” 7

GBARNGA

Economic crisis and corruption

scandals could lead to violence

Liberia

On the edge

He was more popular on the pitch

T

o outsiders, beirut’staxi-hailing rit-

uals can seem baffling. A flurry of

honks announces the arrival of a driver,

who peers out of his window with eye-

brows raised. Hesitate a moment too

long—as the uninitiated often do—and

he’ll speed off, leaving the would-be pas-

senger breathing exhaust fumes and won-

dering what went wrong. But beneath this

brusque treatment lies a rich set of norms

and customs that have helped the shared

taxis, known as “service” taxis (or “ser-

vees”), survive the incursion of Uber into

Lebanon’s capital.

The service taxi system relies on split-

second individual negotiations, rather

than prices imposed by meters, regulations

or ride-sharing software. When a driver

spots a potential passenger, he slows down

until the passenger names a destination. If

the driver agrees, the ride costs a modest

2,000 Lebanese pounds ($1.33), usually less

than what Uber charges. He may also ask

for twice the fare or, for an out-of-the-way

trip, suggest that the passenger buys all the

seats for 10,000 pounds.

This system allows drivers and passen-

gers to reach agreements based on factors

such as traffic conditions and whether the

route is likely to provide more passengers.

“You have clear, true market economics,”

says Ziad Nakat of the World Bank. “It’s not

regulated or constrained—just supply and

demand, based on what you’re willing to

sell and what I’m willing to buy.” Both par-

ties appear happy with the system, al-

though it does make Beirut’s terrible traffic

even worse, as drivers slow down to haggle.

Many drivers shun Uber, fearing the

software will strand them on traffic-heavy

routes or penalise them for declining too

many rides. Others work with Uber, but act

as a service taxi when they think their local

knowledge will give them an edge over

Uber’s algorithm. (Uber cars and service

taxis have the same red licence-plates.)

Muhammad, an Uber driver, turns the app

off on Sundays, when certain high-demand

routes earn him nearly double. “It depends

on if it’s good for me,” he says.

The residents of Beirut came to rely on

service taxis after trams and railways were

destroyed during the 15-year civil war that

ended in 1990. Service taxis are lightly reg-

ulated, but because they rely mainly on col-

lective norms they endured even as the

country’s dysfunctional politics hindered

the reintroduction of public transport. In a

BEIRUT

How Beirut’s shared taxis cope with

competition from Uber

Ride-sharing in Lebanon

At your service