Liberia Businesses Struggling

Businesses in Liberia’s dual-currency economy are feeling the pinch as customers stay home and the exchange rate keeps climbing in the absence of a resolution to the country’s disputed presidential election, AFP reported. “Nobody wants to buy, people are keeping their money,” said Ruth Wollie, one of many female market traders who make up an important voting bloc for Liberian politicians. “For us to sell 1000 LD ($8) per day is very difficult,” she added at her stall in Monrovia. Liberia has enjoyed 12 years of peace under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, but hopes for an economic revival after back-to-back civil wars between 1989 and 2003 were dashed by slumping commodity prices hitting key exports of iron ore and rubber, and the impact of the 2014-16 Ebola crisis which left some 4,800 people dead. Now an electoral crisis has compounded the problem, with conditions becoming intolerable in a nation hugely reliant on informal trading for income. It began in late October, when Vice President Joseph Boakai and opposition leader Charles Brumskine finished second and third in the October 10 election, but alleged “massive fraud” afterwards.