The former Chairman of the National Investment Commission, Dr. Richard Tolbert has disclosed that Liberia as a country spends over US$200 million on the nation’s stable food, rice importation annually. Dr. Tolbert said such expenditure is a total waste and huge financial blow to an already struggling country.

Speaking to the New Dawn Sunday in Monrovia following the commemoration of the 100th birth anniversary of his slain uncle, former President William Richard Tolbert, Jr. in Bentol City, outside Monrovia, Dr. Tolbert said, the late president’s rice policy was best for the country.

Dr. Tolbert, a doctorate holder of law, emphasized that the country’s rice policy designed by the former president was unique for the Liberian people, especially for its production by Liberians themselves. According to him, because such new policy was not well executed by those expected to do so, politicians used such opportunity to incite the people against the government.

In early April 1979, the Minister of Agriculture (now the same minister), Florence Chenoweth, proposed an increase in the subsidized price of rice from $22 per 100-pound bag to $26.00.

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