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Secondly, the relatively slight importance of trucks and other
transportation vehicles reflects the relatively limited utilisation
of roads for transportation of goods/products from any but
the country's enclave/concession sector.
This brief section on Liberia's Road Transport would not be
complete without mentioning and commenting on four interesting
characteristics of this sector of the Liberian economy.
First, the road transport sector is exclusively reserved for
Liberians .. Despite President Tubman's attachment to his "Open
Door Policy", in 1957 and 1958 he had foreigners barred by law
from participation in the development of this sector. Liberia
would not be true to its reputation if this legal structure had
not been evaded. E.g. although all taxi cabs are (necessarily)
Liberian-owned, the number of Liberian taxi cab drivers is
surprisingly low, and nearly insignificant. Most taxi cab drivers
are Guinean nationals who for economic and/or political reasons
had left their country and were subsequently hired by Liberian
owners of taxis (mostly "big shots"). Furthermore, large-scale
abuse of the Common Carrier Law (which limited these
transportation services to Liberian nationals) was officially
reported. In 1972 the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and
Transportation reported that the evasion of this law adopted
many guises: aliens, for example, used Liberians as dummies and
would thus secure their registration. An official estimate of the
extent to which the common carrier business was controlled by
aliens put the figure between 75 and 85 per cent (including the
transport of bulk petroleum products) (24),
Secondly, although on May 9. 1972 Compulsory Liability Insurance
(Compulsory Third Party Motor Insurance) contained in the
"Vehicle and Traffic Law" was enacted by the National Legislature
and approved by President Tolbert (following international
pressure) (25), this law was never implemented. Consequently,
most of the private and commercial vehicles that ply the streets
of Monrovia and other towns, and use the nation's road network,
are not insured. Obviously, the Government of President Tolbert
cannot afford to enforce the compliance with this law, as the
majority of those who can afford a car are the members of the
country's ruling class. The same applies to vehicle registration,
the purchase of duty-free gasoline, the payment of import duties
on new cars, driver licensing and, even, traffic regulation
enforcement. In Liberia there is a wide gap between the legal
theory and everyday practice. In 1970 the Secretary of Commerce
& Industry, Magnus A. Jones, reported that out of the total
5,067 vehicles engaged in commercial transportation only 46 had
registered with the Department (26). In the mid-1970 1 s nearly
50 per cent of the imported gasoline, gas oil and fuel oil were
exempted from import duties because of the many exemptions
granted to foreign concessionaires (27). In reality, in many
cases in which duty free privileges were claimed by the
consumer(s) no legal document existed to justify this claim.
Nevertheless, more than 90 per cent of these products which were
imported into Liberia entered the country duty free (see Annex
22). Generally speaking, the fraudulent importers and consumers