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the rural areas (81). However, the Plan did not provide any
concrete Program.
The dependency on foreign funds was re-affirmed as it was
recognized that foreign capital and technical know-how were
considered essential factors in the transformation of the
nation's development potential into concrete resources available
for the implementation of socio-economic development programmes.
Accordingly, the Tolbert Administration re-affirmed the country's
Open Door Policy as a crucial element of its development
strategy. Nevertheless, the importance of increased participation
of Liberians and of Liberian capital in the economy was stressed
with the ultimate goal of national self-reliance (82).
The sectoral distribution of the planned expenditures under the
Four Year Development Plan and the insufficiency of domestic
revenues to finance the major part of the Plan are presented in
Table 43• Sixty per cent of the envisaged development
expenditures would have to come from foreign sources. The
improvement of the country's physical infrastructure proved to
be the Government's number one priority with over 40 per cent of
all resources allocated to Transportation and Communication with
Road Transport alone accounting for one third of all planned
expenditures. The geographical distribution of the allocations
under the Plan is presented in Table 44- A unique feature is
that over 50 per cent of all funds, or $ 216.6 million, was to
be spent in the rural areas of the country. The construction of
roads, bridges, etc. accounted for half of this amount, or
$ 107.0 million.
However, the 1976 - 1980 Development Plan can hardly qualify as
a serious Plan both in respect of its drafting and in view of
the implementation. Though the inaccuracies in the text and
tables of the Plan can be considered as characteristic of the
country's problems, the lack of a comprehensive rural
development strategy - suddenly elevated to the leitmotiv of
the nation's socio-economic development - creates an important
flaw in the Plan. The Planners apparently have not done more
than compile all ongoing projects and projects In an advanced
stage of preparation, and added a number of new projects which
seem to have been created in a rather haphazard way. The lack of
coordination between the various Government agencies involved in
the financing and implementation of the projects and the
priority of politically motivated expenditures over socioeconomic
development needs jeopardized the entire Plan. Within
one year of the start of the Four Year Development Plan an
attempt was made to control the increasing financial chaos by
defining three categories of expenditures: 1. expenditures made
on projects which were mentioned both in the Development Plan
and in the Budget; 2. expenditures made on projects not
mentioned in the Plan but mentioned in the Budget, and 3expenditures
on projects which were neither mentioned in the
Plan nor in the Budget.