Background
He was born on September 27, 1918, in Grand Cape Mount County.
He was born on September 27, 1918, in Grand Cape Mount County.
He educated at Monrovia College and the Lott Carey Mission.
He began work as a messenger boy in the Post Office at the age of 12 and gradually worked his way up to become a mining agent to the Treasury. It was not until he was 26 that he was finally able to go to the United States to complete his education at Howard University, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he got a BSc and an MA in Public Finance. There he wrote his thesis on “The Effects of Foreign Loans and Concessions in Liberia’’ and worked for a time on the New York Stock Exchange. He returned to Liberia in 1948 to become a Professor of Economics at the University of Liberia and economic adviser to the President.
In 1953 he took a full-time government job and in 1956 was appointed Secretary (equivalent to Minister) of the Treasury, where he was a highly successful Minister of Finance, rapidly increasing the national revenue with taxes on the iron ore mining industry. In 1958 he resigned the Ministry on medical grounds and concentrated on his business activities as president of the West African Investment and Finance Corporation, with an agricultural subsidiary trying to diversify into oil palm plantations in Grand Cape Mount County. At one stage he was thought to be a strong candidate to succeed President Tubman. He continues to serve the government on numerous commissions, delegations and boards.
He wrote his thesis on “The Effects of Foreign Loans and Concessions in Liberia’’
