Claim: “The CDC government failed the MCC Compass five times within six years.”
Source: Daniel O. Sando, Deputy Minister MICAT
Verdict: Misleading
Full Text: On October 6, 2024, Daniel O. Sando, Deputy Minister for Public Affairs, Ministry of Information, Culture, and Tourism, appeared on the post-analysis segment of the Spoon FM and TV One-on-One nighttime show and claimed that the Coalition for Democratic Change CDC-led government failed the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compass five times within its six-year.
The post-analysis segment of the show is where the panel does an in-depth analysis of a guest who appears on the show.
During this segment, a claim was made at 4:15:12 of the live broadcast. As of the time of this check, the broadcast attracted 645 reactions, 4.2k comments, and 46k plays.
The MCC was created by the U.S. Congress in January 2004 with strong bipartisan support.
The MCC partners with the world’s poorest countries that are committed to just and democratic governance, economic freedom, and investing in their populations. Investing in well-governed countries is the most effective use of development dollars and incentivizes reform even before a country is selected to partner with MCC.
To select countries as eligible for Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) compact funding, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) assesses the degree to which the political, social, and economic conditions in a country promote broad-based sustainable economic growth.
In making its determinations, MCC’s Board of Directors (“the Board”) considers three factors: performance on the defined policy criteria, the opportunity to reduce poverty and generate economic growth in the country, and the funds available to MCC.
To assess the implementation of a prior compact, the Board considers the nature of the country’s partnership with MCC the degree to which the country has demonstrated a commitment and capacity to achieve program results, and the degree to which the country has implemented the compact by MCC’s core policies and standards.
To assess policy performance, MCC uses third-party indicators to identify countries with policy environments that will allow MCA funding to be effective in reducing poverty and promoting economic growth. MCC evaluates performance in three areas—Ruling Justly, investing in people, and encouraging economic freedom.
The selection process has four major steps:
Identification of Candidate Countries Publication of MCC’s Selection Criteria and Methodology Publication of MCC Scorecards Selection of Compact-Eligible and Threshold-Eligible Countries.
Verification: Our research found that from 2018 to 2022, Liberia did not pass the MCC Compass indicators until 2023. In 2018, Liberia narrowly passed 10 out of 20 MCC compass indicators. The CDC government passed two MCC compasses (2018 and 2023), respectively.
From 2018-2022, Liberia did not pass the MCC Compass indicators until 2023. The CDC government passed two MCC compasses. They passed in the MCC Compass in 2018 and 2023, respectively.
Conclusion: Based on our research, TSM has concluded that Sando’s claim that the CDC government failed the MCC compass five times in six years and passed only once is misleading. However, the CDC government failed the MCC compass four times, not five, as claimed by the minister.
Written by Watson Richards, Grant Fellow
