–But Expresses Grave Concerns Over the Credibility of 2025 National Budget, Amidst “Hasty Passage”
IPNEWS: Distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the press. Thank you for partnering with us throughout 2024. Also, we applaud our donors, other development partners, stakeholders in government, citizens, and other actors who supported our work throughout 2024, directly or indirectly. Warm season greetings to all and best wishes for 2025 and the years ahead.
- Liberia’s Eligibility for MCC Grant, a Welcoming Development:
During its quarterly meeting on December 18, the Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) announced Liberia’s eligibility and selection for a new Compact, following the end of the previous compact in 2021. Accordingly, Liberia was selected in recognition of the progress the country has made to strengthen its performance on the MCC scorecard and the country’s commitment to pursuing critical economic and democratic governance reforms.
CENTAL applauds the Liberian government for achieving this milestone, which presents the country with an opportunity to leverage resources to fund infrastructure and other critical sectors that will spur inclusive and sustainable economic growth and development, if properly and inclusively managed. We thank the US Government, through MCC, for this initiative and partnership and call for timely information sharing as well as meaningful civil society and citizens’ participation at all levels of Liberia’s Compact development, implementation, and monitoring processes. We urge that successes, challenges, and lessons learned from the country’s past Compact inform decision-making around the new partnership, to ensure greater transparency, accountability, and inclusion of citizens and CSOs’ voices.
2025 National Budget Preparation and Approval Process Violate Critical Liberian Laws and Best Practices:
Ladies and gentlemen of the press, as you may be aware, over the last two months, the House of Representatives has been embroiled with leadership struggle, which has significantly hamstrung the conduct of legislative activities, including the timely submission of the fiscal year 2025 National Budget by the President of the Republic of Liberia, through the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. For more than two months, we have seen nothing else from the people’s representatives, but a clamor for power and control over the country’s resources as well as claims and counterclaims of corruption. During this period, perhaps worse than before, the lawmakers’ personal interests have superseded public interest.
In the midst of it all, on November 18, 2024, President Joseph N. Boakai submitted a draft 2025 national budget in the tone of US$851 million to the Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives. In an unprecedented manner, review and discussion on the draft 2025 national budget and its passage happened in the period of ten days. We note here, however, that deliberations on the national budget were not presided over by the constitutionally-elected and sitting Speaker of the House of Representatives, but by a faction of Representatives with no authority to do so. Assuming that the said faction acted with lawful authority, we clearly see the lack of scrutiny as the budget was passed with lightning speed, with seemingly no objections to proposals from the Executive. It is our opinion, that only an illegitimate faction of the House seeking favors and recognition from the Executive would proceed in such a manner that admits of no oversight.
We recall that initial deliberations into the budget began on Monday, December 9, 2024, three weeks after it was submitted. The Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA), Liberia Maritime Authority (LMA), National Port Authority (NPA), and the Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) were invited for discussions on the revenue component. About five days after on Friday, December 13, 2024, the revenue component of the budget debate was exhausted, according to a dispatch from the Press Bureau of the House of Representatives. Meanwhile, On Friday, December 20, 2024, about five working days after, the expenditure component of the budget was also declared exhausted and the budget, in the tone of US$880,662,000 was declared passed. On the same day, the Liberian Senate unanimously approved the budget, concurring with the House of Representatives’ earlier endorsement.
Ladies and gentlemen of the press, CENTAL is deeply troubled by several missteps associated with the 2025 national budget submission and review process, which undermine its transparency and credibility and may have further implications for allocations to critical sectors, institutions and programs. Notably, the executive branch submitted the draft national budget to the legislature on November 18, 2024. This violates section 17.1 of the amended 2019 public financial management act, which requires submission of the draft budget no later than two months before the start of the fiscal year, January 1, 2025 in this instant case. In short, the submission process did not meet the two-month timeline provided for by the public financial management law of Liberia, thus allowing little time for review, deliberations, and passage/approval by the Legislature. Additionally, the 2025 National Budget did not undergo the required review and scrutiny, thus undermining its credibility and compliance with acceptable best practices and standards. That the legislature begun public hearings on the draft budget on December 9, 2024 and approved it on December 20, 2024 means it did not thoroughly review and discuss the instrument. This contrasts with the Public Financial Management Laws that requires at least two months of intense review and discussions around the budget, whereby spending entities appear to present their plans and priorities as well as make convincing cases for increased funding. Besides, there is no publicly available information that the legislature thoroughly reviewed performance reports of the various spending entities, before approving their allocations in the current budget. This a major check and balance, transparency and accountability gap, which undermine the oversight function of the legislature and leaves the use of public resources to the whims and caprices of public officials.
In conclusion, we call on the legislature to lead by example, as the direct representatives of the people. This example should first be set by adherence to the rule of law, including through respect for laid down procedures on deliberating on bills or removal of a sitting Speaker. There can be no short-cut about this, as any will surely haunt the country in the not-too-distant future. The actions of a certain group of lawmakers to assume the authority to pass the budget is a dangerous precedent as, going forward, any group of 38 lawmakers can gather together to make laws outside of established channels in so far they have the backing of the Executive. We, therefore, call on President Joseph N. Boakai to distance himself from this illegal act by refusing to recognize same as a product of proper legislative enactment. We believe that this would not only allay concerns that the Presidency has been actively involved in undermining the sitting Speaker, but that it would also serve to safeguard the integrity of our budget process.
