Liberian Senate Hastily Passes Recast Budget During Night Hours, Withholding Shifting and Realignments Which Were Illegally Carried Out By the Executive Previously

24 September 2024
FrontPageAfrica (Monrovia)
By Obediah Johnson

Monrovia — In a hasty and shocking manner and form, majority members of the Liberian Senate Monday evening passed the recast National budget for Fiscal Year 2024, ignoring multiple issues raised by few of their colleagues and failing to take punitive actions against the decision taken by the Executive, through the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning to unilaterally carry out shifting and realignment of the budget during its first passage.

The decision to pass the budget was taken during the night hours of Monday, September 23 after the Senators endorsed a report from a Conference Committee setup to scrutinize the budget, following disagreement with the one passed by members of the House of Representatives.

The budget was passed at US$738.8, accepting majority of the shifting and realignments that were proposed by the executive.

The unilateral decision taken by the Executive to carry out shifting and realignment within the budget prompted a conduct of separate probes at both the House of Representatives and the Liberian Senate.

However, no harsh punitive measure was taken against anyone though an admittance and subsequent apology were made by the Deputy Finance and Development Planning Minister for Fiscal Affairs Anthony Myers.

Justifying the significance of the passage of the budget, Senator Prince Moye of Bong County disclosed that the decision reached by senators came after the holding of a seven-hour meeting by the Conference Committee, comprised of members from both Houses of the Legislature, to pass the budget.

He claimed that a report from the Conference Committee cannot be debated, a move which prompted concerns being raised by some of his colleagues to be downplayed.

"We considered the recast budget passed. As per our law and rules when a conference committee is setup and that committee comes with a report which is non-debatable because you debate it and issues coming up, we can't go back to another conference committee. That's why the Presiding entertained a motion for endorsement."

Senator Moye pointed out that an assessment was carried out with some of the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) thereby borrowing monies from them to meet other priorities.

During this process, he added that US$17.3 was brought in the recast budget, with US$9.5 coming from borrowing.

"All of the projects we earmarked at the initial stage of the 2024 budget, to a very large extent, those projects will be executed as planned."

He stressed that the Ministries of Health and Education were restored to its normal allocations which was proposed in the budget.

Ignoring issues

In his analysis of the recast budget prior to its passage, Senator Amara Konneh of Gbarpolu County observed that spending entities rush to use up all their appropriations in the last quarter of the budget year.

He added that there was also unreconciled revenue between the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) and the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA).

Senator Konneh observed that risks to the budget include: Revenue: GST and CIT II, State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and late disbursements and too much cash in the bank.

"We need to understand how much of the US$60M of unspent revenues collected is encumbered; Impact on development activities and the economy; Off-budget and off-the-books expenditures."

Despite these concerns, the Senate failed to clearly disclose or provide the rationale behind the passage of the recast budget during late hours with unresolved issues still lingering.

Presiding officer James Biney justified that there has been no precedent of a conference committee report being debated by lawmakers following its submission.

A motion for the endorsement of the conference committee report to pass the budget was filed by Senator Gbleh-bo Brown of Maryland County.

Following the motion, the yea and nay vote was entertained by the Presiding Officer, something which led to the passage of the budget.

Though the Senate has ruled out this style of voting on sensitive and key issues, it (yea and nay) vote count was entertained during the nighttime session, prompting few Senators to walk out in protest.

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