Monrovia — The former President of the Liberia Council of Churches (LCC) Bishop Kortu Brown has called on the Unity Party (UP) led-government of President Joseph Nyuma Boakai to ensure that the proposed US$1.2billion budget positively affects the lives of ordinary Liberians, instead of a selective few public officials.
It can be recalled that the Executive, through the Minister of Finance and Development Planning Augustine Ngafuan, submitted the draft budget for Fiscal Year 2026 to the Speaker of the House of Representatives Richard Koon over the weekend.
But speaking in an interview with Reporters at his Church premises on Sunday, November 9, Bishop Brown observed that for too long, Liberia's national budgets have not been adequately utilized to benefit ordinary Liberians.
He said the generation of US$1.2billion by the government, through the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) is about 70% possible, but identifying revenue sources and retaining such budget remains a challenge.
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"Since post-war, every Liberian government has been inspired to take the country's budget to a billion dollar. The proposed US$1.2billion budget is a good step towards overcoming the 60% odds (challenges). It is commendable but I hope it is able to address the bread and butter issues. What Liberians want right now-the first thing is to deal with the economic issues," he noted.
Caveat against recurrent costs
He warned against huge expenditure on recurrent costs in the draft national budget.
He maintained that the government should "overhaul" the national budget to ensure that it is "people-centered" to benefit ordinary Liberians.
"You brought a chair and car last year and want to buy a chair and car this year-That's a recurrent cost. Cut down your personal benefits and put money into more programs, social services, education, healthcare, the economy so that it can benefit more people. The projections in the budget should benefit ordinary Liberians," Bishop Brown added.
He said unreasonable personal expenses, including allowances of public officials should be cut to ensure that the vast majority of Liberians are the beneficiaries of the historic US$1.2billion budget proposed.
He emphasized that for several decades, Liberians continue to wonder why they are fighting against unceasing socio-economic challenges in the midst of increment in their national budgets.
Bishop Brown said as a result of this, "avoidable expenses" should not be captured in the draft budget.
Under the Open Budget Initiative, Bishop Brown called on authorities of the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning to launch a nationwide program to properly explain budgetary allocations or projections to citizens across the country.
He observed that Liberians have been finding it difficult to clearly understand projections made in the national budget, and how monies have been generated, disbursed and expended by those implementing the budget.
He maintained that members of the National Legislature remain obligated to ensure that monies allocated to government ministries, agencies and others are used properly by executing their oversight responsibility.
Bishop Brown further called on lawmakers to ensure that public officials strictly adhere to the Budget Law of 2024, which amongst other things, calls for 25% of public goods and services to be procured from Liberian-owned businesses.
He stressed that the failure of government to implement the law serves as a contributing factor to the decline in the country's economy.
He said the law must be implemented to help improve the country's economy and provide jobs to Liberians.
On foreign trips, he called for cut down on foreign trips by the President and other public officials.
He observed that many of these trips have not benefited the country and its citizens.
"Liberia is an economically-struggling country.
If you do huge allocations on foreign trips; you do frequent travels, you have to bring frequent benefits. All the monies you spent could help lot of Liberians. We call on our national leaders to recommit themselves to the cause of ensuring that this country can rise up,"
Bishop Brown stressed the need for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to list down benefits Liberia and its citizens have or would accrue from the frequent foreign trips of public officials.
Match words with actions
He further observed that government has not match pronouncement of development plans and strategies with actions.
He said though efforts are being applied by government to address challenges facing the nation and the citizenry, the gap still remains huge.
Bishop Brown indicated that these challenges are about 60%, while the efforts being applied to address them stand at 40%, meaning that, "the government still has some work to do."
"The government is struggling to get it right, but it's still challenging. It (government) is trying to fine-tune its strategies or its national plan of actions. You know words are cheap and those words need to be changed to actions. Politically, economically, socially and even spiritually we are challenged," he noted.
Selective governance
Bishop Brown claimed that the Liberian populace comprise of three categories of citizens.
He named them as supporters of the Unity Party (UP), Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) and independent citizens and others from the remaining political parties in the country.
According to him, government's efforts to address challenges are mostly benefiting supporters from the ruling party, while concerns being raised by Liberians in the opposition and other independent citizens are not taken into consideration.
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Bishop Brown stressed that government would continue to make mistakes if it fails to take advantage of the influence of the religious community in Liberia by lowering the bars in engaging all stakeholders.
"The President has been making a mistake since his inception into power by not actively and constructively engaging the rest of the stakeholders. To me it's an error or weakness. It's not late (to do so); it's still within his reach to rise up. It's time to govern and to govern, you need the people," he stated.
Address others' concerns
He added that government's actions to address challenges should not be driven by opinions from only its supporters, but from the broad based concerns being raised by citizens from other political parties.
"Government needs to open up because if you only listen to UP supporters you will be closing up on about 60 to 70% of the country to you. I think it is a mistake because, you have only one set of UP supporters. The President needs to move to the center among the three groups of supporters," he stated.
Bishop Brown said though the latest international recognition of Liberia is welcoming, the country should responsibly managed this recognition to reap the needed benefits for Liberians.
He stressed that more efforts must be applied by government to ensure that foreigners are the ones seeing and narrating the gains being made in Liberia thus far than Liberians.
