Monrovia — Liberia's push to decentralize public finance enters a decisive phase Thursday as the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) convenes a high-level validation session to finalize a national framework for managing county-level funds.
The session, organized through MFDP's Fiscal Decentralization Unit (FDU), will focus on the County Treasury Financial and Operational Manual--a core policy instrument intended to standardize how county treasuries are established and managed across the country. The meeting will be held at the ministry's headquarters in Monrovia and will bring together senior government officials, technical experts, and key public financial management stakeholders.
The validation follows a three-day technical working session in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, where institutional representatives reviewed and updated the draft manual to reflect evolving fiscal reforms.
The revised document incorporates major legislative and policy shifts, including provisions from the Local Government Act, amendments to the Public Financial Management Act, the Revenue Sharing Law and its 2025 regulations, and updated guidelines from the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission (PPCC). Together, these reforms underpin Liberia's decentralization agenda, with an emphasis on improving consistency, accountability, and transparency in county-level financial operations.
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Finance and Development Planning Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan said the updated manual is designed to eliminate disparities in financial practices across counties by introducing uniform procedures, regardless of institutional capacity or geographic constraints.
"This manual provides a standardized framework to guide county treasury operations nationwide," Ngafuan said ahead of the session, underscoring its role in strengthening fiscal discipline and oversight.
The framework also reflects structural changes in Liberia's decentralization architecture, particularly the rollout of County Service Centers and the operationalization of county treasuries--institutions that were either nascent or non-functional when the previous version of the manual was developed more than a decade ago.
Officials say the validation session will allow stakeholders to interrogate the near-final draft, integrate last-round inputs, and build consensus ahead of formal adoption and nationwide rollout.
The initiative forms part of a broader government strategy to modernize public financial management, improve service delivery, and deepen decentralization by shifting greater fiscal responsibility to subnational authorities.
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Once adopted, the manual is expected to serve as a central accountability tool, tightening controls on public spending, strengthening audit trails, and reinforcing transparency in the management of county resources.
