A CONTRACT THAT WAS NEVER BORN, YET WALKS AMONG US

THERE IS SOMETHING deeply unsettling about a contract that has never been legally consummated operating in full force on Liberian soil, collecting public revenue, handling citizen biometrics, and displacing a local businessman — all while the government responsible for its execution refuses to answer questions before the nation’s legislature. That is not a technicality. That is a governance scandal. And when Grand Gedeh County Senator Thomas Yaya Nimely walked out of a Senate hearing this week, he was not merely staging political theater. He was sounding an alarm that this editorial believes deserves to ring far beyond the walls of the Capitol Building.

THE FACTS ARE not in serious dispute. The Government of Liberia entered into a contract with Liberia Traffic Management Inc. (LMTI), a foreign-owned entity, to manage driver’s licenses, license plates, and vehicle registrations — statutory functions that the Ministry of Transport has always been mandated to perform. Under this arrangement, LMTI retains 70 percent of all revenue collected. Liberia receives 30 percent. In plain terms: a foreign company is operating inside Liberia’s sovereign administrative space, collecting money that belongs to the Liberian state, and keeping the larger share. Even more alarming, Senator Nimely revealed before his colleagues that this contract has not been legally consummated. It was never fully finalized. Yet it is being implemented. The question that must follow is unavoidable: who authorized implementation of a contract that does not yet legally exist?

JUSTICE MINISTER OSWALD Tweh’s failure to appear before the Senate committee investigating this matter compounds the injury. The Legislature is a co-equal branch of government. When a cabinet minister declines to honor a summons from a Senate committee, it is not a scheduling inconvenience. It is a constitutional provocation. It signals that the executive branch believes it need not account for itself to the people’s representatives. Senator Nimely called it arrogance. This editorial calls it what it also is: a dangerous erosion of the separation of powers that Liberia’s democracy depends upon.

THE LIBERIANIZATION DIMENSION of this controversy cannot be overlooked. A Liberian businessman, John Youboty, previously held a contract to perform these same functions. By all available accounts, he was delivering quality services and offering the government a more favorable revenue split. He was displaced. A foreign entity took his place on worse financial terms for Liberia. If this administration campaigned on rescuing Liberia from mismanagement, then rescuing must mean something more than switching from one bad deal to a worse one. Liberianization is not merely a policy preference. It is an economic survival principle for a country still building its middle class.

THERE IS ALSO the matter of national security. The Senate Committee on National Defense, Security and Intelligence has raised concerns that LMTI’s collection of biometric data and statistics of Liberian citizens poses a threat to national security. These are not the concerns of one agitated senator. They are the formal position of a committee charged with protecting this republic. A private foreign company holding the biometric database of Liberia’s drivers and vehicle owners is a vulnerability that should alarm every security-conscious mind in this government. Why has it not?

SENATOR NIMELY REMINDED the Senate, and through it the Liberian people, that 2029 is not far away. He did not threaten. He stated a fact. Governments are judged by what they do, not what they inherit. The current administration has been in office for more than two years. That is sufficient time to have reviewed this contract, corrected its deficiencies, restored the Liberianization principle, and protected state revenue. The Senate Joint Committee has spent six months making formal recommendations to the Inter-Ministerial Committee. Nothing has been done. That is not a performance gap. It is a choice.

THIS EDITORIAL CALLS on the Government of Liberia to immediately suspend the implementation of the LMTI contract pending full legal review and consummation. It calls on Justice Minister Tweh to honor his constitutional obligation to appear before the Legislature. It calls on the Inter-Ministerial Committee to respond formally and publicly to the Senate’s recommendations within 30 days. Liberia’s revenue, sovereignty, and democratic norms are not abstractions. They are the foundation upon which this government was elected to build. The Liberian people are watching. And as Senator Nimely correctly noted, they know how to respond when those they trust refuse to listen.