Gongloe Urges People-First Budget -Ugrges Boakai, lawmakers: ‘ring-fence savings’

MONROVIA – Cllr. Tiawan Saye Gongloe has reached for the harshest word in the fiscal vocabulary. A budget that rewards a few officials over the many, he argues, is legalized theft. The charge lands as the 2027 budget takes shape. His most provocative claim is a comparison. Liberia’s Speaker and President Pro Tempore, he says, out-earn their United States counterparts. He demands that the figures be published to settle it. His prescriptions are concrete: cut travel, end vehicle purchases, abolish graduation fees. Yet his sharpest warning is historical. He traces Liberia’s coups and wars to bad governance, not tribe or religion. THE ANALYST reports.

Liberian human rights lawyer Cllr. Tiawan Saye Gongloe has called on President Joseph Nyuma Boakai, Sr. and lawmakers to make the 2027 national budget put citizens’ basic needs ahead of excessive official compensation and costly government operations.

Gongloe declared that putting more money in the budget for a few top government officials and less money for a majority of the people “is legalized theft.”

In an advisory titled “For the 2027 Budget: Put the People First,” Gongloe urged a reduction of inflated salaries, allowances and benefits at the top while protecting modestly paid employees.

He also called for senior officials’ total compensation to be published and benchmarked against comparable offices in Rwanda, Botswana, Cape Verde, Ghana, Seychelles and Burkina Faso, accounting for national income and living standards.

Top Pay Versus Unpaid Teachers

Gongloe argued that Liberia cannot justify paying its Speaker and President Pro Tempore more than their United States counterparts while teachers are not paid on time, schools lack chairs and hospitals lack medicines.

“Publish the figures for honest comparison,” he demanded.

He further called for reduced foreign travel budgets and delegations, and an end to the purchase of vehicles for lawmakers at taxpayers’ expense.

If government facilitates vehicle purchases for lawmakers’ personal ownership, Gongloe stated, it should require full repayment through transparent salary deductions, without public subsidy.

The human rights lawyer also urged President Boakai to move into the Executive Mansion to reduce the expense and disruption associated with daily presidential movements.

He wants the savings ring-fenced for education, healthcare, food security and infrastructure, with quarterly reports published to show expenditure and results.

Graduation Fees, Uniforms Targeted

On education, Gongloe called for graduation fees to be eliminated completely. He also urged that schools be prohibited from compelling parents to buy uniforms from them or from designated vendors, insisting that parents must remain free to obtain compliant uniforms at affordable prices.

Bad Governance Breeds Crisis

Gongloe warned that unless the budget’s allocation formula changes in favor of the people, unmet needs risk provoking more protests by students, teachers, health workers, law enforcement officers, other civil servants and essential government employees.

 He urged the government to cut the cost of running government and direct the savings toward meeting people’s needs.

“Liberia’s development must be measured by better lives for its people, not greater comfort for its officials,” Gongloe stated.

The legal luminary contended that Liberia did not experience coups d’état and civil conflicts because of tribe, religion or bad luck, but as a result of bad governance.

Gongloe described bad governance as “the kind of government that makes a few people in government happy and civil servants as well as the masses of the people unhappy.”

He appealed to the President and lawmakers to listen to the cries of the people to avert another national crisis, and to let the 2027 budget be the starting point of a better Liberia.

“Government is a place to serve, not to steal. A better Liberia is possible!” he declared.