President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s Cabinet has again produced the right language: accountability, transparency, electronic procurement, protection of public assets and genuine opportunities for Liberian businesses. These are worthy commitments. But Liberia’s problem has rarely been the absence of fine policies or forceful communiqués. The failure usually begins after officials leave the Cabinet room, return to their ministries and continue business as usual.
The administration must therefore treat Cabinet Communiqué No. 009/2026 as a binding assignment, not another document for the government’s public-relations shelf. Every directive should carry a responsible institution, implementation deadline and measurable result. The public must be told which ministry complied, which one delayed and what consequence followed. Without that discipline, Cabinet decisions become ceremonial declarations with no effect on people’s lives.
The Electronic Government Procurement System offers an opportunity to close some of the dark corners through which public contracts have historically passed. Yet Cabinet itself acknowledged delays in procurement evaluations and contract execution. Those delays must be explained. The Public Procurement and Concessions Commission should publish which ministries, agencies and commissions have subscribed to the system, which remain outside it and why. Electronic procurement cannot improve accountability if institutions continue conducting important transactions beyond public scrutiny.
Cabinet’s concern about business fronting deserves equally firm action. A company cannot qualify as Liberian-owned merely because a Liberian name appears on its registration papers while control, financing and profits remain elsewhere. Such arrangements steal opportunities intended for Liberian entrepreneurs and make economic empowerment a cruel deception. The government must verify actual ownership, management and beneficial control before awarding preferential contracts. Officials who knowingly approve fraudulent fronting arrangements should face administrative and legal consequences.
The proposed framework for insuring and protecting government assets must also move quickly from discussion to implementation. Public vehicles, buildings, equipment and other properties were acquired with taxpayers’ money. A complete Government Public Asset and Loss Register should identify each asset, its location, condition, responsible custodian, insurance status and value. The General Services Agency, Office of the Cabinet and Presidential Delivery Unit must publish an implementation timetable. An asset that nobody can trace is an invitation to waste, theft and abuse.
This demand for fairness must extend to the government’s Performance Management System. The PMS grading exercise will lose credibility if supervisors can reward loyalists, punish independent employees or manipulate scores to satisfy political, personal, tribal or social preferences. Every public employee must be graded against clear duties, documented targets and verifiable results. Friendship is not performance. Political loyalty is not productivity, and personal disagreement is not professional failure.
Employees should know the standards before the assessment begins, see the evidence supporting their grades and have access to a credible appeal process. Supervisors must also account for the scores they award. If one employee receives a high grade despite repeated failure while another is marked down after meeting documented targets, the system becomes another instrument of favoritism. That would destroy staff morale and undermine the accountability culture President Boakai claims to be building.
Performance evaluation should begin at the top. Ministers, directors-general, deputies and heads of public institutions must be measured against Cabinet decisions, budget performance, service-delivery targets and compliance with procurement requirements. Junior employees cannot carry the entire burden while politically appointed officials escape serious assessment. A government cannot demand discipline from clerks and technicians while treating senior officials as untouchable.
President Boakai has repeatedly promised accountability and tangible results. The public now needs evidence. Let the administration publish procurement compliance records, expose business fronting, complete the public asset register and guarantee a fair PMS assessment free from favoritism. Cabinet has spoken. The responsible institutions must now act, because another strong communiqué without enforcement will amount to nothing more than government talking earnestly to itself.