Today, I want to talk about something we often treat as a routine exercise, a national budget. To some, the national budget is merely a period in which governments divide spending, allocate aid, and wait for the next year to repeat the same things. To others, it is a battlefield where the debate is reduced to accusations of corruption on one hand and the celebration of bigger numbers on the other, as if the size of a budget automatically reflects national progress.
But I do not see the national budget that way.
A national budget, in its truest meaning, tells you who you are as a nation and who your leaders are as individuals. If you pay close attention, the budget reveals the character of the leadership. It exposes what drives them, what defines them, and what they genuinely care about. It tells you their vision, their aspirations, their priorities, and their ambition or the absence of it.
A national budget answers essential questions.
How does a leader see the people they govern?
How does that leader see themselves?
How do they measure progress?
How do they confront challenges?
How do they intend to manage their own vision?
What path do they choose for the country?
Because a national budget is not merely an economic instrument.
It is a mirror.
It mirrors the heart of the leader, what they feel for their country.
It mirrors their emotions, what they desire for the nation’s future.
It mirrors their strength, the depth and reach of their ambition.
It mirrors the fire in their belly, the energy they bring to national transformation.
It mirrors everything.
If a national budget does not set the pace for growth,
If it does not lay the foundation for developing human capital,
If it does not create space for Liberians to dream and to find that dream expressed in real numbers, real programs, and real commitments,
If the budget does not carry along every Liberian, their hopes, their struggles, and their aspirations for a better tomorrow,
Then that budget ceases to be an instrument of progress.
It becomes instead a reflection of what the leader truly thinks of the people.
A reflection of how they see you, how they see themselves, and how small or large their vision is for Liberia.
The national budget is more than a document.
It is a portrait of leadership.
And now, we are confronted with a sobering question.
Does the 2026 National Budget reflect a leadership that sees us, values us, and believes in our future?
Sadly and painfully, it does not.
Even more heartbreaking is that the very institution responsible for correcting this failure, the one meant to refine, reshape, and elevate the budget into a true national instrument, has already surrendered to its own appetites. It has consumed itself with what it can extract, what it can take, what it can secure for itself.
And as always, the people are the sacrifice.
The dreams of our children are the sacrifice.
The vision of a better Liberia is the sacrifice.
Until we break free from this path, every twelve months will come with a fresh wound, a fresh loss, a fresh disappointment. Every twelve months, another star will burn out in our collective quest for a better Liberia.
Have a blissful week.