MONROVIA – It was an appetizing sensation for students of diplomacy and public policy pundits when Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow-Nyanti and his able deputies engaged the House of Elders, specifically Senate Committees on the Foreign Affairs, and Defense, Security and Intelligence, for nearly three hours. The Beysolow-led team was undoubtedly at its best, touching on nearly every subject of diplomacy, and what has been done in the last year to cleanse Liberia’s long-troubled image, and build sustainable, win-win strategic economic and diplomatic alliances. The Analyst reports.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the leadership of Sara Beysolow Nyanti on March 17 showed its true juice – capacity – vision and achievements of the last 14 months at a fascinating legislative hearing, as both the “witnesses” and the lawmakers shared notes on how to cope with Trump-era’s challenges and generally the country’s stymied diplomatic regime.
The head of team introduced the rest of officials that included Deputy for Administration, Gabriel Sele; Director General for the Department of Passports and Diplomatic Intelligence; Director General for Foreign Service Institute, Reginald Goodridge; Assistant Minister for Legal, Rosetta Jarkollie; Deputy Minister for International Cooperation and Economic Integration, Ibrahim Nyei; Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs representing Deputy Minister Deweh Grey was Assistant Minister for Public Affairs.
Senator Darius Dillon, Foreign Committee Chairman
Senator Dillon who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee welcomed the Foreign Affairs Ministry team to this joint hearing of the Liberian Senate. He told the team that the hearing was to cover a lot of issues relative to Liberia foreign relations, deployment of foreign service officials, and the challenges.
“This hearing also seeks to engage with the Ministry on Liberian students out of this country, particularly from Morocco and other areas,” he further said.
“This hearing also seeks to engage with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as mandated by the Plenary of the Senate under the communication from Senator Edwin Snowe of Bomi County.
Dillon said there is an opportunity to engage ECOWAS as a country, to seek the possibility of hosting an ECOWAS institution in Liberia which will be a good thing for this country and could help with local employment of our citizens here.
“This hearing will seek for us to discuss and get some answers on the latest United States Government position to suggest to Liberia visa restrictions within the next 60 days if some measures are not put in place,” said the Senator Dillon.
“This hearing will also seek to get answers from the Minister and her team on the issue of the sale of diplomatic passports. That issue was inherited, what’s the status, and way forward? We will also seek a full understanding of the Japanese Grant to Liberia. This hearing is being carried out live by the media for the sake of public interest.”
Senators at the hearing also include Thomas Yaya Nimely, Chair on Foreign Affairs and member of the Defense, Security and Intelligence Committee; Nyaquoi, Senator Bong County, member of the Defense Committee; Amara M. Konneh, Senator Gbarpolu County, member of the Foreign and Defense Committee; Senator Simeon Taylor, Grand Cape Mount County, Chairman of the Mines and Energy Committee; Senator Albert T. Chie; Senator Batekwa; Senator Emmaneul James Nuquay of Margibi; Geevon Smith; Snowe, Foreign Relations Committee, among others.
Senator Beysolow-Nyanti’s Opening Remarks
The Foreign Minister began initial comments by saying that her team was constituted based on the information gathered in relation to the questions that the Senate would like to address, as it relates to the senate’s oversight function.
She said the situation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was one that they would classify as significant work in progress as it relates to Liberia’s foreign relations.
He said: “The analysis that we took when we took over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is that we would like to place some emphasis on passports. We needed to strengthen our relationship with the rest of the world to reposition and rebrand Liberia.
“We felt it very important to take on leadership for the Mano River Union and the relationships around that, noting the importance of not only economic development but also security as well. We also prioritized the quest for the seat to the UN Security Council, helped prioritize bilateral engagements, an issue that would strengthen economic diplomacy so that we will help the NIC and others that are responsible to attract foreign direct investment. Among others, those have been the priorities of the Ministry.”
She told Senator Dillon: “The issues that you raised today in your opening, Senator, we are of the view, if you agree that we go through them one by one as opposed to trying to address them holistically, if it suits the Senate, we can approach it from that perspective”.
Here is an abridged transcript of the hearing:
Senator Dillon:
You might want to give us an overview of each of those issues, then we can go back to the interactive part.
Minister Nyanti:
In relation to our foreign service, the need for us to strengthen our foreign service hasn’t been overstated. It has been an issue of priority. We have been approached by the US Government directly on several occasions to say that our capacity in the US is very weak; that there was a need for overhauling the entire foreign service in the US. We used that as an entry point across the foreign service to look at all of the needs. We have been working to ensure that we can have rotation within the foreign service to be able to meet the needs for the country’s representation and also provide the human face so that people cannot be in a country for over 10 to 20 years. We’ve had that outlook and with that, we looked at strategically appointing ambassadors that will be relevant to different contexts and also looking at the priorities in those places. We have been able to do that; we have been able to appoint ambassadors to strategic locations and we’ve been able to start to deploy. The constraints that we faced in relation to that had to do with resources. In trying to strengthen the foreign service, it requires significant resources to move people around, to have people sent out to the foreign service, to have people come back home. As you can recall, we have had significant pushes for us to strengthen the foreign service, but with the budget that we inherited, and the budget lines that we have, it is very difficult to do so. However, we have done thorough planning for the foreign service movement; we have had a list of people poised to be sent out to foreign service, people to be moved around. We are actively involved in dialogue with many of them. Some of them have been issued letters already, some have not. It’s an ongoing process, but it will take time. We cannot deploy at once because we do not have the resources to do so.
In some of the embassies, we have people but were not on the particular function that existed. We have had some anomalies; we are addressing those. But I can also share with you some of the challenges that they face that we have not had the resources to address. One of it was just the living environment, the tools they needed to work, the conditions of the embassies needed painting, refurbishment, furniture, vehicles. It will require significant resources for us to be able to really meet the needs of the foreign service personnel.
It is also important to note that, while we are looking at strengthening the foreign service, we are also looking at new areas to have representation for economic reasons. We need to look at services in Rwanda. We have over 3,000 students in Rwanda. Canada is a priority. Australia, Turkey and India, we are actively into that. Now, you would say you don’t have money for what you have already, but you are looking to open new embassies or consulates. But this is because of various demands and economic reasons as well. This is something we hope to engage you all in the Senate, if you can help us in this regard because we need to strengthen our presence.
We did have an exercise where we’ve been running Foreign Service Institute classes. We’d like to beef up capacity not necessarily about the person but updating them with great skill sets. We are looking to strengthen the FSI to enhance the capacity of the foreign service personnel.
On the issue of the students of Morocco, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is engaged with the Ministry of Education on the scholarships in Morocco and the stipends. The Ministry of Education is on that. Up until Friday, the Minister of Education had a call with the students in Morocco. She has been able to take some steps and I believe that she will be able to make some further clarification, but I can say the categories of students in Morocco, some have overstayed since 2013 and were not in school, some completed but are stuck there. She made efforts to disaggregate the different categories and is going outside of the norm to make sure that we repatriate our students who have completed to be brought back home, and to address some of the issues. We do serve on that Committee.
On the point of hosting an ECOWAS agency in Liberia, during the last ECOWAS sitting, we approached ECOWAS through the Chair Oumar Toure to indicate Liberia’s interest in hosting one of the ECOWAS institutions. Subsequently, I had a call with ECOWAS to say that we wanted to document this officially to request. He asked us to wait until he had put in place a mechanism for member states to express their interests. A few weeks ago, he reached out with the expression of interest for countries to indicate. We want to thank Senator Snowe for his engagement with us in this regard. He has been actively discussing with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on how to go about this. We recently had a conversation about this. The two entities of the West Africa Health Organization and the Entity for Youth, we were looking at which countries are even paying for those, and we discussed that we still register Liberia’s interest in the health organization, but we will push for the youth entity.
On the issue of the US visa, the information that we received in the news through social media was a surprise to us. We immediately contacted the US Government through the Ambassador to ascertain as to the validity. As of the weekend, the Ambassador indicated to me that he has no information in relation to this and would seek more clarification. Subsequently, we issued a demarche to the US Government that indicates that, officially we had heard this from the report of the New York Times that is being put as draft. We don’t know if this is true or not, but should this be true, should it be valid, and then stipulate all the reasons why Liberia should not be on that list. We outlined all of the steps that had been taken by Liberia over the last one year. Succinctly, we asked the US Government to please look into it. That demarche has been issued. We look forward to hearing from the US in relation to that.
There are a lot of speculations around why Liberia would be on that list, if it should be true. And I stress, “if it should be true”. Why do I stress that? I stress it because we have other lists circulating around here about deportation. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs under my leadership went to Washington D.C. with Assistant Minister Konneh. We engaged with the key people in the administration, we engaged with the State Department, we engaged with ICE, and today, that declaration cannot be validated. So, I just want to caution us not to take that news report as a fact to run with. However, we are not taking it lightly because there could be truth to it, there could be discussions happening where we are part of the yellow list, and because of that we issued the demarche and gave all the information to the US Embassy.
In the demarche we indicated to the US Government the work that we’ve been able to do. We started out by reminding the US Government that in February 2024, immediately upon assuming office, that I met with the US Government to address various concerns, and primary to that was for them to help us with the internal control system for processing and issuing diplomatic and privileged passports with enhanced security. We had meetings in relation to that. We followed up with a written community to that also. We also made the request for visa issuance for reciprocity of the free list.
In March 2024, the government of Liberia established the Department of Passports, Visas and Diplomatic Intelligence and appointed a seasoned intelligence expert to head the department. And I want to use this opportunity to clarify to the public that Pearson is not the director of passport. He set up the entire department that covers the passports, visas, and diplomatic intelligence. The Director of Passport is under that department and that director role was headed by Joe Mendin up until his retirement. We now have an acting Paul Nyafuah who has put in significant reforms in relation to passports.
The Diplomatic Intelligence Unit has been doing a lot of work on privileged passports. In March also, we requested the return of all privileged passports. If you can recall, a lot of work was done in relation to that. For those who didn’t comply, all those passport numbers were shared with Interpol, and we asked Interpol to please help us to address the situation.
In November 2024, we constituted an investigative panel composed of members of the Immigration, the Liberia National Police, the National Security Agency and the Diplomatic Security Service with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the purpose of investigating cases of passport fraud. We are happy to say that the work done by Pearson and the team has led to 15 cases of fraud and impersonation being identified and handed over to the DSS within our Ministry.
Also, we have conducted a full security audit of the passport issuance procedures. The gaps we have identified led to us restructuring, adding more personnel and changing the processes for visa issuance.
In August 2024, I went to Washington DC and met key personnel there and we discussed the support we needed for diplomatic intelligence to strengthen our passport system. That led to a meeting in Liberia with this Government, including the CIA, the Regional Security Expert, where we discussed the support we required from them. They wanted more clarification on the type of support.
We have also been able to start the process for having Liberia compliant with the CAO-CECADE. We recently found out that we have been requested to be a part of that but it was never done. That process will allow our passports being verified at various ports of entry through an automated system. We started the process in November. By May this year, we should be fully compliant.
We also found out that the government of Liberia was requested to send in emblems of our passport and visa stamps. The request was made by the US, Liberia never complied. We were notified about this February 2025. Immediately upon the request made to us, the same day we complied, and that has led us to having more security information.
There is a passport that is circulating from Matthias, a German. Privileged passport does not confer citizenship. Depending on the functions someone provides to the government, they can be issued a diplomatic passport. The process we use to issue is a vetting by NSA. Matthias applied to continue being an Ambassador-at-large to the Liberian government which he had been for the previous government. That was not approved but was approved based on the Presidential Advisor on Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Wallace.
Since we appointed him, we have had increased scholarships from Mauritius in the last months than in previous years. It is an actual function that is being carried out. He is a German citizen and he’s entitled to a diplomatic passport. That passport was not sold to anybody.
On the issue of the Japanese Grant, the grant has been there for a long time even before we took over. When we came to the Ministry leadership, we realized that the Secretariat was not being managed by anybody. We had an individual who worked with the secretariat but when it comes to accountability, there was nobody being held accountable. So, we wrote to the Japanese Government that the Secretariat should report to the Deputy Minister for International Cooperation. Steve Flahn Paye accepted and since then has been communicating directly with Minister Nyei, because the implementor cannot be responsible for oversight. There is a steering committee that is chaired by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that includes the Ministry of State, the Ministry of Finance, the PPCC and LACE. This steering committee should be making decisions. When we found out about the arrival of rice coming last year, the process was already done. We indicated that we subsequently needed to have an open bidding. The bid was issued. The Coordinator for the Secretariat then went about the process, went about selecting his own committee, implementing a process without oversight.
The company that won the bid was determined by the coordinator. We went back to look at it and found out that the process was not open. The Steering Committee met last week. The Steering Committee determined that the company that won the bid did so fair and square, but they agreed that they would share the service among the three who came within the final of the bid.
The rice is on its way to Liberia and the three companies that bidded will be implementing the rice program. The Japanese did write to say they had concerns about the behavior of the coordinator for the program, and requested a disciplinary action. Also, the Steering Committee also met and requested the Ministry to take disciplinary action because the coordinator acted on his own appointed committee. The rice program will go ahead according to plan and the proceeds will go towards development projects.
Interactive session
Senator Cyrus Momo, Lofa County
I want to thank the minister for that salient deliberation and explanation. It is about time to ask the necessary questions. The clarity provided by the minister is very welcoming.
Senator Albert Tugbe Chie, Pro Tempore Emeritus and ranking member of the Foreign Relations and Security Committees:
Madam Minister, you just said that privileged passports do not confer citizenship. What does passport confer?According to unconfirmed news, you said we have 60 days to respond to certain concerns that we are giving passports to certain citizens.
Minister Nyanti:
It’s about categories of passports. The ordinary passport is for citizens of the country. One of the issues that we have is that Liberian passports or ordinary passports are in the hands of noncitizens. The issue of travel documents is not just about diplomatic passports. Primarily the problem we have is that you will find people being deported from different countries, coming here and they are not Liberians because many people are imprisoned in countries having Liberian passports, but they are not Liberians. Ordinary passports are used by citizens. The privileged passports are used by citizens as well, but that isn’t determined by your citizenship. That is why sometimes when you travel, they will ask you for your national passport to know your citizenship, to confirm with your privileged passport. The privileged passport is used by citizens, but it can also be used by foreigners depending on the function that they carry out.
But the issue of passports as we are assuming by the information that we heard in the New York Times, the assumption that they released about diplomatic passports, we’re talking about the issues of travelers and the issue of citizenship and our ordinary passport which is work we have to do. We are continuing to work on it, but we can tell you that DG Pearson who is leading the work can speak more to it, but we’ve had significant problems in this area where people carry out criminality using Liberian ordinary passports.
Senator Dillon:
The issue of the issuance of a diplomatic passport to the non-Liberian, does that passport carry the nationality of the holder?
Minister Nyanti:
Yes, it does.
Senator Dillon:
If a Nigerian was issued a service passport to perform a certain service for Liberia, will Nigeria nationality be stated in the passport?
Nyanti:
Yes, sir.
Senator Dillon:
Nobody from the Foreign Ministry knows if it’s possible to issue diplomatic passports to non-citizens from that issuing country?
Dr. Nyei:
It is common practice. It’s done by the Australian Government and done widely in Latin America. They give them passports not conferring citizenship but to facilitate their access to the various countries they are travelling to.
Other issues
The issue of Foreign Service personnel deployment, recall and welfare was also highlighted and was a cause for concern among the senators who wanted to know the fate of foreign service personnel who were deployed or recalled. Were they retained on the MoFA payroll or laid off?
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said there is a need to have a policy to determine the cost of living for deployed foreign service personnel, and a policy on foreign service personnel recalled. Should they be retained on the civil service payroll or retrenched when recalled even if they are not eligible for retirement?