National Cake Unveiled -Min. Ngafuan on How It’ll Be Raised, Who Gets What

MONROVIA – Next year’s national budget – the lubricant that would propel the Ship of State in the coming year – is out. It is set at $851.8 million – once again below a billion-dollar mark that many political administrations fought and fail to reach. Liberia’s Finance and Development Planning Minister, the principal crafter of the draft budget appeared before the nation through the Information Ministry’s platform, the Regular MICAT Press Briefing, and explained how the aka “national cake” will be raised and expended, the high points being the increment of civil servants’ pay, and the lion’s share going to public sector spending. The Analyst reports.  

Despite legislative controversy marring the national budget process, the Unity Party government is moving ahead with the traditional needful. Yesterday, during another edition of the MICAT Press Briefing, Finance and Development Planning Minister Augustine Kpeke Ngafuan presented the draft national budget to the public, recounting both the revenue and expenditure sides.

The total revenue envelope of the Draft National Budget for FY2025 is projected at US$851.8 million, comprising Core Revenue of US$833 million or 97.8% and Contingent Revenue of 18.8 Million or 2.2%, Ngafuan said, adding that of this amount, Domestic Revenue constitutes US$791.76 million or 93 percent of the total envelope, including includes Tax Revenue of US$633.72 million or 80 percent of domestic revenue, Non-Tax Revenue of US$138.5 million or 17.4 percent.

External resources amount to US$60 million, or 7.0 percent of the total revenue envelope, to be sourced from the World Bank (US$40 million) and the European Union (US$20 million), something that represents a 50 percent increase in external resources from FY2024.

In the FY2025 Draft National Budget, the Government is projecting an increase of 15.3 % over the FY2024 Recast budget of 738.9 million—an increase in the resource envelope attributed to the steady performance of domestic revenue, especially taxes on income and profits, goods and services, and international trade.

The Finance Minister reported divulged that the Liberian economy is projected to grow by 5.8 percent in 2025, up from a forecast of 5.1 percent in 2024 and that the 2025 projections are based on strong performances in the mining and panning sector (8.5 percent), the manufacturing sector (6.9 percent), the agriculture & fisheries sector (5.2 percent) and the services sector (5.0 percent).

He intimated that the Boakai-led administration is making significant strides through deliberate actions to invest in programs that have real impacts on the current and future wellbeing of our people, increasing the proportion of Public Sector Investment Program (PSIP) expenditure from US$67.4 million in FY2024 to US$98 million in FY2025.

Eighty-six percent of PSIP allocations totaling US$87 million is dedicated to multi-sector projects under the ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development (AAID), the government’s development plan for 2025-2029, expected to be launched in the next few weeks.

“In agriculture – we have allocated US$7 million under the PSIP for the first year of the ARREST Agenda to robustly fund critical interventions in agriculture value-chain programs,” Ngafuan said. “This will enable acceleration of research, increase extension services to producers, and commence the drive towards value addition in the form of processing, storage, and distribution.”

In order to unlock the economy, he noted that the Boakai government must build more roads and other infrastructure opening access to other parts of the country, and to this end, “we have allocated-US$52.9 million, including US$37.6 million for the rehabilitation of major roads.”

This will encompass the rehabilitation of rural roads and the construction of bailey bridges across the country.

Also included in this envelope is counterpart funding for ongoing works on key road corridors such as the Saclepea – Zwedru segment of the SECRAMP project, the Sanniquellie – Loguatuo highway, and the Salayea – Beyan Town section of the Gbarnga – Mendikorma highway. An additional US$15 million has been set aside for the other infrastructure improvements and the Pliable Roads Program launched earlier this by the government to ensure that all major road corridors in the country are pliable.

He disclosed that education has almost US$7 million for PSIP projects of which US$4 million is for the renovation and expansion of school facilities operated by the Ministry of Education, the Monrovia Consolidated School System and others.

“We have also allocated funds to ensure that the Digital Transformation Program which is set to continue for 2025 activities,” he said, adding, “Also, strengthening school feeding to provide nutrition and set children on the path to healthier school life and support agriculture outputs through the procurement of locally grown food products.”

Regarding the Rule of Law, the Finance Minister said a total of $4.4 million proposed for various projects including the ongoing renovation of military housing and commence renovation works on the barracks of the Liberia National Police located on Horton Avenue in Monrovia, the anti-drug program, “Kush Must Go”, counterpart funding for the proposed new Temple of Justice complex.

On sanitation and health,  it has been proposed under the PSIP to spend US$14 million for major projects including drug revolving funds at community pharmacies, electricity and capacity expansion at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital, reconstruction of CH Rennie Hospital in Margibi County, Jackson F. Doe Memorial Hospital in Nimba County from a regional referral facility to a national referral hospital.

Also included are allocations for basic urban sanitation under the Clean Cities Campaign in Monrovia and Paynesville cities, the landfill project in Cheesemanburg, etc…

“And, in Tourism, we are seeking legislation to create an autonomous tourism board; hence, propose US$500,000 for various interventions including the development of plans and marketing strategies for the tourism sector to enable us to leverage our vast tourism potential,” Ngafuan said.

Civil Servants’ Salaries

The Minister of Finance and Development Planning also revealed that President Joseph Nyuma Boakai has authorized the allocation of more than sixteen million US dollars to fund the first set of measures in a multi-year effort aimed at addressing some of the remuneration concerns and challenges in the public sector.

Ngafuan said: “First, we have allocated funds to ensure that beginning January, 2025, no central government employee earning monthly gross salaries below the US$150 minimum as provided for in the Decent Work Act of 2015 will receive less than US$150 as monthly gross salary. Second, we have allocated US$2.6 million in the FY2025 budget to enable the ministries of Health and Education to begin the multi-year process of addressing the perennial issues of volunteer workers after an exhaustive and thorough vetting exercise.

“We recognize that the cost to fully put all volunteer workers on the payroll is very high hovering around US$15 million, which the Government cannot fully afford in FY 2025 given the competing demands on the fiscal space,” the finance minister said.

“Third, we have also allocated nearly US$3 million dollars in the draft budget for FY 2025 to ensure that beginning January 2025, nearly two thousand teachers with C-Certificates, B-Certificates, Associate and Bachelor’s degrees who are currently being paid below their respective pay grades, will receive salaries commensurate with their qualifications,” he indicated. “Fourth, we have allocated funds in the draft FY 2025 budget, to add at least US$225 beginning January 2025 to the salaries of specialist doctors in the health sector who are being paid below their pay grades as the first action in the direction of fully regularizing their pay.”

The fifth measure is to adjust the salaries of additional number of employees. This measure will result in a monthly salary increase of between US$25 and US$50. Nurses, midwives, and physician assistants will receive US$50 salary top-ups per month while other health workers will receive between US$25 to US$40 based on their levels.  Other government employees in the agriculture and security sectors including AFL soldiers, EPS, and police officers, agriculture extension workers will also benefit from monthly salary top-ups ranging from US$30-US$40 per month.

“In sum, about 28, 200 government workers representing 45% of the government workforce are set to benefit from various forms of salary top-ups in FY 2025,” Mr. Ngafuan said further.

The sixth and final part of the 2025 income support strategy entails implementing the provision of the National Security Act of 2015, which mandates the Government of Liberia to cover the insurance costs for all active-duty police officers.

In the first-ever implementation of this law, he asserted, over 5,000 members of the Liberia National Police will be provided with insurance coverage fully funded by the Government of Liberia beginning January 2025.

This initiative is expected to offer additional support to these dedicated individuals who continue to sacrifice for our collective security under challenging conditions, he said.

According to the finance minister, the 2025 budget of US$851.8 million represents an increase of US$112.9 million or 15.3% over this year’s budget.

As significant as this jump may seem, he said, “we are the first to concede that it does not address all the development ambitions and challenges of Spending Entities and our people, especially considering the fact that the resource requests for 2025 of Spending Entities amount to roughly US$2 billion.”

He said the allocations we have made in the 2025 budget should be seen largely as a significant step in a multi-year journey to address the development ambitions and challenges of our country and people.