Weah’s CDC or JNB’s UP; Who Has Prioritized Road Development? -Public Works Budget Expenditure Analysis (2018-2021) Clarifies
MONROVIA : Liberia’s worsening underdevelopment, especially the graphically unpalatable road conditions in the Southeastern parts of the country, might have raised the hackles of the Senate, to the extent that the honorable body recently cited authorities of the Ministry of Public Works (MPW) to answer pertinent questions surrounding the appropriation and utilization of funds from the current National Budget and the National Road Fund towards roads connectivity in the country. While these public hearings might have provided some insight into how the Weah government is financing its development projects, the public is yet to fully comprehend the extent to which this government is working tooth and nail to allocate necessary resources to its priority road development programs.
But as The Analyst has discovered, the Ministry of Public Works under the Weah regime, contrary to public perception, has actually shifted more spending on road development as opposed to spendings on goods and services, far better than the former ruling Unity Party government that is contesting to democratically remove President Weah and his CDC at the polls on October 10, 2023.
According to a well-informed higher-up at the Ministry of Public Works who quoted pertinent documents that are in the possession of this paper, Road Development spendings of the Ministry of Public Works under former Vice President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s Unity Party, covering the year 2017; and that of George M. Weah’s CDC government, covering the period 2018-2021, are graphically incomparable.
A summary of the comparative Road Development spending contained in the voluminous document made available to this paper was captured in a succinct bar graph illustration which showed that in 2017, the Unity Party only allotted 36% of the MPW budget to roads, and gave 25 percent to goods and services. However, under President Weah, the math changes, showing that more allocations are made towards roads (graphically illustrated with the green colored bar), which gets better and longer, as goods and services, mainly in waste, gas slips and scratch cards, are getting smaller.
“The Weah development strategy is to Stop Waste and put more money on development. The Unity Party strategy was and still is, ‘do small development and have a party with public money.’ Gas slips were expiring in people’s pockets under JNB for 12 years. Now you know why Ganta to Saclepea road or many urban roads in Monrovia were not done with taxpayers’ money by JNB/UP because money was wasted on workshops, travels, gas slips, scratch cards, etc.,” the MPW source indicated.
“Under President Weah, monies were reprogrammed to pay for free tuition, WASSE, roads, electricity, which are key indicators on the Human Development Index,” the source further stated.
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