–As Boakai Allegedly Strangulates Other Branches Of Gov’t
Article 3 of the 1986 Constitution provides that Liberia is a unitary sovereign state divided into counties for administrative purposes, and the form of government is Republican, with three separate but coordinating branches: the legislative, the Executive and Judiciary; however, since the ascendency of the Boakai-led government, the Executive has positioned itself as more powerful than the other two branches by either dictating their financial allocations, disbursements or wheeling their activities.
A few days ago, the Judiciary branch of government rejected appropriations made for it in the 2024 fiscal budget of the Republic of Liberia, describing the appropriation/allocation of US$17 million to it and a one-off “contingency” amount of US$3 million, constituting 2.8% of the national budget, as an imposition by both the Legislative and Executive branches of government on a co-equal branch of the same government, which it is not prepared to accept.
The Judiciary disclosed that, in the spirit of coordination and cooperation, meetings were held with the leadership of the Legislature and the Presidency prior to the passage of this year’s fiscal budget, in which the Judiciary brought to the attention of its other two co-equal branches of the Liberian government that the constant violation of the Financial Autonomy Act of the Judiciary Law, which consistently relegated an entire branch of government to a mere department under the Executive Branch, was not only undermining the rule of law, but also debasing a co-equal branch of government.
However, it appears like the Executive branch has been working closely with only the Liberian Senate, thereby finding ways possible to strangulate the House of Representatives, which is headed and dominated by members of the opposition.
The Liberian Senate, which has been described as the “Rescue Senate” due to it being headed by frontliners of the Rescue Mission, Vice President Jeremiah Koung and Senator Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence, has been allegedly the only segment of the Boakai government outside the Executive that has been persistently benefiting from the spoils of the administration.
It is ascertained that the Liberian Senate has been well taken care of in terms of salaries, benefits and other tips and incentives geared toward the wellbeing of the members. Recently, the Liberian Senate held an extravagant retreat in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, where it was allegedly that they spent approximately US$700,000, with each senator allegedly receiving close to US$25,000 for office renovation, allowance and other incentives.
Contrastingly, members of the House of Representatives have decried that, since the inception of this administration, they have only received about two months’ benefit—strangulating them in getting their job done.
On Tuesday, June 18, 2024, the House cited the Commissioner General of the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) and the Minister of Finance and Development Planning to provide detail information about the revenue collection.
Speaking at the House hearing, the LRA boss, James Dorbor Jallah, said, “Our year-to-date budget, as of yesterday, we were supposed to raise US$308,612,000. To date, what we’ve been able to raise so far is US$316,449,000. So we have actually gained US$7.8 million more than budgeted.”
According to Jallah, “Our domestic revenue comes from two key sources: domestic taxes and from our custom operations. So the last two lines there gives you the level of performance for each of those two segments of our revenue resource collection. For domestic tax, our year-to-date budget is US$212,424,000, and at the moment we are at US$213,064,000. So we are about US$2.6 million above target with the domestic revenue. And for customs, our target year-to-date is US$96,180,000, of which year-to-date we been able to collect about US$101,385,000, so we are about US$5.2 million above target.”
He said, “So far our overall revenue projection, or the picture, is that we have been on target so far. Not all the lines have done well, I will explain that to you in subsequent slides and areas that we still have challenge, but the overall picture is that we’ve been able to collect 45% of the target you gave us this year, and right now our year-to-date is about US$7.8 million above our target as of this June date.”
In a frustrated tone, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Cllr. J. Fonati Koffa, said he was astonished to learn that revenue generation is overperforming when members of the House are unable to receive their benefits and reduced to mere beggars.
Speaker Koffa said, “It is astonishing to me that the Commissioner General will report that he is overperforming on revenue, yet the House of Representatives, which is a part of the first branch of government, is unable to receive benefits budgeted in an astoundingly fashion.
“We should not be in the position to be on the street to be crediting money from money changers to provide our members gas. We should not be in the position where the instruments that lawmakers use to come to work every day cannot be provided for them because y’all say there is no money at Finance Ministry when the Commissioner General is reporting that he is overperforming. We cannot be in the position where you fund the Senate retreat, yet we have postponed our retreat and running behind NGOs to help the House of Representatives to have their retreat. We should not be in the position where the Chairman and Co-Chairman on Ways, Means and Finance spend days in your office and they can’t even get correct answer as to when you will make funds available.
“I am disappointed. And we are prepared at the House of Representatives to make any sacrifice. If the Commissioner General comes and say revenue is not performing, we will be the first to say, ‘Ok, we understand.’ But for him to come here today and say he’s overperforming, and the Senate is well taken care of, and the House of Representatives has almost only two months of her benefits and cannot even get money for retreat, we have to go beg NGOs for stationaries.”
Speaker Koffa then informed the Minister of Finance, Boima Kamara, that the reason why he held the appearance of the Finance Minister in abyss on contempt issue is because he wanted to hear his information. “I will tell you this: if we cannot come to a resolution pretty soon, we will shut this House of Representatives down,” the Speaker, who is the head of the first branch of government, threatened.
Critics are accusing President Boakai of dividing his own government based on party line—working with only the Liberian Senate, which is headed by an individual from the Rescue Mission and strangulating the House of Representatives and the Judiciary.
This, the critics said, could crumble the government if not handled timely and properly. They argued that since the inception of the Boakai administration, it has still been “business as usual”, contrary to the President’s “bluff” that his government would not conduct “business as usual”.
They call on the House of Representatives to stand their ground, and if the Ministry of Finance cannot release their funds they should use the power vested in them as first branch of government to make the Executive branch to bear whatever consequences necessary.