The National Civil Society Union of Liberia (NACSUL) is urging His Excellency President Joseph N. Boakai not to sign the 2025 Liberia Sea and Inland Ports Regulatory Bill (Port Autonomy Bill), which is being sponsored by Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence and Abraham Darius Dillon, observing that the bill has significant structural deficiencies and overlaps the functions of several ministries and agencies, with the potential of undermining the development of the port and creating long-term operational and governance challenges.
In a press release issued on Tuesday, January 20, 2026, NACSUL said, for the second time the Minister of Justice, Cllr. Oswald Tweh, has rendered a descending opinion on the bill after carefully perusing it.
The civil society group said they are of the belief that Minister Tweh, being the Attorney General of the Republic, will not review a bill with potential economic impact and ill-advice the President to reject it; as such, the bill appears to be nothing more than personal interest and conflicting clauses that may require the amendments of several ministries and agencies’ acts.
NACSUL observed that the proposed bill overlaps the functions of the Ministry of Transport and the Liberia Maritime Authority, and Cllr. Tweh’s legal opinion on the matter, after comprehensively examining the 2025 LSRA Bill, has provided a foregone conclusion that the bill falls short of aligning with the administration’s ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development, or providing any alternative to uplift Liberians from poverty.
The group urged President Boakai to veto the bill, without any room for resubmission.
According to the group, the Justice Minister made it categorically clear that the legislation contains substantial structural deficiencies that warrant a presidential veto. They said Min. Tweh’s opinion identified three critical deficiencies: “1. The proposed Regulatory Act created substantial overlap with the mandate of the Liberia Maritime Authority and leaving it with only ship registration; 2. it is internally inconsistent and conflicts with established agencies, and deviates from both domestic governance trends and international best practices without adequate justification; and 3. it deviates from international best practices observed in peer maritime jurisdictions (Kenya, Nigeria, Singapore) where regulatory functions are either clearly separated from operational functions or internally compartmentalized to prevent conflicts of interest.”
NACSUL described the minister’s opinion as accurate, timely and in the interest of the state.
The group expressed dismay in the Senate Pro-Tempore, Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence, and Montserrado County Senator, Abraham Darius Dillon, who are sponsoring the bill to be passed. According to the group, President Boakai previously returned the bill in July 2025, after vetoing it, for the senators to correct the deficiencies that he found objectionable. But instead of making the necessary changes to the bill, the senators resubmitted the bill to the President with the same deficiencies. This, the group said, speaks volumes of either the ineptitude of the Senate or the deliberate attempt to mislead the President to perpetuate a sinister motive.
Meanwhile, NACSUL is calling on other civil society organizations to join them next week Wednesday, January 28, 2026 to petition the President to use his presidential veto power on the bill, in order to save the country from the national disaster that Nyonblee and Dillon are pursuing to achieve. The group vowed to religiously follow the matter to its logical conclusion.
