Liberia: Lawmakers Blast Commerce, Gender and others for Snubbing Budget Hearing

The Joint Committee on Ways, Means, Finance and Budget of the House of Representatives and Senate has chided several spending entities of government for shunning the ongoing budget hearing process.

The joint committee, at its Wednesday, February 15, 2023 session, described as “disrespectful and unacceptable” the refusal of the Ministries of Commerce and Industry, Gender Children and Social Protection, as well as the Liberia Business Registry to honor the public hearing on the draft National Budget.

The draft 2023 National Budget is currently undergoing intensive scrutiny by the Joint Committee on Ways, Means, Finance and Development Planning.

The three spending entities were on Wednesday expected to appear before the joint committee to defend their respective expenditure components in the draft budget but, based on the refusal of the three entities to appear, the committee was left with no other alternative but to prematurely adjourn the sitting. 

The Presiding Officer, Representative Francis Dopoh of River Gee County, told journalists that the three government institutions that failed to appear will be reprimanded for their disrespectful action.

“Those institutions of government that failed to appear today will feel the full weight of the law,” Rep. Dopoh said, terming the action of those institutions as “disrespectful” to the Joint Committee.

Representative Dopoh warned that such action is unacceptable and that the Joint Committee will seriously take the necessary actions, though he fell short of indicating any specific action.

Of late, the Joint Budget Committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives has been rigid on spending institutions of government who are being delinquent in the execution of their duties.

In one of its rigid actions, the committee last week deferred the appearances of five spending entities over the lack of budget performance report for 2022 fiscal year.

Those reprimanded were the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, Ministry of Health, and the Liberia Revenue Authority. The rest are John F. Kennedy Medical Center and the National Public Health Institute of Liberia.

By unanimous decision, the Committee warned those spending bodies to make their fiscal budget reports for 2022 available at the next hearing on the draft budget for 2023.

The Committee's decision came a few weeks after the Senate had instructed its members to guarantee that the Ministry of Finance and others provide budget performance reports before looking at their allocations.

Other areas of concern include conclusions on issues on government domestic debt, considering that the proposed budget also allocated US$91.6 million or 11.8 percent of the total budget for public debt servicing, which includes interest and principal payments to domestic and external creditors.

Total domestic creditors account for US$35.1 million, or 38.3 percent, of the total debt service projected, while external creditors account for US$56.5 million, or 61.7 percent. Domestic creditors include the Central Bank of Liberia, commercial banks, and other businesses.