After three decades of civil conflict, the Government of Liberia, under the administration of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, embarked on wide-ranging reforms aimed at economic recovery, political reconciliation, and national development. During this process, the government identified deep-seated challenges – most notably pervasive corruption, weak transparency, and low levels of public accountability which had significantly constrained progress in public administration.

By Emmanuel Nyonneo Newton, Sr | Ex-Big 4 Auditor, Compliance & Procurement Professional

To demonstrate reform-minded intentionality, the government anchored its interventions on the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) from the get-go. Key initiatives undertaken by the government then included the completion of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) process, the adoption of the Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program (GEMAP), and the establishment of institutions and enactment of legal frameworks such as the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC), the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI), the Public Financial Management (PFM) Law, and the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission (PPCC). Collectively, these measures resonated strongly with citizens and development partners, signalling a renewed commitment to accountability and good governance.

For about two decades now, Liberia has had what many reform-minded countries aspire to have – a robust legal framework to regulate public spending and guard against misuse of taxpayers’ money. The restated and amended Public Procurement and Concessions Act (PPCA) of 2010 and the Public Financial Management (PFM) Law of 2009 were enacted to close the loopholes that historically enabled waste, fraud, and abuse in the public sector.

Specifically, the PPCA promotes transparency, competitive bidding, and value for money in public procurement, establishing the PPCC as an independent oversight and complaints review body. The PFM Law, in similar vein, regulates budgeting, expenditure, accounting, and reporting to ensure fiscal discipline and accountability.

Taken together, these laws established multiple Anti-corruption safeguards, including procurement plans tied to approved budgets, audit trails, mandatory reporting obligations, and oversight by institutions such as the General Auditing Commission (GAC) and the LACC. On paper, Liberia’s PFM and procurement regimes have consistently been assessed by international partners, like the World Bank and the IMF, as broadly aligned with international best practices.

Without an inkling of doubt, one would have expected some relief from public waste, or, more broadly, corruption.

 Sadly, Liberia’s public sector continues to experience significant wastage of taxpayers’ money, declining investor’s confidence, and related consequences. Liberia’s Corruption Perceptions Index record since 2005 has not been one of cheer embrace. The records are, 2005 22 points, 2012 (best) 41 points, 2023 25 points, and 2024 27 points. From 2005 to 2025, Liberia’s governance trajectory as reflected in its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), reveals enduring public-sector weaknesses despite repeated reform efforts and commitments. Beginning at a low 22 points in 2005, the country recorded post-conflict improvement, peaking at 41 points in 2012, but these gains were not sustained. The subsequent decline to 25 points in 2023, with only a slight rise to 27 in 2024, underscores systemic corruption, continued wastage of public resources, weak fiscal discipline, and declining investor confidence. These patterns are evidence that since 2005, the PPCC Act and the PFM Law have been circumvented, as reflected in recurring procurement violations, adverse audit findings, limited sanctions.

It would be remiss of me to think that this opinion piece is the first lamentation on public waste, poor graft regime and corruption; it is not, and it certainly will not be the last. However, it makes it clear to understand that Liberia’s public sector challenges in this regard are no longer legal insufficiency but lack of will to enforce the law in some respects. The PPC Act and PFM Law, as critical as they are, must be applied without political discretion and shielding. Rather than reassignment or political recycling, violations, especially high value breaches, should automatically trigger administrative sanctions, investigations and prosecutions where warranted, and disqualification from public office. It is the best and visible precedent for even someone in kindergarten to understand and internalize that ‘misuse’ of public resources and violation of policy guidelines is punishable by the state. Such visible consequences are essential to entrenching a culture of accountability.

Beyond enforcement, effort should be applied to insulate oversight institutions from political influence exerted by either the Executive or the Legislature. Appointment, tenure security, and budgetary autonomy for heads of these institutions should be strengthened to reduce political pressure and selective enforcement. Oversight bodies cannot credibly police the Eexecutive or Legislature if they remain financially or politically dependent.

I also propose that the government introduce what I describe as ‘spot audits.’ Under this mechanism, the General Auditing Commission (GAC) would be present in real time during the implementation of large-value procurement and infrastructure projects, rather than intervening only after the fact. This arrangement would allow GAC staff to be deployed as technical referees at critical stages of project execution.

Such proactive oversight would help safeguard taxpayers’ money and significantly enhance confidence among stakeholders, including citizens and development partners.

As a former auditor, I fully appreciate the importance of post-action audits. However, overtime I have increasingly questioned their practical value, especially in the public sector, when they occur only after resources have already been misappropriated or procurement rules circumvented. By the time an audit report is issued, public funds may already be lost, and essential services, like school materials, medical supplies, road construction, and social protection programs may never reach the citizens for whom they were intended. With such drawback, I wondered: what tangible benefit does the country derive, even when the offender is eventually sanctioned? While I acknowledge that prosecution and punishment serve an important deterrent function, deterrence alone cannot substitute for preventive mechanisms that stop waste and abuse before they occur.

More broadly, we need a robust procurement regime that integrates several systems, like the LRA, Liberia Business Registry and Ministry of Commerce with minimal human involvement. Such infrastructure enhances pure competition, transparency, efficiency, fairness, and accountability in its truest sense with minimal human involvement. This can be done if successive regimes were more thoughtful of the next generation than the next elections. By age, Liberia’s procurement regime predates that of Rwanda, yet Rwanda has deliberately leapfrogged ahead. In its effort to modernize Public Procurement, Rwanda studied and adapted best practices from the Republic of Korea’s procurement system, one of the most advanced globally. As a result, today, Rwanda operates one of the most efficient and credible procurement systems in Africa. Liberia can be just as intentional: modernizing its procurement architecture to reflect current realities rather than clinging to outdated processes.

Liberia’s struggle with public wastage as it relates to the PPCA and PFM Law is not the absence of rules, but the absence of resolve. I am very confident that until power is meaningfully constrained in practice, these laws will continue to stand as symbols of reform ambition rather than tools of real accountability.

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