By Truth In Ink | Sidiki Fofana (use Samuel Tweah)
History has a way of separating political attacks from policy substance. No figure better embodies this tension today than Samuel D. Tweh, former Finance Minister under President George Weah.
Despite being sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury and facing a pending corruption case under the Boakai administration, Tweh is quietly, but resoundingly, being vindicated. Not necessarily through court rulings yet, but unmistakably through the survival and continuation of the very policies he introduced.
When Tweh assumed office as Finance Minister, Liberia’s wage bill in 2018 consumed over 70% of domestic revenue, leaving minimal fiscal space for infrastructure, health, or education. Confronted with a bloated payroll system, weak revenue mobilization, and growing donor fatigue, Tweh, trained as a development economist, proposed the controversial but consequential reform: harmonization- to stabilize the macroeconomic environment.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2020 Article IV report: “Liberia’s public wage harmonization was an essential step toward medium-term fiscal sustainability, despite short-term social and political resistance.”
At the time, the Unity Party, then in opposition, ridiculed the policy. Joseph Boakai and his allies labeled it “anti-poor”, a tool of economic punishment. But today, that same policy forms the cornerstone of Liberia’s fiscal management strategy.
History, coupled with current economic realities, has recast harmonization not as a punitive measure but a structural necessity. “Harmonization was never about punishment. It was about sustainability. We had to act; our wage bill was unsustainable,” Tweh explained in 2021 while defending the policy amid intense public criticism.
Current Finance Minister Augustine Ngafuan echoed that sentiment in agreement on Spoon Talk: “Harmonization was necessary. Without it, Liberia’s economy would have been in chaos. It wasn’t perfect, but it laid a foundation for reforms we still depend on.”
That admission is more than a technocratic assessment, it is a political confession. It confirms what the IMF and other institutions stated years ago: “harmonization was an essential step toward macroeconomic recovery.”
Tweh’s vindication is reflected not only in the endurance of his reforms but in the tangible economic turnaround achieved under his tenure. By 2021, Liberia’s primary fiscal balance had improved from a deficit of -4.8% of GDP in FY2018 to near balance in FY2022. Inflation, which peaked at 30% in mid-2019, fell to single digits by 2022, thanks largely to tighter fiscal discipline, harmonized expenditure, and a structured reform roadmap.
Today, the Boakai administration has not only maintained but expanded these reforms. Civil service payroll restructuring, biometric verification, and centralized payment systems introduced by Tweh remain intact. The government has embraced, not reversed, the policy.
Tweh’s harmonization agenda helped win Liberia a Staff-Monitored Program with the IMF and unlocked renewed donor budget support, markers of credibility in global financial circles.
And yet, Liberia remains a country where reformers are often vilified and only vindicated too late. Tweh was not only vilified for this policy, but he is also facing charges of corruption, yet his story raises a deeper question: when will Liberia separate political scapegoating from national interest?
The contradiction is visible .
President Boakai’s government continues to frame Tweh as Weah-era corruption and mismanagement, even as it leans on the fiscal infrastructure Tweh built. This dissonance underscores a broader dilemma in Liberian governance: when political convenience obscures policy competence.
As Dr. Toga Gayewea McIntosh, former Foreign Minister and economist, stated in a 2024 interview with The Analyst: “Leadership is about hard decisions. What we are witnessing is a realization that some of the most unpopular reforms were also the most necessary.”
Liberia’s history is filled with such ironies:
- William R. Tolbert, once criticized and killed for austerity, is now praised for agricultural expansion.
- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, often accused of elitism, bequeathed the Public Financial Management Law of 2009, a legal cornerstone of the national budget process.
- George Weah, through Tweh’s harmonization policy, may now be remembered as the reluctant reformer who stabilized the nation’s economy.
But Liberia, unfortunately is not alone in this contradiction of vilifying reformers. Internationally, leaders and technocrats have often been punished politically for policies that later proved essential:
- Paul Volcker, the former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair, was widely criticized in the early 1980s for harsh interest rate hikes that triggered a recession. Yet his policies later tamed inflation and preserved U.S. economic stability.
- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, was repeatedly targeted for her tough anti-subsidy reforms, yet her framework remains central to Nigeria’s fiscal architecture today, and she now leads the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Such cases reveal a timeless truth: good policy is often unpopular in the moment but indispensable in hindsight.
And so, If the Boakai administration continues to implement Tweh’s policies, it owes the Liberian people an honest explanation. Like him or not, convicted or acquitted, Samuel Tweh may ultimately be remembered not as a villain, but as the fiscal architect of Liberia’s economic survival.
As the economy clings to the pillars of discipline laid under the Weah administration, history may yet judge Tweh not by partisan accusations, but by the resilience of his ideas kept alive, ironically, in the hands of his critics and potential jailers.
Therefore, if President Boakai’s government continues to prosecute Samuel Tweh while using his policies to secure donor trust and fiscal credibility, it risks undermining both its moral authority and its policy coherence. You cannot vilify a man as the face of economic mismanagement while turning around to claim credit for the stability his reforms enabled.
To do so is not just political hypocrisy, it is a betrayal of public trust. A government that builds its fiscal legitimacy on Tweh’s policies must also reckon with the truth of his legacy: that governance, not politics, is what ultimately sustains a nation.
Samuel D, Tweh, the former finance minister accused for poor management of our economy, has been vindicated.
