By Anthony G. Myers (Deputy Finance and Development Planning)
There is so much to be gained from reading the following analysis of the FY2026 Budget by Gbarpolu County Senator Amara M. Konneh. There is also so much to be implied about whether the Senator actually wants to see these lofty objectives incorporated into the final budget.
From the balance of evidence, the Senator is less interested in having his suggestions included in the budget outcomes than taking the headlines away from the critical milestones the budget is set to achieve in the coming fiscal year.
First Evidence: Opportunities to Contribute to Legislative Process
The draft budget has been at the Legislature since the 7th of November. Gbarpolu County is represented on the Senate Committee on Ways, Means, Finance, Budget and Development through Senator Boto Kanneh, with whom Senator Konneh has a healthy working relationship. And, as we have observed over time, non-members of legislative committees are not barred from appearing at hearings and making their inputs, including interrogating the witnesses.
During the more than one month period of Legislative scrutiny of the budget, there is no evidence that Senator Konneh proffered these ideas through Senator Boto Kanneh, through the Chairman and other members of Committee, or through the Legislative Budget Office, which regularly exchanges technical information, including general and specific concerns, with the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning.
So, the question is why did Senator Konneh wait for the budget hearings to come and go without raising these issues? Why did he wait for the conference committee meetings of the two houses to come and go without raising these concerns?
The answer is something only he can provide. But with all these opportunities available to him and not making use of them, his last-minute opposition to the budget something else other than legislative oversight.
Second Evidence: Opportunities to Exhaust Oversight Options
It is established that legislators have three broad functions: representation, lawmaking, and oversight. The position that Senator Konneh as adopted on the budget falls in the domain of oversight, which can be exercised in several ways including committee hearings, interpellations, inquiries.
Committee hearings is the forum where lawmakers can hold formatted (under oath or not under oath) conversations with responsible authorities in the Executive on specific issues. In this instance Senator Konneh has raised issues about funding to agriculture, public sector investment, etc. There was ample opportunity during the execution of the FY2025 Budget for the Senator to call for hearings.
During the legislative scrutiny of the FY2026 draft budget, he also had opportunities to call separate hearings by the respective sector oversight committees on agriculture, public works, etc. None of these options were used until we have come to the final stage of the approval process.
Interpellation is the legislative tool by which legislators can call public official to provide justifications or explanations for certain decisions. In other words, the officials are required to provide the constitutional, legal, regulatory and policy bases for their actions or decisions. Among the entire membership of the Legislature, there is none that have the closest link to the Ministry of Finance & Development Planning as does Senator Amara Konneh.
All of the legal and administrative frameworks he put in place remain intact, except for the detachment of the Comptroller and Accountant General from the Department of Fiscal Affairs. In effect, he should have a better understanding of how the MFDP functions than any lawmaker. In the nearly two years that we have been at the MFDP, there has been no formal or informal invitation from the Senator to discuss PFM issues, including the budget process.
Inquiry, the third tool is used through formal requests for information such as letters or phone calls, or emails, or meetings. Again, there is evidence that Senator Konneh ever made formal or informal requests for sector-specific appropriations and the MFDP failed to oblige.
Third Evidence: Throwing MFDP under the Bus
Since the advent of the current Government – the 55th Legislature and the Boakai Administration – Senator Konneh has opted to avoid the MFDP leadership in decisions that he knows will have critical impacts on the country’s fiscal governance and development outcome, including some of the issues he appears to champion. In the FY2024 draft budget, there was US$40 million included as payments to commercial banks on behalf of contractors who had taken loans from the banks to prefinance government projects.
By then, all projects were at standstill. Banks could not provide additional financing to these contractors. And, according to the Liberian Bankers Association, the country’s credit rating was threatened and their ability to lend to other sectors were at risk. If the $40 million were not paid, any payment for new contracts made by the new administration to these contractors would be seized by the banks. If the payments were not made, out annual debt ceiling would be breached, which would, in turn, set back the ECF program with the IMF.
Without any reference to the MFDP or the IMF, Senator Konneh persuaded other legislator to slice that allocation by 50%. From subsequent engagements, it was clear that the other lawmakers acted under the presumption that he, a former Finance Minister, understood what was at stake. The reality was the opposite. One can argue that it is the Legislature’s prerogative to reallocate funds.
But the same Legislature has made laws that identify debt as the first claim on resources. So, if there was a need to reallocate some of the domestic debt appropriation, it was prudent to communicated this with the MFDP and readjustments would have been recommended from other sources.
A second example is the overhyped budget shifting that gripped national attention for more than two months. That matter has been settled. But the amount of energy that was expended took away from more constructive consultations that would have better informed the execution of the FY2024 Budget and the preparation of the FY2025 Budget.
What was even more concerning is the fact that Senator Konneh is the one who developed the budget framework placing different institutions into different sectors. To the extent that corrections were made to reflect this alignment, without taking a dime from what was assigned to different entities, left many persons at the MFDP wondering whether this was the Minister that initiated the medium-term expenditure framework with pillars and sectors.
Final Word: More Devils in the Details
As I said in the opening, the MFDP, either as an institution or through its policy and technical outlets, will come up with a point-by-point response to what some have called expert analysis. Before we do, I would like to end here by giving a preview of where we will be coming from.
One, the transfer law and the requirement for legislative approval is on 20% of the overall budgetary appropriation of a ministry of agency. Senator Konneh is looking at line-items.
Two, the budget is prepared and executed from the pool fund or public fund perspective. According to the PFM Law the resources for various sectoral development are not limited to the Consolidated Fund, from which the budget is executed.
There are other portfolios like Public Fund (Sec 5.4f) and Development Fund (Sec 6.1b and Sec. 6.2). Details on these and other issues in our subsequent responses.
