In a bold and unprecedented move to wrestle financial power from the capital and place it squarely in the hands of local communities, Liberia’s Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) has unleashed a sweeping county treasury implementation drive across five counties. Beginning Monday, May 18, the weeklong campaign promises to transform the way public money is managed, spent, and accounted for at the grassroots level.
The Fiscal Decentralization Unit of the MFDP is spearheading the initiative, targeting Rivercess, Grand Bassa, Margibi, Bong, and Nimba Counties. County authorities, treasury officials, spending entities, and development stakeholders are converging in packed consultations designed to tighten accountability, accelerate budget execution, and sharpen service delivery where it matters most — in the communities.
Deputy Minister for Budget and Development Planning, Tenneh G. Brunson, is set to launch the exercise in Rivercess County, igniting a chain of technical consultations that will ripple through the other counties. The Ministry insists this is not business as usual: it is a structural shift, a deliberate push to dismantle decades of fiscal centralization in Monrovia and empower county institutions to take charge of their own financial destinies.
The engagement zeroes in on the 2026 Fiscal Rules, budget disaggregation, county treasury operations, and expenditure reporting. At its core lies a radical policy directive: government spending entities operating in the counties must now channel their fiscal operations through county treasury systems. This aligns with Liberia’s Revenue Sharing Law and decentralization framework, ensuring that every dollar spent is tracked, reported, and scrutinized at the county level.
Romeo D. N. Gbartea, Director of the Fiscal Decentralization Unit, underscored the urgency: ministries, agencies, and commissions outside Monrovia must increasingly process their finances through county treasuries. “This is about ownership, oversight, and transparency,” he declared, signaling a new era of local empowerment.
The initiative dovetails with President Joseph Nyuma Boakai Sr.’s governance reform agenda, which has consistently championed decentralization as the key to improved service delivery and accountability. For Liberia, decentralization is not just policy — it is survival. After years of civil conflict, the nation embraced reforms like the Local Government Act of 2018 to break Monrovia’s stranglehold and bring government closer to the people.
Liberia’s 15 counties are now poised to play a decisive role in planning and implementing development priorities. For rural citizens, who often trek miles to access government services, the county treasury system could be the lifeline that finally bridges the gap between promise and delivery.
The MFDP has already completed assessments for six additional county treasuries in Sinoe, Grand Kru, Maryland, Grand Gedeh, Lofa, and Bomi. Officials say this expansion will deepen transparency and efficiency, cementing fiscal decentralization as a nationwide reality. County treasury structures are designed to institutionalize fiduciary functions outside Monrovia, ensuring expenditure tracking is no longer a guessing game but a disciplined system.
The exercise directly supports Liberia’s ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development (AAID) 2025–2029, which prioritizes governance, accountability, and stronger institutions. With nearly half of Liberia’s population living in multidimensional poverty, the stakes could not be higher. For the MFDP, this is more than an administrative reform — it is a revolution in how public resources are managed, a promise that communities will finally see the benefits of the nation’s wealth.
