Published: November 4, 2026
A civil servant can help finance Liberia’s budget twice: first through tax withheld from her salary, then through the fare she pays to get to work, which reflects the cost of taxed fuel. She should pay her fair share. What she cannot do, along with millions of other consumers, is substitute for an economy that produces too few profitable businesses outside the major concessions.
That is the warning in the Liberia Revenue Authority’s list of its 10 largest taxpayers. ArcelorMittal Liberia and Bea Mountain Mining Company together remitted US$401 million of the group’s US$570.7 million through October. ArcelorMittal’s total included a US$200 million concession payment that will not recur next year. The Civil Service Agency ranked third at US$41.1 million. Liberia has good reason to celebrate a record revenue year. It has good reason to look at who stands behind it.
The name on a tax payment does not always tell us whose pocket the money came from. Fuel importers pay charges they can pass along at the pump. Telecom customers pay tax when they buy phone credit. The LRA’s company totals also include the firms’ own obligations, so the figures cannot establish how much consumers bore. Nor does a top-10 list describe the entire budget. What it does show is how prominently two mines, the government payroll and everyday purchases figure among the largest collections.
Consider what follows when the concession fee falls away. Raising more from a teacher’s pay leaves her less to spend. Raising more from the fuel that takes produce to market can squeeze the farmer, the trader and the customer in the same transaction. Neither measure creates a new source of national wealth. Liberia needs more enterprises that earn income of their own, employ people outside government and pay taxes on the profits they make.
Take a rice mill in Lofa. A miller with dependable electricity, financing for machinery and a buyer can purchase paddy from nearby farmers. An order large enough to justify a second shift means wages for another operator, business for a mechanic and a market for farmers who might otherwise hesitate to plant more. If the mill earns a profit, the Treasury gains a taxpayer. That is how a country broadens its tax base without simply taking more from the people already within reach.
Government can start with the business it controls: its own purchasing. Schools, hospitals and ministries need food, furniture, uniforms and repairs. Publish their purchasing plans early, divide contracts into sizes qualified local firms can handle where practical, and disclose who won, at what price and on what terms. Above all, pay verified invoices on time. A Liberian workshop cannot pay its carpenters with a government promise. Months of waiting can turn a contract that should finance expansion into the very reason a firm closes.
The concession companies can help build an economy beyond their gates. Ask them to publish what they expect to buy, the standards suppliers must meet and when bids will open. Then measure how much work Liberian firms perform. Registering a local company to pass an invoice along creates little lasting capacity. A Liberian engineering firm that learns to maintain mining equipment can take those skills to another customer long after a mine closes.
Access to credit matters, too. A business with a confirmed order may lack the cash to buy materials before delivery. Government, banks and business associations should develop financing against verifiable orders and invoices, with lenders assessing risk and borrowers accountable for repayment. That would address a specific obstacle without asking taxpayers to cover every failed venture.
None of this calls for handing favored businesses tax privileges. The World Bank estimated that Liberia forwent US$240.3 million through exemptions and other tax breaks in 2024. Before granting another incentive, lawmakers should insist on its cost, its expiry date and the investment or jobs it is expected to produce. A firm that delivers should be able to demonstrate it. One that fails should not keep the benefit by calling itself strategic.
When the Finance Ministry presents its next budget, lawmakers should ask how many government suppliers have unpaid invoices, how long they have waited and what it will take to pay them. They should ask which investments in electricity, roads and skills would allow Liberian firms to fill orders they cannot fill today. Those answers would say more about the prospects for the next billion dollars than another ranking of the country’s ten largest taxpayers.
Liberia will still need mining revenue, and public employees and consumers will continue to contribute. But a teacher buying phone credit should not be the Treasury’s easiest answer to a difficult year. Give Liberians a fair chance to build businesses, earn profits and employ their neighbors. The budget will be stronger because the country is stronger.
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