By Socrates Smythe Saywon, Columnist
President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s recent Executive Order banning the export of unprocessed rubber signals a bold attempt to reshape Liberia’s struggling rubber industry. By restricting raw rubber exports and requiring domestic value addition, the government hopes to spark growth in local manufacturing and create jobs. But can this policy truly jumpstart Liberia’s manufacturing sector, or will it face obstacles that undermine its success? This analysis explores the promise and the pitfalls of Boakai’s directive.
Rubber has been a cornerstone of Liberia’s economy since the Firestone concession in 1926, but for nearly a century, the country has remained trapped in a raw-material export cycle. By restricting unprocessed rubber exports and demanding value be added locally, the Boakai administration aims to create jobs, increase tax revenue, and boost GDP growth. That is the ideal. But economic reform in Liberia is rarely straightforward, and even less so in sectors dominated by entrenched interests, fragile infrastructure, and underdeveloped manufacturing capacity.
The Executive Order requires exporters to meet a long list of conditions, including tax withholdings, surcharge payments, volume thresholds, export permit clearances, and post-export income tax remittances. These measures are theoretically sound; they aim to ensure compliance, transparency, and resource mobilization. However, the administrative burden they create may end up excluding smaller operators and incentivizing informal trade. The surcharge of $150 per metric ton and a $3,000 minimum per 20-foot container could make legal exportation unfeasible for many Liberian rubber farmers who already operate on tight margins.
More importantly, the order presumes the existence of domestic rubber processing capacity, which is not yet widespread. While TSR (Technically Specified Rubber) is exempted, the infrastructure to produce TSR at scale within Liberia remains limited. Without clear government investment in processing facilities or public-private partnerships to build this capacity, the order risks being more punitive than productive. The administration is, in effect, demanding that exporters “add value” without guaranteeing the support or systems needed to do so. This could backfire by either leading to industry stagnation or increased smuggling of raw rubber across porous borders.
Furthermore, the order centralizes power in multiple ministries, including the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Finance, and the Liberia Revenue Authority, while requiring strict inter-agency coordination. Given the Liberian government’s track record with bureaucratic inefficiency, corruption, and enforcement gaps, such coordination may prove difficult to sustain. For example, the Liberia National Rubber Pricing Committee is expected to publish monthly purchase prices that guide tax calculations. Will this committee be independent, data-driven, and protected from political manipulation? Or will price-setting become another avenue for rent-seeking?
Critically, the Executive Order does not account for the vulnerability of rural farmers in the rubber value chain. Thousands of smallholders across Lofa, Bong, Nimba, and Grand Bassa counties depend on rubber sales for survival. Many are not formal exporters, but they sell to middlemen who are. These middlemen may now pass the financial and bureaucratic costs of compliance down the chain, depressing farmgate prices and hurting livelihoods.
There is also the issue of legislative oversight. While the President is empowered to issue Executive Orders, long-term structural changes in a sector as significant as rubber should ideally be guided by legislation passed through public consultation. As written, Executive Order No. 151 remains a presidential directive with the force of law, but without the durability of broad political consensus or institutional anchoring.
Still, Boakai’s move should not be dismissed. In a country where reform often dies in committee rooms or is buried under donor dependency, his administration deserves credit for attempting to reshape one of Liberia’s most stagnant industries. If properly followed by investment in domestic processing, rural extension services, and better enforcement mechanisms, the Executive Order could be a catalyst for long-term change.
But without those follow-up actions, it risks becoming yet another policy on paper, well-intentioned but ineffective in practice. Liberia needs more than executive proclamations; it needs systemic economic transformation supported by infrastructure, finance, and capacity-building.
In the end, the question isn’t whether the rubber sector needs reform. It does. The real question is whether the Boakai administration is willing and able to do the hard work of making Executive Order No. 151 mean something beyond headlines.
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