Policy Expert Spots Conflict of Interest, Regulatory Crisis, Fiscal Burden, and Risk of Higher Port User Fees in New Port Regulatory Act.
Monrovia, February 19, 2025 – A newly proposed law aimed at establishing a new agency to regulate the seaports in Liberia has drawn strong criticism from policy experts, including Ambulah Mamey, who warn that the proposed Liberia Sea and Land Port Regulatory Act—if enacted—will increase the cost of doing business at the ports, create serious governance confusion, and threaten the country’s maritime reputation.
The Act, which has already passed the Senate and is now before the House of Representatives for concurrence, has been described as a “dangerous law” that makes the proposed regulator a port operator—a glaring conflict of interest, like a referee being a player in the same game.
In an open policy memo to the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives, Mamey highlighted Section 48 of the proposed Act, which grants the proposed regulatory agency the authority to engage in commercial port operations. The specific provision reads: “The Agency may—within the limits of available appropriations—acquire, establish, and improve port or harbor facilities and operate and maintain such port or harbor facilities.” He argues that this provision conflicts with Liberia’s standard and best practices, which separate regulatory and commercial roles to avoid conflicts of interest and ensure accountability.
“The Senate is making the proposed Port Regulator both a referee and a player in the seaport sector, and this is shocking because this same Senate is currently conducting hearings to prevent the Liberia Petroleum Refinery Company (LPRC) from acting as both the referee and player in the management of the petroleum sector,” Mamey said.
Reforms of State-Owned Enterprises in Liberia has historically aimed to separate regulatory oversight from commercial activities. For instance, the Liberia Telecommunications Authority regulates while LIBTELCO provides services; the Liberia Petroleum Regulatory Authority (LPRA) oversees the petroleum sector while NOCAL handles commercial operations, and the Liberia Energy Regulatory Agency (LERC) regulates the energy sector while Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) handles commercial operations. This model, which ensures checks and balance in other sectors, is now at risk under the proposed Port Regulatory Act for the seaport sector.
Mamey’s memo also highlights how the proposed Act significantly overlaps more than five key functions of the Liberia Maritime Authority (LiMA). Functions such as enforcing IMO’s Convention on Dangerous Goods (IMDG), implementing International Maritime Organization (IMO) conventions, setting standards for maritime related training, and enforcing maritime insurance regulations —remain with the LiMA but are also given to the new agency. This duplication of mandate, according to Mamey, will cause confusion both domestically and internationally if not reversed. “International maritime bodies will struggle to understand who has the ultimate authority in Liberia on the specific issues the new Act overlaps with the Maritime Authority.” Mamey noted.
Fiscal Burden and Rising Costs of Good for Consumers
The proposed Act proposes a funding mechanism that could place unnecessary financial burden on the already insufficient government budget for regulatory activities that the Maritime Authority has authority to do, strain the port authority of revenue it needs to invest in ports, and will increase fees for port users that would be transferred to Liberians through high prices for imported goods. Section 306 of the Act calls for financing the new agency through a combination of national budget allocations, additional port user fees, and a mandatory 10% levy on revenue collected by port operators. “This fiscal model will increase the cost of importing goods, further straining the Liberian economy that heavily depends on imports. For ordinary Liberians, this means higher prices on basic commodities,” Mamey explained in the memo.
His memo emphasizes that the new law does not align with the dominant practice in the seaport sector across Africa. He provided a matrix of fourteen African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, Sierra Leon, Senegal etc. that retain regulatory functions within maritime authorities while allowing the Port Authorities to manage the ports and commercial activities. In South Africa—the country in the region known for having a dedicated port regulatory agency—commercial and operational management of all the ports remain with Transnet National Port Authority, ensuring efficiency. Mamey says, the World Bank’s Port Reform Toolkit advises against excessive regulation and highlights the importance of maintaining independent oversight in port governance to foster competition and avoid bureaucratic bottlenecks that stifle innovation and undermine the ports ability to effectively and efficiently facility trade.
The memo calls on the Legislature to discontinue the creation of additional institutions where they are not needed and focus on strengthening existing institutions to avoid duplicating functions and straining the country of the finances that it desperately needs to invest in health, education and road programs that directly impact the lives of Liberians. “Reforms should be about efficiency not adding unnecessary layers of bureaucracy which conflicts with the principles of good governance,” he said. He asked the legislature to direct its energy to updating the Act of the NPA to reflect current day reality, modernize its governance structure and align it with the best global practices and to work with the Executive to fast-track the operationalization of the abandoned Single Window Initiative which can make transactions at the seaports faster, easier, and less costly for port users and their constituents.
