The Government of Liberia says it is prepared to brace direct and indirect impacts of obstacles posed by the departure of USAID.
By Lewis S. Teh
Monrovia, Liberia, February 20, 2025 – Barely a month following the suspension and cancellation of all USAID-funded projects to Liberia by the United States Government, Liberia’s Finance and Development Planning Minister, Augustine Ngafuan says the country is prepared to brace the direct and indirect impact of what he terms as “USAID obstacles.”
“Liberia’s is resilient and will surely overcome this latest obstacle”, Minister Ngafuan told the Voice of America’s Day Break Africa program Wednesday, February 19, 2025.
He says the U.S. government through its Ambassador paid him a courtesy call and told him that the project local for accountability and decentralization is among several projects that were cancelled under the USAID aid cancellation program.
According to him, the lead project is US$17 million, which was mainly helping the country in domestic resource mobilization.
We have set an ambitious agenda to increase domestic revenue through the Liberia Revenue Authority and USAID was the main partner assisting us to rollout this new tax system from what we call goods and services tax (GST) to Value Added Tax by 2026, he says.
Narrating further he notes that the project comes with training, investment assistance and USAID has been providing support for the government’s tax database system or E-tax, which has been assisting in improving the government revenue collection in local terrains.
He says other projects in education, health and governance, support to elections commission, which USAID has been supporting thru International and local NGOs, making sure that Liberia has free and fair election, but are all being affected as a result of the cancellation of USAID-funded projects.
Minister Ngafuan acknowledges that there are direct and indirect impacts, noting that there are other international organizations that had been supported by USAID and they have scaled down support, with USAID being Liberia’s second largest donor next to the World Bank.
He recalls that USAID support to Liberia from 2021-2929, totaling US$422 million, and agreement had been concluded to receive support in the tune of more than US$100 million to support education, health, agriculture and other key areas when everything halted by President Donald Trump.
Asked what Liberia is doing to mitigate obstacles faced by the cancellation of USAID-funded projects, he says the government has accepted the decision of the United States Government, and discloses that the Ministry of Finance has just concluded and will be submitting to President Boakai and the 55th Legislature short and long-term impacts and what is to be done to addressing the shocks.
“We will be engaging into some fiscal tightening, mopping up our resources mobilization, among other things. We are going to make sure we reduce losses and abuses, and we will also be engaging our partners in regional organizations; there are conversations in our block on what we are to do to reduce the impact of this cancellation”, he assures. Editing by Jonathan Browne
