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— As Ngafuan vows timely payments and gradual increments
MONROVIA – The Boakai administration has unveiled an ambitious plan to address the Weah era disparities in Liberia’s civil service pay structure. In a press statement delivered yesterday following President Joseph N. Boakai’s submission of the draft Fiscal Year 2025 budget, Finance Minister Augustine K. Ngafuan promised gradual salary increases for underpaid workers and timely salary disbursements by the 24th of each month.
“Beginning this month,” he said, “we have begun the full roll-out of [a] new re-engineered payment process. [Payment] of Government employees for […] November 2024 began on Friday, November 15th and the salary accounts of [government employees] at [more than] forty Spending Entities have already been credited.”
This pronouncement signals a major shift towards the fiscal responsibility prevalent under the President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s administration, in which Ngafuan previously served. Ngafuan and his predecessor, Sirleaf’s first finance minister Dr. Antoinette Sayeh, had inherited a public workforce starved of compensation for much of Charles Taylor’s wartime regime. Sayeh had worked to restore fiscal discipline writ large, including the consistent and timely payment of salaries. Ngafuan and his successors to the post of finance minister under Sirleaf had maintained that standard, while seeking to increase civil servants’ salaries and reducing bloating in the payroll.
However, his comments yesterday underscore the competing challenges of correcting the wrongs of George M. Weah administration’s wage bill policy, implementing a robust infrastructure and social development agenda, and ensuring macroeconomic sustainability. Referring to the budget of US$851.8 million, Ngafuan said it “represents an increase of US$112.9 million or 15.3% over [the 2024] budget.” “As significant as this jump may seem,” he added, “we are the first to concede that it does not address all the development ambitions and challenges of Spending Entities and our people, especially considering [that] the resource requests for 2025 of Spending Entities amount to roughly US$2 billion.”
A History of Salary Harmonization Gone Wrong
The salary harmonization policy introduced during the Weah administration drastically cut incomes for over 10,000 civil servants, pushing many below the legal minimum wage of $150 per month. Others in more senior bureaucratic positions saw their salaries reduced while some of their peers’ salaries rose or remained the same. Weah’s Finance Minister Samuel Tweah had spearheaded the initiative, touting it as a cost-saving measure to support the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD). But the reality painted a bleak picture.
Civil servants reported reduced purchasing power, missed payments, and financial instability as the government repeatedly delayed salaries. Staff across the three branches of government have felt the pinch, which drove some to take drastic and potentially fatal actions in protest. Meanwhile, political appointees saw their salaries protected or even increased.
Despite Tweah’s claim that the harmonization would cut costs, he consistently failed to fund the wage bill. He instead diverted donor’s project funds towards recurrent expenditures, including wages, drawing the censure from the international community. Tweah now faces trial for corruption. His policies, once heralded as necessary reforms, have been criticized for exacerbating inequality within the civil service and failing to achieve their stated developmental objectives.
Ngafuan’s Plan: A New Approach to Compensation
Under President Boakai’s leadership, the Unity Party government is taking steps to reverse these missteps. Key among them is ensuring no civil servant earns below the legal minimum wage. Additionally, the government has prioritized incremental salary hikes for educators and health workers—two sectors hardest hit by the previous administration’s policies.
Ngafuan also highlighted plans to allocate significant funding to essential sectors currently being paid below their pay grades. This includes including “nearly US$3 million dollars for the nearly two thousand teachers with C-Certificates, B-Certificates, Associate and Bachelor’s degrees” whose salaries current fall below match their respective pay grades and qualifications, he said. The draft budget also adds “at least US$225 each to the salaries of specialist doctors in the health sector, […] as the first action in the direction of fully regularizing their pay,” he added.
He further commented on the need to vet and evaluate volunteer workers in these essential sectors and regularize their employment status, in addition to broader reforms already underway at the Civil Service Agency (CSA).
Unresolved Issues: Arrears and Workforce Restructuring
While the government’s commitments are laudable, several questions remain. It is unclear if the government still owes civil servants arrears from the Weah administration. If so, settling these debts will pose additional fiscal challenges. While restoring salaries cut in the harmonization process would complicate matters, it would be important for the Ministry and CSA to make clear the government’s debt to civil servants. The draft budget provides no such information. The only mention of arrears refers to outstanding utility payments for public entities and scholarships for domestic and international students. Observers are waiting to see whether the impending budget hearings will address the settlement of outstanding salaries.
Additionally, the Boakai administration faces the complex task of rightsizing the public workforce, which grew significantly under Weah as his party, the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), created jobs for its political loyalists. According to critics, this bloated workforce undermined efficiency and increased recurring costs. The CDC, in turn, has blasted the CSA’s restructuring efforts, accusing the agency of conducting a partisan witch hunt.
A Balancing Act: Reform Amid Fiscal Constraints
Minister Ngafuan has acknowledged the fiscal hurdles associated with these reforms. Liberia’s limited revenue base, staggering debt stock of US$2.6 billion, and competing development priorities make it challenging to execute ambitious policies without external support or careful economic planning. Despite these constraints, Ngafuan stressed that the government is committed to addressing inequities and fostering a more effective civil service.
Given his past performance, observers have little doubt of Ngafuan’s fiscal management ability. The more sensitive question regards his ability to walk the political tightrope in a starkly different climate from the one he left behind in 2017. Critics within the CDC, who argue that the downsizing efforts are punitive, have majority representation in both legislative houses. Their own internal strife aside, it remains to be seen whether they will take a cooperative posture towards Boakai’s development agenda or seek to cripple it. Furthermore, the impending war and economic crimes court, which will likely affect certain elements of the CDC coalition more than others, has raised the stakes for even the most mundane bureaucratic reforms on Ngafuan’s plate. Some will view rightsizing of staff and the tightening of the fiscal strings as necessary to reduce government bloat and redirect funds toward priority areas. Others may see it as a direct affront.
For thousands of civil servants, the promise of timely salaries and fair wages offers a glimmer of hope—but delivering on these commitments will require more than promises. It will demand sustained focus, transparency, and the political will to put Liberia’s workers first.
As Liberia looks to the future, the success of these reforms will likely define public perception of the Unity Party’s governance. Achieving these goals will require navigating fiscal challenges, managing political opposition, and learning from the mistakes of the past.
Lilian Best is a political economist and journalist writing at the intersection of foreign policy, gender, and finance. She has held senior roles at the center of Liberia’s economic development architecture and holds a B.A. and M.A. from UC Berkeley and Princeton University respectively.
