- Liberian activist Martin K. N. Kollie has claimed that the Boakai administration increased the allocation to the NSA in the 2025 draft budget, making it more than the total allocations to all community colleges and that Liberia is in “The No Impact Zone” of the 2024 Global Terrorism Index
- We reviewed the 2024 draft national budget and the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) of 2024
- We found that the NSA budget has increased more than the sum of all allocations to counties’ community colleges, and that Liberia is ranked in “The No Impact Zone” on the 2024 Global Terrorism Index with score of zero.
Liberian activist Martin K. N. Kollie has made three claims about allocations to the National Security Agency (NSA) in the 2025 draft national budget.
Fact Check By: Jerry Gaye & D. Olivia Banwon | LVL Fact Checkers
On November 21, Kollie claimed on Facebook that “President Joseph Boakai had increased the budget for the National Security Agency from US$9.4 million to $14.9 million in the Fiscal Year 2025 draft budget”. He also claimed that the NSA budget is more than the total allocation to all Counties’ community colleges.
Kollie also claimed on Facebook that Liberia is in “The No Impact Zone,” of the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) for 2024, adding that the Security and Terrorist Threat Level in Liberia is very low; therefore, there is no need for increased budget to NSA.
Kollie made these claims following the President’s submission of the 2025 drfat national budget to the National Legislature.
Claim #1
“Pres. Boakai has increased NSA’s budget from US$9.4M to US$14.9M.”
Rating Justification
To verify this claim, we reviewed both the 2024 approved National Budget and the 2025 draft budget, as published by the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning.
In the 2024 Approved National Budget, under the Security and Rule of Law Sector, the NSA was allotted US$9.4 million on Page (XVII).
We also reviewed the 2025 National Draft Budget and found that the NSA is allocated $14.9 million. This means, there is an increment of US $5.5 million to the NSA in the draft national budget.
It is important to note that the 2025 draft budget is currently pending approval by the National Legislature.
Based on our review of the 2024 budget adthe draft 2025 budget, we conclude that the claim made by Kollie that the NSA budget has been increased from $9.4 million to $14.9 million is correct.
Claim #2
“NSA has more money than all counties’ colleges”
Rating Justification
To verify this claim, we reviewed the allocations made to various community colleges in the 2025 Draft Budget. The chart below shows the allocations to each community college and the sum of all allocations.
The chart below shows the allocations to community colleges in the 2025 draft National budget
| Bassa Community College | $871,802 |
| Bomi Community College | $875,802 |
| Nimba Community College | $1,573,360 |
| Lofa Community College | $1,938,927 |
| Grand Gedeh Community College | $859,147 |
| Sinoe Community College | $644,970 |
| Grand Kru Community College | $605,144 |
| Harbel Community College | $581,434 |
| Bong Technical College | $1,511,799 |
| Rivergee Technical College | $257,143 |
| Total allocation | $9,719,528 |
The sum of allocations for various community colleges in the 2025 draft budget is US$9.7 million, which is lower than the US$14.9 million budgeted for the NSA
Based on the reviewed of all the allocations to community colleges, we conclude that Kollie’s claim that the NSA has more money than all Counties Colleges is correct.
Claim #3
“The Security and Terrorist Threat Level in Liberia is very low. Liberia is in “The No Impact Zone” according to Global Terrorism Index, 2024. So why give NSA almost USD 15 million?”
Activist Kollie also claimed on Facebook that Liberia is in “The No Impact Zone,” of the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) for 2024.
He made the claim on November 24 while continuing his criticism against the Liberian government for allocating US$14.9 million to the NSA.
He argued that the amount allocated to the NSA is unnecessary given the absence of terrorism activities in the country.
Rating Justification
To verify this claim, we reviewed the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), a comprehensive study analyzing the impact of terrorism for 163 countries covering 99.7% of the world’s population.
The Global Terrorism Index 2024 report provides a comprehensive overview of global trends and patterns in terrorism over the last decade. It is developed annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, a leading international Think Tank, using data from Terrorism Tracker and other sources.
The GTI produces a score to provide ranking for countries on the impact of terrorism from zero to 10; where zero represents no impact from terrorism and 10 represents the highest measurable impact of terrorism.
A review of the 2024 GTI report found Liberia among several countries around the world ranked in the “No Impact Zone,” with a GTI score of zero. This score shows that Liberia has not recorded any terrorist incidents over the past five years.
Based on this finding, we conclude that the claim made by Martin K. N. Kollie that Liberia is in the “No Impact Zone” of the 2024 Global Terrorism Index is correct.
Conclusion
Based on the evidence we gathered from all the sources we reviewed including the 2024 National budget and the 2025 draft national budget, we conclude that all Kollie’s three claims are correct.
A review of the 2024 national budget and 2025 draft budget show that the allocations to the NSA has been increased from US$9.4 million to $14.9 million in the draft budget for 2025.
As to claim #2, Kollie is also correct considering that the NSA has been allocated US$14.9 million in the draft 2025 budget – US$5.5 million more than the 2024 budget of US49.4 million. The evidence corroborates this claim.
And for the 3rd claim, we conclude that Martin is correct about Liberia being in “The No Impact” zone of the 2024 Global Terrorism Index. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Liberia is amongst 22 countries that have a GTI score of zero, which means it has not recorded any terrorist activities over the past five years.
