In Summary:
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A staunch supporter of the Congress for Democratic Change, Benedict Kolubahn has claimed that under his party’s administration, Liberia’s national wage bill rose only slightly from $290 million in 2018 to $296 million in 2023, but jumped to $316 million in two years during the current Unity Party administration
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We have verified this claim by reviewing the Government’s official financial statements, which show that the wage bill actually increased from $292.4 million in 2018 to $301 million in 2023
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However, a review of the wage bill in the last two years shows that the current administration reduced the wage bill to $274.7 million in 2024 but projected it at $315.5 million in the 2025 National Budget.
Benedict Kolubah, former Assistant Minister for Development Planning at the Ministry of Finance, has claimed that during the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) administration, the national wage bill increased only slightly, from $290 million in 2018 to $296 million in 2023.
He further alleged that under this Unity Party administration, the wage bill has jumped from $296 million to $316 million.
Mr. Kolubah made this claim in a September 22 Facebook post, defending the CDC’s management of the wage bill while criticizing the Unity Party for bloating the payroll and cautioning that its current hiring practices could push Liberia into fiscal trouble.
Claim
An excerpt of his post reads: “Under CDC’s leadership, from FY2017/2018 to FY2023, the wage bill moved only slightly from $290 million to $296 million. In less than two years (FY2024–FY2025), the wage bill has jumped from $296 million to $316 million.”
Rating Justification
To verify this claim, we reviewed the Government of Liberia’s consolidated financial statements from 2018 through 2023.
According to the records, the CDC administration inherited a wage bill of $292.4 million in 2018. During its first national budget formulation, the administration increased the wage bill to $305.77 million in the 2018/2019 fiscal year.
The screenshot below shows the wage bill inherited by the CDC administration in 2018, along with the amounts it spent on salaries, employee costs, and social contributions.
In the second budget year of 2019/2020, the wage bill fell to US$292.54 million in 2019/2020 and US$295 million in 2020/2021.
A review of the 2019/2020 consolidated financial statement revealed that expenditure on employees’ compensation amounted to US$297.34 million, of which wages and salaries in cash accounted for US$292.54 million.
The wage bill then rose to US$298 million in 2022 and US$301 million in 2023, the final year of the CDC administration. These figures in the financial statement contradict Mr. Kolubah’s claim.
According to the financial statement, expenditure made on employees’ compensation for FY2022 amounted to US$301.16 million against a final budget amount of US$315.91 million, of which wages and salaries in cash accounted for US$301.14 million or 99.9%.
For FY2022, wages and salaries in cash also accounted for US$297.7 million, as seen on the screenshot below.
By comparison, the UP administration took office in 2024 with the wage bill at US$301 million, but reduced it to $274.7 million in that same year.
In the 2025 national budget, the administration projected the wage bill at $315.5 million. Below is a screenshot of a significant part of the 2025 fiscal envelope indicating the amount projected for the payment of wages and salaries to employees of the government this year.
Conclusion
Based on these findings, we conclude that Kolubah’s claim that the CDC administration increased the wage bill from US$290 million to $296 million is incorrect; the wage bill actually rose from US$292.4 million in 2018 to US$301 million in 2023.
Meanwhile, his claim that the UP administration raised the wage bill to US$316 million in less than two years is mostly correct: the Boakai administration initially reduced the wage bill from US$301 million to US$274.75 million in 2024, but projected it at $315.5 million in the 2025 National Budget.
