In Summary:
- Assistant Information minister Maylouisa Noel Hill claims that tourism budget line in the national budget has always been zero
- She also claims that there is US$500,000 allocated in the 2025 budget for tourism
- We have fact-checked these claims by checking the approved national budgets since 2017 and found that her assertions are misleading
On March 26, Maylouisa Noel Hill , Assistant Minister for New Media and National Branding at the Ministry of Information, appeared in an OK FM interview and made claims about budgetary allotments for tourism.
Madam Hill made the claim while highlighting actions that the Joseph Boakai’s administration has taken toward financing tourism activities as the government’s commitment to support programs at the Ministry of Information.
Claim
“For a very long time the Ministry of Information Culture Affairs and Tourism — tourism [has] been there, but tourism budget line has always been zero but there is 500,000 now in the budget for tourism.”
Rating Justification
To fact-check this claim, we reviewed the approved national budgets from 2017/2018 to 2025 with a specific focus on allocations for the tourism sector.
Our review found that in the 2017/2018 budget, US$79,615 was allotted for culture and tourism; in the 2018/2019 budget, US$70,815 was allotted for culture and tourism, while in the 2019/2020 budget, US$133,237 was allocated to culture and tourism.
Also, in the 2020/2021 budget, US$168,500 was allotted for culture and tourism; and in the 2021 special budget, which ran for the last six months of 2021, culture and tourism did not receive any allotment.
However, in the 2022 approved budget, culture and tourism were allotted US$1,515,000, while in the 2023 approved budget, culture and tourism did not receive any allocation.
But in the 2024 approved budget, culture and tourism received US$ 120,000.
In the current 2025 approved budget, the culture and tourism budget line did not receive any allotment; however, there is an allotment of US$250,000 allocated in the budget for tourism development and marketing and not US$ 500,000, as claimed by Assistant Minister Hills.
Conclusion
Based on these facts from our review of the national budgets since 2017, we conclude that the claim by Assistant Minister Marylouise Noel Hill that the tourism budget line in the national budget has been zero is incorrect.
Except for the 2021 Special Budget and 2023 approved budget, tourism was allotted funds in the national budget from 2017-2024 through the Department of Culture and Tourism at the Ministry of Information, Culture Affairs and Tourism.
Also, she is incorrect in that the US$500,000 is allocated for tourism in the 2025 budget. The amount allocated in the 2025 approved budget is US$250,000 for tourism development and marketing.
