Summary: Political Activist Martin K. N. Kollie has claimed in a Facebook Post that President Joseph Boakai’s budget has increased from US$2.4 million in the draft budget to approximately US$3 million in the approved budget for 2024. We have verified his statement to be correct.
On July 2, political activist Martin K. N. Kollie made a claim on Facebook that the budget of President Joseph Nyumah Boakai has been increased from US$2.4 million in the Draft National Budget to nearly US$3 million in the approved Budget for Fiscal Year 2024.
According to him, the President’s action led the National Legislature to increase its budget from US$38.3 million to US$53.3 million.
The claim
Martin’s post reads: “Mr. President, we celebrated you for reducing your budget to US$2.4m in the draft. Why did you increase it in the approved to approx. US$3 million? You’ve emboldened the Legislature to increase too from US$38.3M to 53.3M.”
Rating Justification
To verify this claim, we reviewed the draft budget and the approved budget for FY2024 as published on the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning website to establish the amount proposed in the draft budget and what was approved for the office of the President and the National Legislature respectively.
On Page 15 of the Draft National Budget, the total allotment for the office of the President amounted to US$2.4 million.
This amount in the draft budget was increased to US$2.9 million in the approved budget for FY2024 as shown in the below screenshot.
Meanwhile, the proposed amount for the National Legislature in the Draft Budget for FY2024 was US$38.3 million as shown below in the screengrab.
This amount was also increased to US$53.3 million in the approved budget for FY2024. Here is a screenshot below showing the increment in the budget for the Legislature.
Conclusion
Based on a careful review of the allotments in the draft national budget and the appropriations in the approved budget for FY2024, we conclude that Martin K. N. Kollie got his facts right about increment in the budget of the Office of President Boakai and the National Legislature.
A review of the National Budget by our Fact-checking Desk shows that the budget for the office of the President was increased from US$2.4 million to US$2.9 million, while the budget for the National Legislature was increased from US$38.3 million to US53.3 million for fiscal year 2024.
This report is produced with funding from the USAID Media Activity. The funder has No say in the editorial decisions leading to the production of this content
