In Summary:
- Embattled House Speaker Fonati Koffa in a Facebook post claimed that Liberians in the United States remitted about US$800 million to Liberia in 2023
- We have fact-checked the claim by reviewing all relevant evidence including the 2023 Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) report and the World Bank statistics.
- We conclude that Hon. Koffa did not get his facts correct about remittance from the U.S in 2023
On February 10, embattled House Speaker Fonati Koffa made a Facebook post claiming that Liberians in the United States remitted approximately US$800 million in 2023, which he said was more than the country’s entire budget that year.
Koffa’s Facebook post was made after President Joseph N. Boakai made a statement about Liberians living in the U.S. amid concerns that the Donald Trump administration is keen on deporting illegal immigrants back to their home countries.
Claim
“Liberians in the US remitted approximately US$800 million in 2023, an amount higher than the National Budget. Let’s pray that Donald Trump doesn’t go for them.”
Rating Justification
To fact-check this claim, we first defined remittance. According to the World Bank, the movement of funds from the country of work back to a home country is known as remittances.
To verify the claim, we checked the source Cllr. Koffa relied upon to make the statement. We observed that the screenshot shared by him was taken from Statista – a global data and business intelligence online platform.
The article which contains a graph visualizing the value of personal remittances in Liberia from 2010 to 2023 was based on the inflow of remittances from all other countries where Liberians are living and working not just the United States.
It shows that the inflow of personal remittance to Liberia in 2023 increased to US$800 million.
To further fact-check the claim, we reviewed the 2023 Central Bank of Liberia Annual report. Page 50 of the CBL report depicts a graph with an explanation on the inflow and outflow of personal remittance in Liberia in 2023.
Inward remittances are monies that are sent to Liberia from abroad while outward means monies sent from Liberia to another country.
The report shows that inward remittance which is the same as inflow remittance in Liberia was US$ 801.8 million in 2023 while outward remittance was US$71.6 million in the same year.
Meanwhile, the approved national budget in 2023 was US$ 782.94 million.
We also reviewed statistics published on the World Bank website. According to data from the World Bank, Liberia received a total of $800 million in personal remittances in 2023 countries across the world. This data did not detail the specific portion contributed by Liberians residing in the United States.
Conclusion
Based on this fact, we conclude that the claim by the embattled House Speaker Fonati Koffa that Liberians in the US remitted approximately US$800 million in 2023, is misleading. The US$ 800 million remitted to Liberia in 2023 was from all countries and not the US alone.
