In Summary:
Activist Martin K. N. Kollie claimed the Liberian government spent US$24 million on fuel for vehicles and US$8.79 million on fuel for generators in two years, referencing the FY2024 budget outturn and the FY2025 budget.
A review of Annex 5 of the FY2025 National Budget shows that, in FY2024, the actual amounts spent were US$10.81 million for vehicles and US$4.53 million for generators, while the FY2025 budget allotted US$13.19 million for vehicles and US$4.27 million for generators, totaling roughly US$24 million and US$8.8 million respectively over the two years.
We conclude based on this research that Kollie’s claim is mostly correct, though the second year is based on the approved budget, not actual expenditure, since the FY2025 budget performance report has not yet been published.
Political activist Martin K. N. Kollie has claimed that the Liberian government spent US$24 million on fuel for vehicles and US$8.79 million on fuel for generators in just two years.
Kollie made this claim in a Facebook post on July 15 to highlight a directive by John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana, to cancel fuel allowances and allocations to all presidential appointees in that country.
The Ghanaian President made this decision on July 15 to reduce public expenditure, according to an official release from the Republic of Ghana.
The Claim
Kollie wrote this on Facebook: “Pres. John Mahama of Ghana just cancelled ALL fuel allowances and allocations to all presidential appointees. Just 2yrs in Lib, we spent US$24 Million on fuel for vehicles and US$8.79M on fuel for generators amid joblessness.”
Rating Justification
To verify whether the Liberian Government spent US$24 million on fuel for vehicles and US$8.79 million on fuel for generators, we contacted Martin via WhatsApp, asking for the specific years. He referenced the Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025 budgets, citing Annex 5 of the 2025 budget.
We reviewed Annex 5 of the FY2025 Budget cited by Mr. Kollie. This Budget Annex details the summary of the budget lines of expenditures for the two fiscal years.
A review of the document revealed that in FY2024, the government allotted US$9,548,929 for fuel for vehicles and US$4,462,866 for fuel for generators.
These amounts were increased to US$10,813,290 for vehicles and US$4,529,119 for generators in the FY204 Budget Outturns with budget codes: 221401 and 221402. The outturn is the actual amount the government spent on fuel for vehicles and generators in 2024 compared to what was budgeted/allocated.
Meanwhile, for FY2025, the government allocated US$13,188,919 for fuel and lubricants for vehicles in the budget and also allocated US$4,269,865 for fuel and lubricants for generators.
It is important to clarify that the budget performance report for the first and second quarters of FY2025 has not been made public. This makes it difficult to establish how much the government has spent on fuel and lubricants for vehicles and generators for the FY2025 so far.
We have found the total amount for the two budget years by summing up what was expended in FY2024 and allotted in FY2025.
For the 2024 budget year, the government spent US$10.8 million on fuel and lubricants for vehicles and US$4.5 million on fuel and lubricants for generators 2024. In 2025, the government allocated US$13.2 million for fuel for vehicles and US$4.3 million for fuel for generators. This amounts to US24 million for vehicle fuel and US$8.8 million for generator fuel.
Conclusion
Based on a review of the 2024 and 2025 national budgets, we conclude that the claim made by Martin K. N. Kollie that the government of Liberia spent US$24 million on fuel for vehicles and US$8.79 million on fuel for generators in just two years is partly correct.
While the actual expenditure for 2024 is public, the government has not published the performance report for 2025 to determine the total amount it has spent on fuel for vehicles and generators so fat this year.
