In Summary:
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Mo Ali, former Unity Party Secretary-General and Managing Director of the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation, has claimed that the Unity Party government reduced Liberia’s public debt-to-GDP ratio from 57.8% in 2023 to 49.6% in 2026.
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Our review found that Liberia’s debt-to-GDP ratio actually declined from 51% at the end of 2023 to 50.3% by March 2026, a reduction of only 0.7 percentage points.
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The claim is therefore incorrect; Liberia’s nominal public debt increased by about US$630 million, from US$2.209 billion to US$2.839 billion over the period.
On August 11, Mo Ali, former Secretary-General of the Unity Party and Managing Director of the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation, claimed in a Facebook post that the Unity Party government inherited a public debt-to-GDP ratio of 57.8% in 2023 and had reduced it by 8.2 percentage points to 49.6% in 2026.
Ali made the claim following a meeting of the government’s Development Agenda Steering Committee on August 11 at Monrovia City Hall.
Liberia’s debt is made up of both external and domestic obligations, with multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and IMF among its major external creditors.
The Claim
He wrote this to Facebook: “We inherited public debt at 57.8% from 2023 and we have reduced it by 8.2% to 49.6% in 2026. Small small we seeing the results.”
Rating Justification
To verify the claim, we reached out to Mo Ali requesting the source of his information. In response, he forwarded the ARREST Agenda’s Implementation Summary, compiled by the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning.
We then reviewed the document and confirmed the data cited by Mr. Ali. Furthermore, we reviewed Liberia’s public debt portfolios at the end of December 2023 and the end of March 2026 using data from the Central Bank of Liberia and the International Monetary Fund.
Our review of CBL’s 4th Quarter report of 2023 found that “Liberia’s public debt portfolio at end-December 2023 had increased to US$2.209 billion, constituting 51.0 percent of GDP.”
Also, a joint World Bank-IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis of Liberia’s public debt indicates that by December 2023, Liberia’s public debt had increased to US$2.539 billion (57.8 percent of GDP).
Meanwhile, by the end of March 2026, the debt stock had increased to US$2.839 billion, equivalent to 50.3% of GDP, from US$2,824.36 million, or 54.1 percent of GDP, recorded at end-December 2025. The CBL reported this figure in its 1st Quarter Financial and Economic Bulletin of 2026.
According to the IMF, Liberia’s total public debt at the end of 2025 was US$2.863 billion, equivalent to 54.9% of GDP. Of this, external public debt was US$1.868 billion and domestic debt was US$996 million.
Conclusion
Based on these findings, we conclude that Ali’s claim that the Unity Party government reduced Liberia’s public debt-to-GDP ratio by 8.2 percentage points—from 57.8% in 2023 to 49.6% in 2026 is consistent with the implementation report of the ARREST Agenda.
However, a review of CBL public debt data at the end of 2023 and March 2026 shows that in 2023, Liberia total public debt was US$2.209 billion, constituting 51.0 percent of GDP, while at the end of the first Quarter of 2026 was US$2.84 billion or 50.3 percent of GDP.
This means, the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio declined by only 0.7 percentage points, from 51% at the end of 2023 to 50.3% at the end of March 2026. However, the nominal debt stock increased by approximately US$630 million over the period.
