Summary:
- Sumo Mulbah claimed that the 2025 Approved National Budget was not signed by the ‘majority bloc’ Speaker Richard Koon.
- We checked this claim by reviewing the 2025 approved budget and other correspondence from the official Facebook page pf the House of Representatives
- We found that the claim made by the lawmaker is incorrect
On April 24, Montserrado County District #3 Representative Sumo Mulbah, speaking on Punch FM/TV’s morning show, claimed that the 2025 approved National Budget was not signed by the ‘Majority Bloc’ Speaker Richard Koon. Instead, he asserted that the document bears the signature of Deputy Speaker Thomas Fallah.
Rep. Sumo raised this point while discussing the legitimacy of the 2025 budget’s passage, emphasizing that the recent Supreme Court ruling, affirming Fonati Koffa as the constitutionally elected Speaker, has no bearing on the budget’s legal standing.
The Claim
Here is Rep. Sumo Mulbah’s exact statement: “The one that signed the budget is not Richard Koon. If you look at the 2025 budget – I saw the approved budget that was sent to the President… I saw Rep. Thomas Fallah’s signature, so Richard Koon is not the one that signed the [2025] budget.”
Rating Justification
To verify if the 2025 Approved Budget was not signed by the ‘majority bloc’ Speaker, Richard Koon, we reviewed the 2025 Approved National Budget published by the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP).
In Liberia, MFDP is the government body primarily responsible for formulating, preparing, and executing the national budget.
Our findings show that the budget was indeed signed by Rep. Richard Koon, not Deputy Speaker Thomas Fallah. The document bears Rep. Koon’s signature.
For additional confirmation, we cross-referenced the signature on the budget with one found on an official statement released by Rep. Koon and published by the House of Representatives Press Bureau in response to the April 23, 2025, Supreme Court opinion in the case involving Hon. J. Fonati Koffa. We found that the signatures matched.
Conclusion
Based on this finding, we conclude that the claim made by Montserrado County District #3 Representative Sumo Mulbah that the 2025 approved National Budget was not signed by the ‘Majority Bloc’ Speaker Richard Koon, instead it was signed by Rep. Thomas Fallah, is INCORRECT.
A thorough review of the 2025 National Budget and official correspondence from Rep. Koon’s office confirms that he, NOT Deputy Speaker Thomas Fallah, signed the document.
