Sen. Amara Konneh is Correct: Government Diverted Key Project Funds in FY2025 Budget

In Summary:

• Senator Amara Konneh has claimed that the Boakai administration has diverted Public Sector Investment Program (PSIP) funds from key development projects to unrelated recurrent expenditures, in violation of budget laws.

• Our review of the 2026 Draft Budget confirms his claim, showing that although $2 million was allocated for upgrades at the Roberts International Airport in FY2025, none of it reached the Liberia Airport Authority, while over $1.6 million was transferred to eight other entities.

• We also found, among other things, that $500,000 earmarked for the Executive Mansion renovation was never received by the General Services Agency but was instead redirected to the Ministries of State and National Defense.

• Based on this evidence, we conclude that Senator Konneh’s claim is correct. In the FY2025 budget, funding for over eight key projects was diverted or transferred to other ministries and agencies of the government.

On December 12, Senator Amara Konneh, in an apparent critique of the current administration’s handling of the national budget, claimed in a Facebook post that funds allocated through the Public Sector Investment Program (PSIP) for major development projects and institutions have been extensively diverted from their intended purposes. He claimed that these funds are often redirected to unrelated recurrent expenditures.

According to Senator Konneh, these reallocations, made after the Legislature approved the FY2025 budget, “obscure inefficiencies and may violate statutory requirements, particularly the Budget Transfer Act of 2008”.

He raised these concerns shortly after the House of Representatives passed the FY2026 National Budget and forwarded it to the Senate for concurrence.

The Claim

Excerpt from Senator Konneh’s post reads: “Notably, funds allocated through the PSIP for key development projects and institutions have been widely redirected from their intended investments, often towards unrelated recurrent expenses. These reallocations, made after legislative approval of the FY25 budget, obscure inefficiencies and may have violated statutory requirements, particularly the Budget Transfer Act of 2008. Our review of eleven PSIP projects totaling $16.1 million in the FY25 budget, as of October 31, 2025, reveals troubling insights. Below are the key observations:”

Rating Justification

In the post, the Gbarpolu County Senator listed several projects he claimed received “z𝗲𝗿𝗼 d𝗶𝘀𝗯𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁s by October 31, d𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗦𝗜𝗣 for FY2025.”

The projects, according to him, include: 

• Renovation of the Executive Mansion Project (GSA), $500,000 budgeted, $0 received by GSA, entire amount transferred to MOS and Defense.

• Roberts International Airport Upgrade (RIA), $2,000,000 budgeted, $0 received by Liberia Airport Authority, $1.23M transferred across eight entities.

• MFDP Headquarters Construction, $230,000 budgeted, $0 received by MFDP, $223K transferred elsewhere.

• Landfill & Urban Sanitation (MCC), $500,000 budgeted, $0 received by MCC, $250K transferred elsewhere, impacting EPA’s climate systems project and MCC’s Clean Cities and stalling resilience and sanitation goals.

• Education (MOE) alone lost $3.3M in planned investments, undermining school feeding and infrastructure priorities.

• Revenue Authority: LRA projects (DRTS and Revenue Enhancement), totaling $900K, received nothing, weakening domestic resource mobilization and modernization efforts.

• National Service Program (MYS), $1,000,000 budgeted, $601K disbursed to MYS + $785K transferred to Defense and MFDP = $1.386M, exceeding the approved ceiling by 39%.

• Agriculture Value Chain (MOA), $8M budgeted, only $4M disbursed to MOA, with $1.19M diverted to six other entities (MOS, NEC, MYS, MOE, LISGIS).

• Real Property Valuation (LLA), $1.57M budgeted, $278K disbursed to LLA, $986K transferred to MFDP, MOS, JFK, and NSA.

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To verify these claims, we reviewed the 2026 Draft Budget and related budget execution records. Our findings confirm the Senator’s claims.

For instance, the FY2025 Budget allocated US$2 million to the Liberia Airport Authority (LAA) for the upgrade of Roberts International Airport. However, as of October 31, not a single dollar had been transferred to the LAA. Instead, more than US$1.2 million from the same budget line was redirected across eight different government entities for unrelated purposes.

Similarly, US$500,000 allocated for the renovation of the Executive Mansion was never disbursed to the General Services Agency, the institution responsible for the project. The entire amount was instead transferred to the Ministry of State and the Ministry of National Defense.

Funding for the MFDP Headquarters Construction project also suffered a similar fate, with its allocation redirected away from the intended purpose.

Our review further shows that at least six key development projects recorded zero disbursements to their designated implementing agencies. These include planned upgrades for the Liberia Revenue Authority and several education-sector projects under the Ministry of Education. Notably, the education sector lost approximately US$3.3 million that was intended for school feeding programs and infrastructure development.

Even projects that received partial funding were affected by reallocations. Of the US$8 million budgeted for the Agriculture Value Chain project, more than US$1 million was diverted to other ministries, including the Ministry of State and the Ministry of Education. Likewise, nearly US$1 million from the Real Property Valuation project was redirected to unrelated agencies, undermining efforts to modernize revenue collection and strengthen fiscal governance.

The table below details the various allocations, disbursements, and transferred records for the FY2025 PSIP Execution as of Oct 31.

Conclusion

Based on these findings, we conclude that the claim made by Senator Amara Konneh that the Boakai administration has been diverting funds allocated through the Public Sector Investment Program (PSIP) for major development projects from their intended purposes to unrelated recurrent expenditures is correct.

A review of the draft 2026 budget shows that several PSIP projects were either underfunded or had their allocations redirected to unrelated recurrent expenses, at different Ministries and Agencies of the government.