MONROVIA — Liberia’s Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan, has mounted a robust defense of the Boakai administration’s economic stewardship, insisting that while the country has not yet reached its destination, it is firmly moving in the right direction.
Appearing on The Class Reloaded, a government-backed online talk show aired on Facebook, Minister Ngafuan used a vivid road-journey analogy to respond to critics questioning the state of the economy.
“If you are going from Red Light to Kakata and you reach 15 Gate, have you reached Kakata?” Ngafuan asked rhetorically. “No. But you are not where you started.”
The Minister said Liberia’s economic trajectory must be measured by direction and momentum, not unrealistic overnight expectations. According to him, the country entered 2025 amid serious external shocks, including the abrupt withdrawal of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) support, which disrupted health, education, water, sanitation, and school feeding programs nationwide.
“That shock alone affected thousands of jobs and essential services,” Ngafuan explained, noting that critics often ignore such global and external realities when assessing government performance.
Despite these challenges, Ngafuan said Liberia recorded 5.1 percent economic growth, exceeding earlier projections. Inflation, which stood at double-digit levels in early 2024, has fallen to approximately 4 percent, the lowest rate in nearly two decades. He also disclosed that domestic revenue mobilization reached US$847.7 million, the highest in Liberia’s history.
“These are not talking points; these are facts,” the Minister emphasized.
Ngafuan described President Joseph Nyuma Boakai as an experienced leader navigating economic turbulence with discipline rather than panic. “When there is turbulence in a flight, you want an experienced pilot, not someone who will abandon the controls,” he said.
Responding to opposition figures and analysts predicting economic collapse, Ngafuan said such “doomsday narratives” have not matched reality. He argued that Liberia’s macroeconomic stability, strengthened fiscal discipline, and improved donor confidence reflect a country regaining credibility.
The Minister acknowledged that ordinary Liberians continue to face hardships but cautioned against equating hardship with failure. “Stabilization comes before expansion,” he said, adding that without stabilizing inflation, revenue, and public finance management, any social intervention would be unsustainable.
Ngafuan also addressed public frustration over wages, public sector employment, and service delivery, explaining that Liberia operates within strict fiscal ceilings agreed under international financial arrangements.
“You don’t fix structural problems by pretending they don’t exist,” he said. “You fix them by managing them responsibly.”
Throughout the discussion, Ngafuan maintained that progress must be judged comparatively and sequentially. “Today is better than yesterday,” he said. “And tomorrow will be better than today.”
He urged Liberians to resist despair and instead focus on evidence-based assessments of national progress.
“This country has seen collapse,” Ngafuan said. “What we are doing now is rebuilding — carefully, responsibly, and deliberately.”
As Liberia continues its economic recovery under tight fiscal conditions and uncertain global trends, the Finance Minister’s message was clear: the journey is not over, but the road ahead is no longer the one Liberia was on before.
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