MONROVIA, Liberia — The Government of Liberia has acknowledged and corrected an error in President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s 2026 Annual Message regarding road infrastructure while strongly defending the credibility of its reported job-creation figures, as Information Minister Jerolinmek Matthew Piah addressed journalists during the Ministry of Information’s regular press briefing on Tuesday.
Minister Piah clarified that a statement in the President’s Annual Message suggesting that Liberia’s paved road network had already increased from 12 percent to 20 percent contained an inaccuracy arising from a misquotation of data submitted by the Ministry of Public Works. He emphasized that the administration takes full responsibility for the error and has since corrected the record.
According to the corrected submission, the Boakai administration has taken “bold steps” toward reducing Liberia’s paved-road deficit from below 12 percent toward 20 percent, while prioritizing the maintenance of key national corridors. Piah noted that more than 783 kilometers of major roads have been maintained nationwide, restoring year-round connectivity across the western, northern, eastern, and coastal corridors.
“These interventions have reduced transportation costs, stabilized commodity prices, and improved access to hospitals and livelihoods,” the minister said, stressing that transparency required the correction to be publicly acknowledged.
Addressing widespread debate over the President’s claim that the administration created approximately 70,000 jobs, Piah dismissed criticism as selective and misleading. He explained that the figure cited in the Annual Message was intentionally conservative and supported by verifiable data across multiple sectors.
The minister disclosed that job creation spanned public works, agriculture, energy expansion, youth employment programs, and private-sector investments. Combined data from the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Public Works, the Liberia Electricity Corporation, private concessionaires, and donor-supported programs indicate that job creation in 2024 and 2025 exceeded 100,000 opportunities when aggregated.
“These are not abstract numbers,” Piah said, detailing employment generated through feeder-road construction, electrification projects, labor-intensive public works, agribusiness support, and private mining and manufacturing investments.
He cautioned against politicizing development statistics, arguing that visible progress—ranging from electrification of rural communities to road rehabilitation and improved fiscal discipline—should form the basis of public discourse.
“If after a one-hour-plus Annual Message, the only issue raised is 70,000 jobs, then it speaks to the substance of what was delivered,” Piah remarked.
The minister reaffirmed the government’s commitment to openness, accuracy, and accountability, adding that corrections and clarifications are part of responsible governance, not weakness.
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