Finance Ministry submits FY2022 Draft National Budget

Monrovia, Liberia - The Ministry of Finance and Development Planning on behalf of President George M. Weah and the Executive Branch of Government, on Thursday November 18, submitted the draft national budget which will run from Jan 1 to December 31, 2022, to the National Legislature.

The draft budget is in the amount of 785,587,340.00, (Seven Hundred Eighty-five million, five hundred eighty-seven thousand, three hundred forty United States Dollars).

Finance and Development Planning Minister Hon. Samuel D. Tweah presenting the draft fiscal instrument to House Speaker Dr. Bhofal Chambers; named eleven sectors as “significant priority” areas, to include Health, Education, Agriculture, Energy and Environment, Health, Industry and Commerce, Infrastructure and Basic Services, Security and Rule of Law, Public Administration and Transparency and Accountability.

Hon. Tweah said there is significant increment in every sector to address existing challenges.

According to him, the FY2022 national budget is the biggest budget in post-war Liberia.

“Honorable Speaker, the budget is an instrument of national development and transformation that is critical for the life of our people’’ he said.

The Liberian fiscal chief explained that across the eleven sectors of the budget, growth is at the highest peak, stating that for the Health sector, there is 11.3 percent increment in allocation, while education sector has a draft increment of 12.3 percent.

These increments, he noted, are going to help solve educational and health challenges, while also helping to protect women and mothers from childbirth complications, issues of drugs and other administrative issues across hospitals, teachers and primary spending in education.

He stated that social services which is basically about development interventions, will see a “massive” climb of 174.7 percent, equivalent to 26.3 million dollars.

Energy and environment have 76.1 percent increments, while Agriculture is 60.5 percent; industrial and commerce sectors is 62.6 percent, with security and the rule of law at 9.1 percent.

For the military and the national police, huge increments are made. “We address lots of problems in the police and Armed Forces of Liberia recruitments and these are issues of uniform and logistics; which are important to addressing crime issues”, he indicated.

Minister Tweah pointed out that the 2022 budget is going to speak to the development needs of Liberians. “We need to do more; we need to continue working to raise revenue from millions to billions of dollars to develop the country”, he said.

“Mr. Speaker, the development needs are many, but this is one of the best budgets that we can look to execute, and we will work very hard that entities will receive their money on time”.

For his part, Speaker Chambers thanked President Weah and his entire cabinet for the level of efforts and responsibility exerted.

“We are thankful for this submission. This instrument will determine brightness of the future, and we also want to thank the President, Dr. George M. Weah for his honorable responsibility and efforts been put in and the task assigned to him by the constitution to the effects that we have our eyes to see greater fruit.

When the budget is translated, it will serve our people. we want to say, we will coordinate our efforts to ensure that the best interest of Liberia people been address. We want Pro-poor speak by lifting the people out of poverty and we know that this will be durable and those challenges will be solved. Base on article 34B, we will do what is assign to us” Speaker Chambers added.