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原文原文 / Original TextMONROVIA — Finance Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan says Liberia's record $1 billion in tax collections this year is already spent, not sitting in a government account, funding new soldiers, early salary payments and long-overdue debts to local banks and media houses. But about $200 million of that total, roughly a fifth, came from a one-time mining payment that will not repeat in 2027, and Ngafuan himself told listeners Thursday the government is already bracing for the gap it will leave behind
Ngafuan made the case on OK Morning Rush on OKFM 99.5, a day after marking two years since he returned to the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning on Sept. 16, 2024, leaving a post managing a $2.2 billion portfolio for the African Development Bank in Uganda. The interview came as public reaction to the billion-dollar announcement, which President Joseph Boakai delivered in a national address last week, has split sharply between official celebration and street-level doubt about whether or
Pressed on where the money actually went, since Liberia does not have $1 billion sitting anywhere, Ngafuan compared the government's books to a household budget in which income is deposited and spent continuously rather than banked. "It is raised and it is spent. It is raised and it is spent. It is raised and it is spent," he said. He said the government's own bank balance on any given day is a small fraction of what it collects over a year, likely no more than $50 million.
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He pointed to specific uses: recruitment of 600 soldiers now training at the barracks, a diagnostic testing center nearing completion, the ability to pay July salaries before the fifth of the month, and the clearing of what he called accumulated media debt owed by government. He also cited road paving linking St. Paul's Bridge to Bo-Waterside and a corridor running from Menekoma through Foya and Kolahun to Vonjama, financed through a public-private partnership to which he said the government has
The billion dollars he was defending is not the same figure as the $1.3 billion Liberian budget that has also drawn attention this year, though the two are related. Ngafuan said the government crossed $1 billion in domestic revenue collections between January and Sept. 14. That collection feeds a fiscal year 2026 budget that began as a $1.2 billion draft, was raised by the Legislature to $1.249 billion, and was later supplemented to roughly $1.3 billion after revenue came in above projections, h
Minister Ngafuan told listeners that a $200 million payment tied to the mining sector helped push this year's revenue past the threshold and will not recur, leaving the government to start next year's budget process facing what he called a $200 million gap, which he said he is confident growth will close or exceed. Independent budget analysis puts that concession payment at close to 16 percent of the original enacted budget; stripped out, this year's domestic revenue collection would land closer
Ngafuan was also asked about a separate skeptical claim that the government budgeted $400 million for debt payments in 2025 and 2026 but has borrowed more than that amount. He did not dispute the figure directly, instead arguing that debt itself is neutral and that what matters is whether it funds productive investment, citing World Bank financing for paving the road from Tapita to Zwedru as an example. He said this year's budget includes $235 million in debt service, of which $90 million goes t
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来源：AllAfrica (https://allafrica.com/)
原文链接：https://allafrica.com/stories/202609180375.html
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发表于 2026-9-10 21:50:04