MONROVIA: The political leader of the Movement for Progress Change (MPC), Simeon Freeman, has launched a scathing critique of President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s midterm State of the Nation Address (SONA), warning that the administration risks deepening Liberia’s chronic governance crisis.
Freeman accused President Boakai administration of prioritizing the creation of new institutions over fixing a public sector already crippled by weak capacity, poor coordination, and systemic underperformance, Frank P. Martin of Staff Reports.
Appearing on OK FM on Thursday, February 5, 2025, Freeman described the Boakai-Koung Rescue Government’s reform agenda as emblematic of what he called “expansionist and cosmetic approach to governance,” one that substitutes institutional multiplication for the difficult work of restoring state effectiveness.
“Liberia does not suffer from an absence of institutions,” Freeman said. “We suffer from institutional decay—weak performance, fragmented authority, political patronage, and a severe shortage of professional manpower within the structures that already exist.”
President Boakai, in his address to the Legislature, outlined an ambitious reform program intended to strengthen state institutions, restore investor confidence, and improve service delivery.
Key proposals included a Presidential Transition Act; the establishment of a National Planning Commission and a National Road Authority; amendments to the Mineral Development Agreement with ArcelorMittal; the creation of a specialized property court to resolve land disputes; and the rollout of a Universal Health Insurance Program.
The President also proposed reforms to the Civil Service Commission, restructuring the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expanding the mandate of the Agriculture Commodities Regulatory Authority (LACRA), and repealing outdated anti-corruption decrees in favor of stronger legal frameworks.
While acknowledging that many of the policy goals are legitimate, Freeman questioned the governing logic behind the proposals, arguing that Liberia’s core governance failure lies not in the absence of laws or institutions, but in the state’s persistent inability to implement, enforce, and coordinate existing ones.
“Creating new commissions, authorities, and courts without first fixing structural weaknesses amounts to reform substitution,” Freeman warned.
“It strains public finances, dilutes accountability, and entrenches mandate overlap—one of the main drivers of inefficiency in the Liberian state,” he stressed.
Freeman situated his critique within Liberia’s recent political history, contending that the Boakai administration risks repeating a pattern established under successive governments.
According Mr. Freeman, under former President Charles Taylor, governance was heavily centralized and personalized, with parallel security, revenue, and administrative structures created to bypass weak formal institutions.
Rather than strengthening the state, this approach hollowed it out, leaving ministries dysfunctional and professional capacity depleted.
The post-war Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf administration, Freeman noted, pursued aggressive institutional rebuilding, creating new commissions, task forces, and autonomous agencies—many driven by donor conditionalities and reform signaling.
While some progress was achieved, the proliferation of semi-autonomous bodies often weakened line ministries, fragmented authority, and entrenched dependence on external technical assistance, the tough-talking opposition political leader asserted.
The George Weah administration, he further elucidated, continued the trend, responding to public sector failure by creating additional authorities and special projects units, while civil service reform, performance management, and enforcement of standards remained largely stagnant.
“What we see across administrations is the same cycle,” Freeman said. “When institutions fail, government creates new ones instead of repairing the old. This is how accountability is diluted and responsibility becomes impossible to pin down.”
Freeman pointed specifically to proposals such as the National Planning Commission and the National Road Authority, arguing that their mandates already reside within existing government frameworks.
“We already have a Ministry of Finance and Development Planning with a deputy minister for planning,” he said. “Why create a National Planning Commission? We already have the Ministry of Public Works. Do we now need another institution called the National Road Authority?”
According to Freeman, such overlaps fuel bureaucratic competition, turf wars, and fiscal leakage, while doing little to improve public service delivery.
He asserted that Liberia’s governance deficit is fundamentally a crisis of state capacity—defined by weak human resources, politicized appointments, poor incentives, and ineffective enforcement—rather than a lack of institutions or legislation.
Supporters of the President’s agenda maintain that new institutions are necessary to modernize the state, address entrenched dysfunction, and rebuild public trust after years of weak service delivery.
They contend that specialized bodies can bypass institutional inertia and accelerate reform.
But, Freeman, a top business tycoon, dismissed such argument as risky and unsustainable, warning that parallel structures often become vehicles for political accommodation rather than engines of transformation.
“The opposition will scrutinize every proposal as it moves through the Legislature,” Freeman said, urging lawmakers to assess institutional necessity, fiscal sustainability, and manpower capacity.
Freeman: “Liberians want outcomes, not institutions on paper. They want roads, jobs, healthcare, and justice—not more signboards.”
He concluded that the ultimate test of the Boakai administration will be whether it breaks with Liberia’s historical governance pattern.
“The real measure of leadership,” Freeman said, “is not how many institutions you create, but whether you can make the state work for the people, using the structures they are already paying for.”
Truth • Independence • Accountability
