By Media Hub Liberia
Like many developing countries, Liberia is challenged on countless fronts. Be it art, culture or politics, the Country must overcome the challenges by doing concrete, tangible and measurable work to improve the lot of its people. Even though there may be competing priorities, those that lend to opportunities for the people to fend for themselves and triumph economically deserve utmost attention.
Transport economists suggest building and maintaining elaborate road network is one of the answers and surest ways to economic growth and prosperity. They add that where there are good roads, new jobs come about, trade and commerce flourish, travel time and cost lessen, cost of operating vehicles lower, and remarkably, the governed and governors, in good faith, exchange thoughts to enhance participatory democracy. Unfortunately, Liberia’s primary roads remain dismal and miserable. Whereas mere 574km are paved; a mamoth 1,752km remains unpaved and requires maintenance.
Liberia, with the land surface of 43,000 square/miles has the total of 9,916km. Although WorldPop, a global population distribution dataset, says the Country’s road network reaches approximately 73 percent of the total population, mere 734km are paved while a mammoth 9,182 unpaved. The survey shows that more than 90 percent of paved roads are in good or fair condition as 60 percent unpaved ones lie in poor or very poor state.
This can as well be said of the surface type of 11,423km roads surveyed. Of the lot, the survey added, 615km are excellent, 498 good, distressingly 4,038 and 4,765 are fair and poor respectively while 1,507 feebly very poor. Compounding this is the deplorable condition of bridges and culverts the survey uncovered. In all, 2,884 bridges and 7,651 culverts were found. Of the bridges, approximately half, at the time of the survey, lied in poor or very poor condition requiring reconditioning.
The deplorable or unimproved thoroughfares of the Country partly impede human interaction that comes with business transactions to boost the economy; strains family ties because people hardly pay visits to decide or plan profitable ventures; kills the creative industry as unreachable talents embedded with educational and scientific innovations remain undiscovered and untapped; and hampers agricultural activities that lend to food scarcity and ultimately shortage.
The bleak picture must and will change. The National Road Fund (NRF) put in place will do the trick when the required or necessary steps are taken to improve the road network. It only needs to function uninterrupted. The Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee (IMSC) chaired by the Minister of Public Works with the Ministers of Finance & Development Planning, Commerce & Industry, Internal Affairs, and Transport as members must lead efforts to remove or prevent any impediments that will hinder realization of the good objectives of the ‘National Road Fund Act of 2016’.
Key objectives of the NRF are to finance the maintenance of roads and bridges; ensure proper governance and oversight of monies to the extent of giving approbations to annual road maintenance expenditure programs road and bridge work agencies submit; and put in place administrative structures to collect; manage and disburse funds to and on behalf of road and bridge work agencies in Liberia. Also, the NRF must raise capital through Government-approved appropriations, Government-arranged grants, loans and levy road user charges.
The goals require the NRF to charge vehicles plying the roads based on each automobile’s mass, length, width, height, loading, axle and distance. With time, the NRF must install tolls at different points of the roads or bridges; impose fees on foreign vehicles entering Liberia; charge registration and license fees on vehicles and drivers; and levy petroleum products imported to Liberia. All this could generate financial resources to build and maintain the roads and bridges; create new jobs; and help boost Government’s revenue flow.
In pursuit of the milestones, a Government of Liberia and National Road Fund team toured Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, and in March, 2019, attended the 17th General Meeting of the African Road Maintenance Funds Association (ARMFA) in Namibia. During the gathering, the ARMFA established in 2003 in Libreville, Gabon with a consortium of thirty-four African States as members enrolled the National Road Fund of Liberia as its newest associate. Prior to the NRF’s admittance, the ARMFA has been a platform for sharing best experiences in road maintenance and safety practices, and created an important network among African Road Managers and several stakeholders that work on infrastructural development, maintenance and safety across the continent. It must be stated that as a result of Liberia’s enrolment, it’s National Road Fund will benefit from older Funds lesson learned during implementation of their early days, and knowledge-sharing and technological improvements or techniques used in other counties in road maintenance as the ARMFA strives to design a uniform system in terms of how Road Fund Management would operate.
Under its Road Fund Act of 1997 (Act 536), Ghana, for example, has left overseeing administering the Fund’s office solely to the National Road Fund Board. That means the Board ensures the office collects monies meant for the Fund; requires the office to identify other sources of funding, coordinate total and timely accountability of the Fund. Also, the Board obliges the Fund’s office to recommend to Cabinet the level of the road levies and other road user charges paid into the Fund, and to improve arrangements for the collection of road user charges.
Similarly, the Board entreats the Fund’s office to prepare and publish procedures for the disbursement of the Fund; determine the certification necessary to ensure that work is completed according to specification; review the annual expenditure programs of the road implementing departments and bodies; determine how much of the financing of the expenditure programs of the road agencies should come from the Fund taking into consideration existing cost-sharing formulas; and perform such other functions as may be incidental to its functions under the Act. All this generates money for the Ghana transport sector. For example, according to The Ghanaian Times, the Fund made whooping GHc627.4 million for Ghana in 2016 alone.
Similarly, Tanzania established a Road Fund Board in compliance with the Road and Fuel Tolls Act of 2006 (Chapter 220). The Board’s nine members include the public and private sectors; Permanent Secretaries of Works, Transport and Communications; Finance and Planning, President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government. Others are the Director from the Ministry of Works, representatives from the Tanzania Truck Owners Association, Tanzania Association of Tour Operators, Tanzania Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, and Tanzania Confederation of Co-operatives. The tenure of the Board is 3 years.
On its part, the parliament of Namibia established a Road Fund Administration (RFA) through the Road Fund Administration of 1999 (Act 18). The law charges the outfit to put in place and manage the Road User Charging System and the Road Fund to secure and allocate sufficient funding for the payment of expenditure with the view to achieve a safe and economically efficient road network in Namibia. To actualize this, the RFA instituted fuel levies, vehicle registration and annual licensing fees cross border charges, mass and distance charges, and abnormal load fees. Like Ghana, The Namibian reported that the Road Fund Administration accrued N$4.51 billion between 2016 and 2018 for the Namibia transport sector.
Lessons learned from tours of the other road fund outfits continue to propel the level of work being undertaken at Liberia’s National Road Fund. Since it became operational in May, 2018, for example, it has been able to levy US$0.30 on every gallon of petroleum products brought into the Country and in collaboration with the Liberia Revenue Authority and Liberia Petroleum Refining Corporation collected more than US$63 million. In January, 2019 alone, the collectors recorded US$13.3 of which US$8.8 was remitted to the NRF enabling the Fund’s office to pay US$5.5 million to the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) as partial payment of Liberia’s contribution to the Matching Road Maintenance Fund.
According to an unimpeachable source at the MCAL, the payment is Government’s initial matching contribution of US$8.8 million to the MCC Liberia must complete by June, 2019 in order to access the Compact’s US$15 million intended to maintain its primary roads. Nonetheless, donor partners fear that with transfers to the NRF’s accounts lagging 2 to 3 months behind schedule with the risk that Government will be tempted to increasingly rely on the road fund levy to cover non-road related expenses. It is potential hindrances like this all and sundry must endeavor to prevent if the NRF must survive and achieve its objectives.
Thankfully, the Country satisfactorily met some of the Compact’s eleven Conditional Precedents (CPs). Of the CPs Liberia has already satisfactorily fulfilled are the establishment of the National Road Fund now fully functional with a highly professional 15-member staff recruited in compliance with the laws of Liberia. Also, the Fund has completed a Five-Year Road Maintenance Plan (2019-2023) now being executed by the Ministry of Public Works, beginning with a 15-county tour of engineers, and an upcoming chip-seal road work covering Bomi, Gbarpolu, Grand Kru and Sinoe Counties. Significantly, the NRF has created a transparent financial system plus the adoption by the IMSC of manuals of administrative, financial, auditing, and accounting procedures. To compliment this worthy undertaking, the World Bank provided US$500,000 to digitize the entire financial system of the Fund to ensure transparency. Indeed, this is a key component to the NRF fulfilling or meeting its targets.
Also, the NRF has been able to open an independent commercial bank account for receiving the Government’s contribution towards the MRMF, a basket into which Liberia has already started to drop monies including the payment of US$5.5 million, already. Similarly, the MCC has accepted the NRF’s governing by-laws and procedures as well as its operational strategy both of which have already been endorsed by the IMSC.
As remarkable as the accomplishments are Liberia still has in the pipelines some of the CPs. To date, a draft template grant agreement between MCAL and the NRF is being perused by the MCC; and a draft MoU between the NRF and the Ministry of Public Works (MPW) is being finalized having been endorsed by the MCC. On the other hand, the MCC has received, and not objected the procurement manual prepared by the NRF. So also is the financial manual the IIU submitted to the MCC being reviewed as the draft of the IEA between the MCAL and MPW is being studied by the ministry. Importantly, it must be mentioned for public notice that funds have been deposited into the NRF’s commercial accounts, and the Government of Liberia will provide evidence that at least 90 percent of fuel levies collected has been deposited in the NRF’s accounts.
Had significant efforts not exerted to meet the CPs, the MCAL source predicted Liberia would forfeit the funds MCC set aside for periodic maintenance of primary roads across the Country.“ As far as I am concerned, international donors are very impressed with the management team at the National Road Fund. It only needs total independence to do its work. Any mistake on the part of Government or any of its functionaries will wreck all that has been achieved”, the source added.
Because constant maintenance will keep roads in pliable condition, the MCAL along with some local and international partners trained 13 staff of the Ministry of Public Works to the usage of the Highway Development Management (HDM-4). According to the MCAL staff, the highly complex software that uses data analysis to inform routine and periodic road maintenance which has been difficult for road engineers in other Countries, the MPW trainees did and are ready to roll with it in maintaining the primary roads. This is why the current management team of the National Road Fund should not or made to botch.
Another marked progress the NRF has made is keeping the confidence international donors reposed from the onset. They are the Deutsche Gesellscaft Fur InternationaleZusammenarbeit (GIZ), World Bank (WB), Millennium Challenge Account Liberia (MCAL), European Union (EU), African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United States Aid for International Development (USAID). The donors have good impression of the tremendous work underway at the NRF. For example, a highly placed source at the Deutsche Gesellscaft Fur InternationaleZusammenarbeit (GIZ) thought the system and structures being put in place will significantly lead to Liberia having sustainable and long-lasting roads and admonished road users to follow the rules and regulations on road usage. However, the GIZ official suggested the need for transparency of internal processes to award road work contracts particularly to Liberian groups.
It must be said that from the onset, the German international development agency donated equipment and chairs as well as a vehicle costing US$22,579.63 to help put the Fund’s office on its feet. Also, under its pillar road project, the GIZ has, to date, provided 300,000 EUR to recondition 41km of Monrovia-urban roads and a bridge covering the Caldwell to Louisiana; Clara Town to Jamaica Road; Neezoe to Parker Paint & Zazay Community; A.B. Tolbert Road to DuPort Road & Dillon Avenue; Oldest Congo Town to SKD Boulevard & GSA Road as well as the infamous St. Paul’s Bridge.
In spite the herculean task before the Fund and the impressive initial turnover, some importers and lifters owe the NRF more than US$20,894,620 and show little sign to settle that the matter was dragged to the Supreme Court of Liberia remedy. However, the matter was withdrawn for out of court settlement after President George Weah intervened in August, 2018. The oil companies in question are Conex, Srimex, Mayoubah & Sons Incorporated, Kailondo Petroleum, Petro Trade, Aminata & Sons and Monrovia Oil Transport Corporation. Others are Nexium Petroleum, West Oil Investment and National Petroleum Liberia. This distraction is needless, unhealthy, and must be checked otherwise it would undermine the aims and objectives of the NRF and by extension, the overall economic activities good and pliable road networks propel.
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