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HARPER CITY, Maryland County—In January 2023 pickup driver Elijah K. Allison received the good news that he was being considered for a driving job with a major rubber producer in the county. He had been a long time without a job and it would have been a major boost to him and his family of four children.
By Moses Geply and Anthony Stephens with New Narratives
But Allison’s hopes were dashed soon after the interview when the company asked for a valid driver’s license.
“When I get at the (County Service) Center, the lady told me that my request for a license will be sent to Monrovia for processing and sent back in a week’s time,” Allison said. A week was too late for the company. Other drivers already had their license. “I missed that opportunity because the Center did not produce the license.”
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Allison is one of many people who had taken advantage of the services offered by the Maryland County Service Center since it opened in 2009. It was one of 15 service centers opened across the country designed to save Liberians outside Monrovia from making the often-long trip to the capital. The center saved Maryland’s 170,000 residents the dangerous three-day journey to Monrovia for important documents such as business registrations, driver’s licenses and birth and marriage certificates. But that all changed in 2022. Financial and logistical support from Monrovia dropped. The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), stopped providing the software needed to process documents. Now the center serves fewer than five people a day, according to Mernice Dalieh, the center’s coordinator.
Dalieh says the center was once one of the highest revenue generators in the country.
“People paid for their documents and got them in time,” said Dalieh. But since 2021, the center now takes two to three weeks to provide the few services it still provides.
County Service Centers (CSCs), were a major element of the Sirleaf administration’s “Decentralization Program,” which has been heavily pushed by international partners. Instead of having all services and revenue generating activities centered in Monrovia, the program was meant to build the capacity of counties to provide government services and raise their own revenue from fees for the services they provided. Revenue was then to be made available for public services such as schools, roads, and other infrastructure.
The economic activity generated by the centers was high. County service centers generated $US 3.76 million in revenue from 2016 to December 2020, according to an analysis by Louis Kuukpen, then UNDP Liberia Deputy Resident Representative. But by 2022, as services dried up, so did revenue.
“Over 69 percent of MIA staff surveyed at the CSCs reported that they did not have computers or software to process traditional marriage certificates,” according to a 2022 World Bank survey conducted between March and April of that year.
“This is part of the MIA challenges in running the CSCs countrywide,” says Emmanuel Wienyou, Technical Focal Person in the office of the Internal Affairs Minister by WhatsApp.
In response to subsequent inquiries about funding to the service centers, Wienyou said, “All these questions are for MFDP [Ministry of Finance and Development Planning] AND the LRA [Liberia Revenue Authority]. The budget is a good source document for you.”
But what the counties claim to have received and what appears in the national budget are vastly different. The 2023 Draft budget shows all county service centers received just $US600 in 2021 (except Nimba which received $US3100). The document shows each center was allocated $US13,333 in 2022.
“I have not received thirteen thousand plus for the center,” said Dalieh, who took over the management of the Maryland County Service Center in 2020, by text. “I received on November 9, 2022, a check of $US3,999 from the Finance Ministry for my operation.”
Daileh broke down the different amounts she said she had received from the finance ministry.
“The first year Maryland County Service center received money from the government was January 5, 2020. Amount was $US2010,” said Dalieh. “Second money received, $US5709.32 plus, $LD1,025,623.54 on, September 8, 2020. Thirdly, $US3750 plus, $LD425,750. In April, $US1396. This is the final budget that was given to the center for smooth operation.”
Dalieh’s complaints of underfunding by the government are seconded by coordinators of county service centers of Gbarpolu, Sinoe and Margibi counties.
In a WhatsApp message, Richard Jay, coordinator of the Margibi service center, said he received a check for $US3,999 but he returned it to the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning because it “bounced”. He claimed a local bank told him that it was a bad check.
Jay said for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, he received “$US$7,691.40 & $LD1,010,762.86, US$7,875.09 & $LD897,470.30 and “$US7,800.00 & $LD788,117.61” respectively.
“I only received one operation fund from central government which is $US6000 since 2021,” said Darwin Derrick, who said he took over as coordinator of the Sinoe service center in 2021.
Owen Kolleh, Coordinator of the Gbarpolu service center said he too received $US6000 for operations from the ministry in 2020.
Critics say the failure of the Weah government to adequately fund the county service centers raises questions of corruption and undermines the government’s stated commitment to decentralize services and make life easier for people outside Monrovia.
A Finance Ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Payne Jr., said he had referred NN’s inquiries “to the relevant authority” and that “it may be a matter of research.” He said questions of underfunding needed “an investigation because what I do know that the budget was passed by the Legislature, and I think you need to reach out to them answer that question.” No further information was made available.
Ledgerhood Rennie, Liberia’s Information Minister asked this reporter to “please direct your inquiries to the Ministries of MDFP-(National budget) and MIA(Service Centers Operations).”
CSCs continue to struggle to survive. Most of them, like the Maryland County Service Center are closed for business day after day. Dalieh confirmed her center lacks resources to efficiently operate.
“Frankly speaking, there is a huge drop in the number of people that come to the Service Center here in Harper for documents,” Dalieh said. “People paying their money at the Center will have their requests and payment details sent to Monrovia, where it can take months for their documents to be processed and sent back to Harper.”
Sometimes, documents are sent to Grand Gedeh for processing, but that center too is now facing trouble. Because its ability to provide services has fallen, so too has its revenue.
Dalieh said she felt “very sorry to see my clients going home without being served, after covering long distances just to get document.”
It seems things will not get any easier any time soon. For people from rural parts of Maryland travelling days by motorbike, or on foot to Harper only to find out then that cannot have their documents processed quickly can had dire impacts on their livelihoods.
“Imagine someone leaving from inside Barrobo to Harper just to get a business registration document or birth certificate and at the end the person is not served because of lack of equipment at the center” said Alfred P. Wesseh, a resident of Green Street Community in Harper.
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Thomas Mawolo, Coordinator of Civil Society Organizations in Liberia, the umbrella group for all civil society organizations in the county had his own poor experience getting documents.
“I went to the County Service Center to get my organization’s business registration but couldn’t get it the time I needed it. So, I had to send all my document to Monrovia for process, hoping that my organization’s documents would not get missing or stolen along the way,” he said.
Mawalo said it has been heartbreaking for rural dwellers who feel they are going backwards.
He said the service centers’ “dysfunctionality does not only undermine government’s decentralization programs, it heaps economic burdens on people who travel from this region to Monrovia just to obtain a driver’s license.”
In an effort to address funding issues affecting county service centers, Liberia’s development partners supported an initiative in 2021 to amend the Revenue Sharing Law to enhance financial decentralization by allowing counties to keep 40 percent of revenues they generate from the operations of the centers. The money was then to be spent within five years on “deprived and marginalized towns in each county with a population of less than a 100,000 and the 10 most deprived and marginalized towns in each county with a population of more than 100,000,” according to the law.
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But the law, passed in 2022, has yet to come into effect, because of a number of factors, including the lack of logistics for the county councils to meet and operate.
Except for River Cess, all the counties have set up and validated council service structures that would approve all development and financial plans for the counties. Regulations for the operations of the councils have also been finalized and printed, said Aidoo.
Experts say funding for the counties will be critical for the full operations of the county service centers and ease the constraints that residents in those counties face to receive or access badly needed services.
“We are working again through USAID funding to make sure that we can engage the government through different advocacy measures to make sure the law is implemented,” said Harold Aidoo, Executive Director of Integrity Watch Liberia, one of the civil society organizations that pushed for the amendment in 2022. “Hopefully, as the government begins its 2024 budget formulation process, these are some of the things that we hope to work with the Ministry of Finance and the new Legislature to make sure that some of these things, you know, actually brought to fruition.”
This story was collaboration with New Narratives as part of the “Investigating Liberia” project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Monrovia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.