BREWERVILLE, Montserrado County, Liberia, Oct. 12, 2026 — A prominent Liberian clergyman has backed growing calls for a “third lane” in the country’s politics ahead of the 2029 elections. He cautioned, however, that any new movement must offer genuine change rather than recycle familiar faces.

He said such moves were part of the reason ordinary citizens “still yearn for something else politically,” and he urged Liberians to be honest with themselves. “They must mean it when they say they want real change,” he said.

The bishop also said the credibility of any third force would depend on who leads it. “Liberians will not buy an empty third lane,” he said. “It can’t be a contest of political rivals who are dissatisfied with one another, or people who want revenge against one another or to fool one another.”

Instead, he called for “a new line-up of sincere and professional Liberians who are genuinely interested in promoting the political, economic, social and religious causes of the ordinary people.”

“UP and CDC are now brand names with big followings,” Brown said. “However, people are still politically thirsty.”

MONROVIA — Nearly two decades after their last competitive meeting, Liberia and Rwanda are set to renew an international football rivalry that features only two previous encounters but carries a remarkably balanced history.

By: Christopher C. Walker, christopher.c.walker@frontpageafricaonline.com

The Lone Star will on Friday September 25, take on Rwanda in Kigali in their opening Group K fixture of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers, with historical precedent offering both sides a stark reminder of their previous clashes.

Liberia and Rwanda have met just twice at the senior men’s international level, according to official records from the Liberia Football Association (LFA) and international database.

The head-to-head record remains deadlocked: Liberia secured a hard-fought 3-2 victory in Monrovia on October 8, 2006, before Rwanda responded emphatically with a 4-0 win in Kigali on September 8, 2007.

The series stands at one victory apiece with zero draws, though Rwanda holds the aggregate goal advantage at 6–3.

Friday’s clash at Amahoro Stadium marks the first meeting between the two nations since that 2007 qualifier, a reunion following a 19-year hiatus.

The venue itself inevitably brings back memories of Liberia’s heaviest setback against the Amavubi.

The First Meeting: Liberia Strikes First

The rivalry originated in Monrovia during qualifying for the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations. Playing at the Antoinette Tubman Stadium (ATS) on October 8, 2006, Liberia earned a 3-2 victory over Rwanda, establishing early dominance on home soil.

However, Rwanda delivered a swift response less than a year later.

Kigali Revenge

On September 8, 2007, Rwanda hosted Liberia in the return fixture in Kigali and delivered a dominant performance, routing the Lone Star 4-0. The result stands as Rwanda’s largest win over Liberia, while the 3-2 victory in Monrovia remains Liberia’s lone high point in the series.

Following that encounter, both national teams went nearly two decades without crossing paths in competitive action.

Nineteen Years Later

The continental football landscape has transformed significantly since 2007. The players involved in those initial qualifying campaigns have long since retired, and both national programs have undergone multiple generational shifts, tactical realignments, and coaching overhauls.

Liberia’s current roster features a blend of European-based professionals, continental talent, and top domestic performers. Rwanda enters the match aiming to leverage strong home support at the newly renovated Amahoro Stadium.

While the historical record provides rich narrative context, it holds little bearing on Friday’s outcome both teams arrive under entirely new technical leadership, tactical frameworks, and competitive circumstances.

A New Era for the Lone Star

Liberia enters Friday’s fixture under new technical leadership, with Moroccan head coach Mohammed Adil Erradi preparing for his first official competitive test.

Erradi has named a 25-man squad blending veteran international experience with promising young talent. Among those summoned are goalkeeper Amos Wesseh alongside core defenders Jamal Arago and Sampson Dweh, supported by a dynamic group of midfielders and attackers.

The Liberian delegation arrived in Kigali early this week to conduct tactical sessions and adapt to local conditions. For Liberia, the opener offers an immediate opportunity to establish momentum and reverse historical road struggles.

The Weight of Group K

The 2027 AFCON qualification path has placed Liberia and Rwanda in Group K alongside West African contenders Mali and Cape Verde.

In a tightly contested group, dropping early points could prove costly.

For Liberia, opening on the road in Kigali presents a demanding initial test given travel logistics, a partisan crowd, and the pressure of matchday one.

While Friday offers Rwanda a prime chance to make a strong opening statement in front of home supporters.

Head-to-Head Overview

Total Matches Played: 2

Liberia Wins: 1

Rwanda Wins: 1

Draws: 0

Goals Scored: Rwanda 6, Liberia 3

More Than a Historical Rematch

For Liberia, Friday’s objective extends beyond settling scores from 2007. The focus centers on establishing tactical cohesion under Erradi and building early momentum in the quest to reach Africa’s premier international tournament.

A positive result in Kigali would provide the Lone Star with a firm foundation ahead of upcoming group fixtures.

However, securing points on the road against an Amavubi side determined to defend its home turf will require maximum discipline and focus over the full 90 minutes.

When the opening whistle sounds at Amahoro Stadium, past records will yield to the present. With the head-to-head record tied and a new generation on the pitch, both nations stand ready to write the next chapter in their revived rivalry.

Liberia’s Largest Trafficking Trial Ends in Convictions for All Defendants

By Anthony Stephens, senior justice correspondent with New Narratives

A jury convicted all eight defendants on all charges Monday in Liberia’s largest human trafficking trial, delivering a unanimous verdict after roughly 20 minutes of deliberation and closing out a case that has tested the country’s justice system under intense international scrutiny.

The defendants were found guilty of trafficking in persons, criminal conspiracy and theft of property; those facing rape charges were convicted on those counts as well. The speed of the jury’s decision came after nearly three weeks of testimony from dozens of the case’s 57 alleged victims, who described being lured with false promises of jobs in Canada, then held for months at a compound in Gbankpa Town, Margibi County, where they say they were beaten, raped, starved and coerced into extorting money from their own families.

The verdict is the first conviction in a case that nearly collapsed before it reached trial. A March investigation by FrontPage Africa/New Narratives revealed that nine victims had accused public defender Bestman Juah of offering a US$7,000 bribe to reduce charges, and accused police investigator Enoch Dunbar of accepting payment to alter victim statements and drop charges — allegations both men have denied. Liberia’s solicitor general, Augustine C. Fayiah, later ordered a separate investigative panel to examine those claims.

The case had also been shadowed by Liberia’s broader record on trafficking prosecutions: the government lost three trafficking cases between 2023 and 2024, and just six of 22 cases that reached Liberian courts since 2020 had ended in conviction before Monday’s verdict. Liberia has spent two consecutive years on the US State Department’s Tier 2 watch list for trafficking enforcement, with a third year risking a cut in American aid.

Four defendants had already pleaded guilty before the verdict. Shelley Jonny struck a deal with prosecutors on June 10, testifying against her co-defendants in exchange for having her charges dropped. Three more — Maxson Wonlebaye, Martherline Tompia and Preston Godfred — pleaded guilty a day later but were denied the same deal, with prosecutors saying their admissions would count only as a mitigating factor at sentencing.

Prosecutors built their case on testimony from victims who identified specific defendants by name, corroborated by rebuttal witnesses in the trial’s final days who directly contradicted defendants’ denials — including testimony that defendant Jerome Genseh took as much as US$18,000 from one accuser under false promises of travel, and Dunbar’s sworn denial that police had taken defendants’ property.

For a justice system that has struggled for years to secure trafficking convictions, and for a government facing pressure from Washington over its record on the crime, Monday’s unanimous verdict stands as a marker of whether the system can hold traffickers accountable even when bribery allegations threaten a case from the inside. Advocates who had criticized the government’s initial handling of the case are likely to point to the conviction as evidence that sustained scrutiny — from journalists, from victims willing to testify, and from prosecutors who ultimately restored dropped charges — can still produce a result.

Sentencing has not yet been scheduled, and neither prosecutors, defense lawyers nor victims have issued public statements since the verdict. **This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

By Joyclyn Wea, gender reporter with New Narratives

• Access to abortion pills, costing as little as $5, has quietly expanded, helping some women access safe abortions and by-pass legal restrictions.
• As rights groups warn that unsafe abortions are driving the country’s high maternal death rate, legislators debate bill that would expand access to legal abortion.
• Religious leaders and conservative politicians strongly oppose the legalization of abortion, leaving the bill’s passage in the Senate uncertain.

D. was 18 and had just entered the 12^th grade in 2017 when she discovered she was pregnant. Like all teenage students, ambitious for a successful future – in her case as a banker – she feared having a baby would end her dreams. She also feared the shame it would bring to her mother who had worked hard selling potato greens in a local market to pay for her daughter’s education so she could have a better life.

D.’s sister’s boyfriend offered a solution. He told her there were now pills available that could end the pregnancy safely.

“He showed me the medicine,” D. recalled. She paid $20 for four small pills – two different medications – that came in a matchbox-sized package. Following the instructions she took one medication by mouth and waited 12-24 hours for signs the pregnancy had ended. Then she took the second medication which expelled the contents of her womb.

For D. it was a huge relief. She had heard many stories of women who had been forced to obtain abortions illegally. They often ended in tragedy. The identities of all women in this story are being withheld to protect them from stigma.

“There wasn’t any fever, pain, and I didn’t go to the hospital after,” she said.  

D.’s stories is part of a quiet revolution occurring across the world including in Liberia. Medicines are now offering women and girls safe alternatives for abortion. Liberian law only permits abortion in a few cases: rape, incest, fetal abnormality, or threats to maternal health. Getting permission requires written approval from at least two doctors, and cases involving sexual assault must be documented with evidence provided to the health minister, county attorney, or police. Performing an illegal abortion carries penalties of up to five years in prison.

The result has been that only wealthy women have been able to get safe abortions while thousands of poor women and girls are maimed or killed each year after resorting to dangerous methods, including inserting sticks and glass inside their wombs and drinking toxic chemicals. Liberia has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, and unsafe abortion is a major factor.

Another woman, T., had a very different experience. Discovering she was pregnant at age 15 and desperate to hide it from her parents, she sought an abortion from a man in the community who did the procedure quietly for $US50.

Seven years on T. suffers from constant pain. Doctors have told her she would not bear children. “The doctors to JFK and ELWA say the person didn’t do the work good and the money they are requesting, my father doesn’t have that money,” she said. “I can just be praying to God, asking God to forgive me.”

T. is one of thousands of Liberian women harmed every year in the quest to access abortion. A groundbreaking 2021 study by Liberia’s Ministry of Health in partnership with the Clinton Health Initiative revealed the staggering scope of unsafe abortion – more than half of all pregnancies were unintended, with one-third, or more than 38,000, ending in abortion.

“One in every three women who have induced abortions seeks help for complications at facilities. Of those, 75 percent had moderately severe complications,” according to the research.

The study documented 14,555 women who sought care for abortion-related complications in 2021 alone. Activists said the true numbers are far higher due to stigma and fear of legal repercussions that prevent women from seeking care. And because Liberia has one of the world’s highest rates of teen pregnancy – one in three girls is pregnant by the age of 18 – it’s a crisis being borne heavily by girls.

A medical abortion is a safe procedure that works by stopping the growth of the pregnancy and then causing the uterine lining to shed. The most common regimen involves taking two drugs — mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone blocks progesterone, the hormone needed to support a pregnancy. Misoprostol causes cramping and bleeding to empty the uterus. The drugs were first approved in the United States 25 years ago, and nearly two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. are now carried out with medication.

“The pills cannot lead to death,” Dr. Su Mon Thaw, a medical professional who has worked in reproductive health in Liberia and overseas for years. “There will be bleeding, which is common in medical abortion, but they don’t leave any lasting effects. Without these medications, complications of unsafe abortion can be lethal.”

While some states in the United States have sought to ban them. Experts say in Liberia, they are legal through a loophole. If administered by the patient herself the act is not illegal. The medications, which cost between $5 and $20, are imported from certified manufacturers in India and Bangladesh through official channels regulated by Liberia’s Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Authority. They are available at many pharmacies.

Reproductive rights advocates have welcomed the arrival of the drugs. Titus Pakalah, who leads Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights Champions Liberia, recounted a recent case in West Point, Monrovia’s largest informal settlement, where a teenage girl died from complications after using a traditional practice known by the acronym “RPG” or “rocket propelled grenade” – a mixture of non-prescribed drugs, and nonalcoholic beverage, chili pepper extract and sediments from crushed bottles combined with sodium carbonate, according to a 2021 study.

“She was afraid because she feared that when she reported, her parent would beat her or even stop supporting her,” Pakalah said. “And that girl bled for one week, and she passed away.”

The public health bill, which includes the clause that would legalize abortion up to 14 weeks if performed by a doctor, would fundamentally change this landscape. Passed by Liberia’s House of Representatives in 2022, it was then blocked by senators who, in the run-up to the 2023 election, feared it would hurt their reelection bids in the face of a strong opposition campaign funded in part by American organizations.

The 2023 election brought 15 new lawmakers to the Senate, forcing advocates to restart their lobbying efforts. The bill’s passage is on a knife-edge. It requires a two-thirds majority to pass – or 20 votes. Of the 30 sitting senators, Pakalah estimated that 20 have expressed interest in the bill. Five remain opposed, while five others are seeking further consultation with their constituents.

Senator Darblah Varplah, who now chairs the Senate health committee, said the abortion provision has dominated discussions about a comprehensive health reform package that includes provisions for vaccination programs, biosecurity measures, occupational health standards, and environmental regulations.

Religious opposition has been fierce, with opponents arguing that abortion is morally unacceptable under any circumstances. The resistance extends beyond religious circles to include traditional leaders and conservative politicians who view abortion as contrary to cultural values.

Supporters of the law said pushing it through required courage unlike any other act of their political lives. Joseph Sonwarbi, a pharmacist and former chair of the House of Representatives, championed the passage of the bill to allow access to safe termination when failed pregnancies endanger the mother, but he says it cost him his seat.

“My own church turns against me, but God knows my heart. I don’t regret it because I was never born as a lawmaker,” he said. “As a medical person, my oath is my guide that I should save lives. I want to say this law is meant to save our population instead of going to the backyard, going to quack doctors who are doing those abortions in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and other unhygienic places.”

“We are not compromising,” said Pakalah. “This bill seeks to really address women and children’s issues, health issues across Liberia. We should not look at this bill to think that when you put in resources, that is when it will pass. We must be able to humanize the conversation around this bill.”

Sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest abortion case-fatality rate globally, resulting in 15,000 preventable deaths annually, according to reproductive rights organizations. The region also leads the world in maternal mortality, with unsafe abortion being a major factor. If passed, Liberia’s law would be among the most liberal in sub-Saharan Africa, where 92 percent of women of reproductive age live in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The contrast with other regions is stark. Most European countries allow abortion until at least the 10th week of pregnancy, with Sweden permitting procedures until the 18th week. Maternal mortality and unsafe abortions in those countries are extremely low.

Beyond legal barriers, Liberia’s healthcare system lacks the infrastructure to provide safe abortion services, even in legal cases. The country has one of the world’s lowest ratios of healthcare workers to population, with rural areas particularly underserved. Many healthcare facilities lack basic equipment for safe procedures, adequate blood supplies for emergencies, or trained staff capable of managing complications.

The economic impact of unsafe abortion extends beyond immediate healthcare costs. Women who experience complications often require extended hospital stays, face long-term health consequences that limit their ability to work, and may need ongoing medical care that their families cannot afford. For families already struggling with poverty affecting over 50 percent of Liberia’s population, experts say these costs can be devastating. The death or disability of a mother often plunges entire households deeper into poverty, affecting children’s education and nutrition.

Reproductive Rights Advocates Call for Greater Awareness Raising

D. was lucky. She learned about the abortion pills and avoided the dangerous alternative. She also learned how to avoid getting pregnant with five-year contraceptive implants that have saved her from having to go through the experience again.

Dr. Thaw would like to see more women and girls have access to that information and full family planning services. “Having safe abortion guidance would help a lot of young women. If they have access to safe abortion and a full understanding of family planning, that will save a lot of lives,” she said.

As the Senate reconvenes the fate of the public health bill remains uncertain. Senator Varplah expressed cautious optimism about its passage.

“A lot of people are inclined and have understood that this is mainly about protecting women. It’s not just about abortion in the minds of the people as terminating another life. Sometimes abortion is necessary to save a life and to bring up more lives,” she said.

For women like D. and T, the stakes could not be higher. Experts say their stories illuminate the human cost of a system that forces desperate choices in the shadows while political leaders debate laws that can change their lives in the halls of power.

This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the “Investigating Liberia” project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy. The donor had no say in the story’s content.

By Anthony Stephens, senior justice correspondent and New Narratives editors

Summary:

• Defendants in the biggest human trafficking case to date are set to walk free on April 12 after prosecution stalls
• Nine victims say they were told a bribe payment was offered to a prosecutor by lawyer Bestman Juah, working for the traffickers, to reduce the charges.
• Legal experts say the case exposes deep corruption in the judiciary that must be investigated to restore trust.
• In 2023 and 2024 Liberia tried noone for trafficking even as the crime exploded across the country, with thousands of victims imprisoned, defrauded, raped and possibly, murdered. In the same period Uganda secured 230 convictions.

One morning last October more than 50 women and men walked into Paynesville magistrates’ court and told the prosecutors everything. They described a compound next to Vice President Jeremiah Koung’s Gbankpa Town home, where they had been lured with false promises of help to get jobs in Canada or Australia. They described the 27 men and women who they said had tortured, trafficked, stolen, starved, and raped them. One victim had vanished and was feared murdered. Within days, eleven suspects were under arrest. It should have been, by any measure, a breakthrough in the exploding crime of human trafficking that was destroying the lives of poor Liberians across the country.It was not.

For years Liberians had been watching a major coordinated crime unfold against them. Missing persons posts appeared on Facebook — pleas for help finding a daughter who had left for Canada, a son who had gone to Australia, a husband bound for South Africa, all of whom had stopped making contact. Everyone had a nephew or a daughter who was trapped in some foreign country. One cartel, possibly more, had identified something useful: that in a country where poverty runs deep enough to make any promise of work abroad feel like salvation, there was no shortage of people willing to believe.

When the Gbankpa Town victims came forward, advocates who had been tracking the explosion of trafficking scams allowed themselves to hope. Here, finally, was a case the government could not ignore. There were survivors willing to testify, suspects in custody, statements on the record. It was everything a prosecution requires.

Everything, it would turn out, except a system willing to use it.

Five months later, the case is not on the docket. On April 12 the defendants, not having been tried in a “timely manner”, will be eligible for bail. Men facing a minimum 20-year sentence are unlikely to stick around. The $100,000 prosecutors say was stolen from victims, and any hope of seeing justice, will go with them.

What the case has already revealed is, in some ways, worse than the trafficking itself: a justice system that experts say is failing Liberia’s poorest citizens by design. Victims in this case say they know why. In police statements and in interviews, they detailed bribe payments that they say are causing police and prosecutors to allow exploitation of poor Liberians to thrive.

No cases involving trafficking scams have reached Monrovia’s courts in two years. In 2023-2024, the government lost three cases. Since the government ramped up anti-trafficking efforts in 2020— driven largely by pressure to meet United States Trafficking in Persons Report requirements and protect access to US aid — just 21 trafficking cases have made it to court. Only five have ended in conviction. (Uganda, by contrast, recorded 130 convictions in 2023 and 109 in 2024.)

The scale of the problem dwarfs that record. Paynesville prosecutors alone say they have received reports involving hundreds of victims in recent years. In January, Nigerian police and military raided two compounds in Lagos, where victims said there were hundreds of Liberians being held.

Compounds have been discovered in Freetown and others in Monrovia. There are almost certainly victims in captivity now.

The Liberian government has shown it can move fast when it chooses to. In 2022, a woman named Retina Capehart was charged, tried and convicted in six weeks. She is now serving a 20-year sentence. Capehart says she was set up. Capehart, her mother and brother all told FrontPage Africa/New Narratives that they had been asked to pay bribes to make the case disappear. When they did not pay enough, they said a prosecutor told them he would make sure she was found guilty — because, he said, “the Americans needed a conviction.”

“We Own The Government” – Victims Say Traffickers Offered Bribe to Make Case Go Away

But according to victims, some accused traffickers do pay enough. What happened inside the compound and after emerged in nine separate accounts given to FrontPage Africa/New Narratives and, in statements to police — each one harrowing, each one consistent with the others.

The promise was always the same: a job as a maid in Canada or Australia, $250 a month, a way out. It often came from trusted family members or friends. For communities – usually rural and trying to survive as climate change has devastated their farm yields – facing such difficulty surviving that whole villages pooled their savings to scrape together the $1,000 to $16,000 the recruiters demanded, it was not greed that drove them — it was math. There was no other way.

When victims arrived in Monrovia, supposedly to receive passports and tickets, they were quickly put behind locked gates, separated by gender, cut off from their families. It was only a stroke of proximity that freed them. Security guards at the home of Vice President Koung heard the banging first — then the screaming — coming from across the road.

When they investigated, they found as many as 100 women in a state of acute distress, many of them starving. One woman, 28 years old and from Nimba County, had been inside the compound for eleven months. She had left home still breastfeeding twins. The traffickers made her work through every contact in her phone — family, friends, neighbors — and tell them she was happy, that Canada was everything she had hoped, that they should come. She demonstrated for reporters how they had tortured her when she resisted: pinned to the ground beneath heavy cement blocks.

She became teary when she recalled how she had called her own brother. She had said the words the traffickers told her to say. He had believed her. He scraped together the money and followed her to Monrovia. He too ended up in a compound.

Back home, their mother was ill — bedridden, by the time we spoke to her daughter. Debt collectors were coming to the house, pressing the family for the money they had given to send her children away.

One woman from Nimba said she had sold her farm and all her properties, left her five children behind and paid $16,500 to the traffickers. She could not afford the $5 to return home. The children were alone, destitute.

The victims told these reporters that Ophelia Melway, one among their number, had been taken away. She had not come back. Captors told them she had died. The women suspected murder and that the traffickers planned to kill them all. That’s when they made their noisy bid for help.

The government had provided the women with a safe house while they waited for a trial that has not come. For nearly four months, it had also provided food. Then that stopped too.

One by one, the victims have started going home. They say they have been reminded again of what they have always known: justice in Liberia is for sale.

Nine victims told police investigators that their alleged captors had been openly contemptuous of the justice system throughout their captivity. Police were “in the business,” they were told. Their captors “owned the government.” Officials were “in their pocket.” The case would never be tried.

And the captors named the man making sure of it: Bestman Juah.

Seven victims named Juah in statements to police, seen by these reporters, saying accused perpetrator Daniel Davis had boasted openly that Juah was the operation’s lawyer.

QNet is a Malaysian internet marketing company whose name has become ubiquitous in Liberia’s trafficking crisis — invoked by recruiters as a badge of legitimacy, and repudiated by the company itself, which says those using it are doing so fraudulently.

In separate interviews, nine victims gave FrontPage Africa/New Narratives the same account. Each said their alleged captors said they had been paying Juah $500 a week for protection.

Then came the bribe.

Victims said that Emmanuel Tarr, a Paynesville prosecutor, told them that Juah had approached him with an offer: $7,000 to drop the most serious charges — rape and human trafficking. Strip the charges, and the defendants would be eligible for bail. Once bailed, they would disappear.

Tarr, the victims said, had a counterproposal. He would consider withdrawing the charges — but only if the defendants paid back $70,000 of the $100,000 that had been taken from the victims.

There was no deal.

Emmanuel Tarr declined a request for comment. A government official in the original case, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, confirmed that Bestman Juah was the only lawyer who contacted him on behalf of the defendants. Several legal officials told FrontPage Africa/New Narratives that they have been warned against speaking to these reporters about the case.

Public defenders in Liberia like Juah are appointed by government to represent indigent defendants — those who cannot afford private counsel. They are prohibited from taking paid work for private clients. Juah has held the role since 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He is also, as of last year, president of the National Association of Public Defenders of Liberia. On his election, Juah vowed to provide “transformational and accountable leadership” and pledged that representing indigent clients well would be the hallmark of his tenure.

In response to questions sent by Whatsapp, Bestman Juah said the “allegations are untrue. I’m not representing any accused traffickers.”

Police records of the interviews with defendants, seen by New Narratives, list Pervis Dolopeoi, David M. Koleh and Mamee S. E. Gongbah, as their lawyers. When contacted, Dolopeoi, who began a job as the in-house counsel for the National Port Authority in early 2025, said he did not represent the defendants, and denied it was his signature on the file.

“My lawyering will never even extend to Qnet and those types of groups,” he said in a phone call. “I have integrity.”

The other two did not respond to requests for comment sent by WhatsApp and direct message.

What The Police Report Left Out

The first alleged bribe had failed. But victims soon feared another had been successful: the official police report charged only one perpetrator – Bill Plato – with rape. Only 5 of the 11 defendants were charged with Trafficking in Persons. Three, who had been arrested and accused of torture, trafficking and theft by multiple victims —Marthaline Tompia, Shelley Jonny and Blessing Favor Suah — were never charged at all.

In written statements to police, four victims said they had been raped multiple times during their captivity, by at least five defendants. In one of the most disturbing accounts, a 28-year-old observant Muslim told reporters Davis had drugged her Coke after she refused to drink alcohol, then raped her.

The victims said they gave their statements to Enoch Dunbar, who leads the Liberia National Police’s Trafficking in Persons desk. The investigator who signed the charge sheet is Emmanuel S. Walker. The statements are still in the case file that is now with prosecutors of Court “A.” It is not clear why the decision was taken not to charge all defendants with all four crimes or to release three of those who were charged.  

Three legal experts, including Tiawan Gongloe, the former solicitor general, who reviewed the files, told New Narratives that the cases for the crimes of human trafficking, gang rape, conspiracy to commit theft and theft were clearly established.

Prosecutor Sumo C. Kutu Akoi said it was not his job to decide which crimes should be charged and referred reporters to Dunbar.

In a WhatsApp response to a list of detailed questions, Dunbar did not address the accusations and said, “I don’t think you really know me because there’s nothing that can influence the right thing I supposed to do.”

The case has meandered through the courts at a pace that legal experts said does not meet the size and importance of the case. Though the charges were laid in November, Akoi said they could not bring the case to trial in the last term of court that ended in January. By this term of court, which started on February 9^th, the case had been moved to Court “E,” where rape and sexual violence cases are tried, because of the one rape charge against Bill Plato. Akoi told reporters that the other charges could not be tried until the rape charge was dealt with.

It was not until a month later that Isaac George, chief prosecutor of Court E and director of the Sexual and Gender Based Violence Unit at the Justice Ministry, told these reporters there was not sufficient evidence to support a first-degree rape charge. George referred the case back to prosecutors at Court A.

In March, Akoi confirmed the case will not go to trial this term. This term’s grand jury – which approves indictments — was disbanded on March 5th.

“If we are to do any indictment, we have to empanel a special grand jury, which we don’t have the money for,” said Akoi. “Our hands are tied.”

Accused Traffickers Will Become Eligible for Bail in Three Weeks

At the end of this term, on April 12^th, the defendants will become eligible to apply for bail. Legal experts expect them to flee the country to avoid the minimum 20-year sentences they face if convicted. It has happened before: in a similar case, accused trafficker Cephus Selebay absconded in 2022 and has never been brought to justice.

Akoi denied that any bribes had been paid or that anyone connected to the defendants had manipulated the process to delay the case, but he conceded it was very possible that the defendants would now seek bail and vanish.  

The victims are despairing. They had hoped that the legal action would lead to a return of at least some of their money. Families who pooled everything they had to send a daughter, a son, a sister toward a better life, the debt won’t go away. It means hunger, threats, children missing school, despair.

Somewhere, recruiters are already working their phones. In Liberia, it seems, all you need is the right lawyer. The victims knew that. They just hoped, for a while, that they were wrong.

This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. Funding was provided by the Swedish International Cooperation Development Agency. The funder had no say in the story’s content.

This is part two of a two part series looking at the impact of government delays in implementing the $27 million Green Climate Fund-backed Coastal Defense project. Part one found failures by the administration of President George Weah led to homes being lost and livelihoods destroyed.

By Joyclyn Wea, senior correspondent with New Narratives with photography by Allison Hunter

• Liberia’s Boakai administration revives a stalled $26 million coastal defense project to protect Monrovia’s West Point community, where more than 800 residents have already been displaced by sea erosion.
• Construction of the long-awaited sea wall is set to begin by the end of 2025, with government co-financing now secured after delays under former President George Weah.
• As many as 1,000 residents face demolition of their homes to make way for construction, but leaders say the community has yet to hear details from government.

WEST POINT, Monrovia — As heavy rains batter the coast, fear thickens in West Point. Five years ago a storm surge took the home Sarah Gary’s father built when she was a child. Now Gary lives in a house just feet from the Atlantic’s rage. Every rainy season more than a dozen homes in this low-lying informal settlement are swept away. When Gary goes to sleep she fears she’ll be wakened by crashing waves taking this home too.

But this may be the last rainy season families here live in fear. After years of broken promises under the administration of President George Weah, the long-stalled sea wall – part of the $26 million Monrovia Metropolitan Climate Resilience Project – is set to begin construction by the end of this year.

“I’ve been hearing about this project long time,” said Gary. “Every time the people say people will come to help us put rock here, since CDC time, nobody wants to do it. So we will be happy.”

The announcement represents a turning point for the project which was launched to much fanfare by then-Mayor Jefferson Koijee in 2021. In the years after, the failure of the Weah administration to put up the $US2.4 million co-financing and $4 million in large boulders it had agreed to, meant the project ground to a crawl. The government contributed just $50,000.

In part one of this series Wilson Tarpeh, Weah administration Environmental Protection Agency chief, said he had found it impossible to get the money from the Finance Ministry and admitted that his administration had failed the people of West Point.

In the years since more than 67 homes have disappeared beneath rising seas, and 403 residents have been displaced, according to township leadership. Many more have lost their livelihoods, as boats, nets, and storefronts are regularly swept away during high seas.

Christina Toe, a lifelong West Point resident and mother of two, exemplifies the economic vulnerability: “If God is not on your side when the sea gets vexed, your canoe will go, your machine will go. Your net will go. And if it goes, you don’t have anything like you are depending on, meaning you just have to sit down.”

Now the community is celebrating the news that the 18-month-old Boakai administration has met the government’s co-financing requirements and the project is back on track.

“This time next year, West Point should be protected from sea level rise for 40-plus years,” said Louise Kuukpen, deputy resident representative at the United Nations Development Programme in Liberia, which is implementing the project on behalf of the Green Climate Fund, a global pool of funds from rich countries designed to help low-income countries adapt to climate change.

Construction Challenges and Community Sacrifice

But construction of the sea wall will not come without pain for this community. Homes where approximately 1,000 people live will need to be demolished to make way for a road connectd the south end of the beach with the mainland. Community leaders say the people understand this is a sacrifice they must make for long-term security.

“We will embrace it,” said Swen. “This place where we are is government land. So if they come and give you something for you to find a place, so be it.”

But this aspect of the project is causing some concerns. The UN’s Kuukpen says the relocation of residents is not funded under the overall project.  The government must find funding and a solution separately. Community leaders say they have not been given enough information about this, and it’s making people nervous.

Project manager Zienu Kanneh said specific responses to resettlement questions await completion of a resettlement action plan and livelihood restoration plan, which are currently in progress.

“These two instruments are essential in ensuring that project-affected persons, particularly those whose livelihoods and access to resources may be disrupted, are adequately identified, engaged, and supported through tailored mitigation and compensation measures,” Kanneh said.

While waiting for the funds to come, the West Point community has done its best to slow the sea, planting 430 mangroves and 4,000 coconut seedlings along vulnerable shorelines.

While policy makers and environmentalists will breath a sigh of relief to see this heavily populated community saved from the waves, it is just one of many communities along the coast facing the same fate in coming years.

The country’s shoreline has retreated by an average of 30 meters over the past two decades, with some areas experiencing much more dramatic losses. As many as 230,000 Liberians are set to lose their homes by 2100 with current levels of sea level rise.

Experts say the project has become a test case for international climate finance mechanisms established under the Paris Agreement. The Green Climate Fund’s $17.2 million contribution was contingent on Liberia meeting its share of the total project cost—a requirement that had proved nearly impossible under the previous administration. Another Green Climate Fund project to create a weather hazard warning system had also been delayed for years by Weah government failures.

“A climate-vulnerable country like Liberia is a priority for GCF as Liberia counts among those most impacted by climate change despite contributing little in the way of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Andrew McElroy, a Green Climate Fund spokesperson.

But just being a priority country isn’t enough if the government won’t meet requirements to unlock funding. Experts say the funds will just move to another country that will, leaving millions of Liberians to fight climate change impacts on their own.

For a project originally set to run from 2021 to 2027, the road ahead may now stretch to 2028 or 2029, as Liberia seeks a no-cost extension to finish the work. But for a government eager to restore public trust, and for families like Sarah Gray’s who can’t afford another rainy season without protection, the countdown has begun.

The Boakai administration has distinguished itself from its predecessor with transparency about the project’s challenges and timelines. Unlike the previous government, which often portrayed the project as proceeding on schedule, current officials have acknowledged delays while providing specific timelines and funding figures.

It was not just funding that was missing according to the new administration. Scientific and environmental studies were also not done.

“We inherited a situation where these critical studies hadn’t even been commissioned,” Yarkpawolo said. “We’ve fast-tracked procurement for the engineering studies, but proper engineering takes time.”

For now the township braces for the worst of the rainy season to kick in. The township typically experiences its highest seas between July and September. This year has been relatively calm, but residents know that provides no guarantee for the rest of the season.

This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the “Investigating Liberia” project. The Swedish Embassy provided funding, but the founder had no say in the story’s content.

By Anthony Stephens, senior correspondent with New Narratives

Summary:

• Sweden will wind down it development cooperation with Liberia and officially close its embassy in August 2026.
• In a press conference Sweden’s development minister said the government had made the decision in order to divert development funds to Ukraine for its defense against Russia.
• Sweden has been one of the country’s most dependable donors, supporting government institutions, civil society and independent media. The announcement follows funding cuts by the United State, European Union and United Nations.

Sweden, long Liberia’s most reliable and generous development partner, announced on Friday that it will end bilateral aid to Liberia and close its embassy in Monrovia by August bringing an abrupt end to decades of deep cooperation.

In a statement on Facebook, the embassy described the decision it described as “difficult…This decision has not been taken lightly and is a consequence of reduced funding in our overall budget for development budget,” the statement read. “Other countries that are being affected in Africa are Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Tanzania.”

Announcing the decision at a press conference in Sweden, Benjamin Dousa, Minister for Development Cooperation, said the money will go to Ukraine instead.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 set off the biggest war in Europe in decades, and Ukraine has depended heavily on help from Western countries to defend itself. But in the past year, Europe has struggled to keep up support after the United States—Ukraine’s largest military backer—cut major funding. European leaders say they want to continue helping Ukraine, but many countries are dealing with their own economic problems, high energy prices, and limits on how much ammunition and equipment they can produce. As the war drags on, experts warn that Ukraine’s future depends on whether Europe can step up and fill the gap left by the U.S. funding shortfall.

After Russia’s invasion Sweden joined the North American Treaty Organization, a group of countries in Europe and North America that have promised to protect each other if any one of them is attacked. Many Swedes feared their country might be a Russian target.

“We see that the need is even greater in Ukraine,” said Dousa, speaking in Swedish. “It is a defining moment in the history of Europe.” 

The embassy said the withdrawal “will be done in a responsible and orderly way,” adding that Sweden’s support through the European Union and multilateral organizations would continue. The decision, it said, was “not in any way linked to policies or events in Liberia.”

Still, the announcement sent shockwaves across Liberia, where Sweden has been one of the last major bilateral donors standing. The U.S. government, historically Liberia’s largest partner, cut an estimated $US300 million in assistance earlier this year — the equivalent of more than one-third of Liberia’s national budget — leaving Sweden, the EU and a handful of international partners to fill critical gaps.

Under its current cooperation strategy for Liberia — a SEK1.85 billion or $US196.7 million program running from 2021 to 2025 — Sweden funds 39 projects spanning human rights, rule of law, governance reform, sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender equality, youth and women’s empowerment, agriculture, infrastructure, media development, climate resilience and environmental protection. (New Narratives has been a beneficiary of Swedish support.) 

Sweden is also the only international donor so far to fund Liberia’s war-crimes court process. Its support was routed through the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, which in turn provided assistance to Liberia’s Office of the War and Economic Crimes Court. Experts warn that Sweden’s withdrawal will further weaken Liberia’s already fragile transitional-justice efforts.

The pullout is likely to result in significant job losses across the many programs Sweden supports and will also affect the thousands of Liberians who directly benefit from those initiatives.

“When you factor in indirect employment—construction workers on infrastructure projects, farmers in agricultural value chains, trainers in skills development programs—the affected population easily reaches thousands,” warned Tennen B. Dalieh Tehoungue, a former national programme officer for Gender and Human Security at the Swedish embassy, in an email. “Communities in counties where Swedish road rehabilitation projects operate may see work halt mid-construction. Health facilities receiving Swedish support for maternal health services may see programs wind down, exacerbating Liberia’s already dire maternal mortality rates. The broader aid economy—hotels, vehicle rentals, restaurants, printing services—that depended on donor presence will fall sharply.”

Diplomatic relations between the two countries date back to 1958 when the Liberian-American-Swedish Mining Company, known as Lamco, a major iron ore mining project, made Sweden one of the country’s biggest foreign partners. The company built railways, roads, and the town of Yekepa, but it was also criticized for taking profits out of Liberia and leaving behind economic and environmental damage when the mines collapsed during the civil war. In 2023, the two nations celebrated 65 years of relations, marking one of Liberia’s longest-standing bilateral partnerships.

Despite the phase-out, Sweden said it intends to preserve what it called the “excellent relationship” between the two countries.

“We will seek to strenghten and broaden the partnership between Liberia and Sweden beyond development cooperation not least through enhanced trade and business relations,” the embassy said. “Sweden remains a steadfast partner to Liberia and attaches great importance to our shared priorities and values which together with our strong historic ties provides a solid foundation for continued good relations between our two countries.”

Officials at Liberia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Information — including assistant minister for public affairs Saywhar Gbaa, Jerolinmek Matthew Piah, the information minister and deputy information minister Daniel Sando — did not respond to requests for comment.

But organizations directly funded by Sweden are still coming to terms with the news which comes as the country is still reeling from the USAID cuts combined with economic impacts of climate change and global economic turmoil.

“This will indeed be a difficult moment for us as an institution,” said Eddie D. Jarwolo, executive director of Naymote Partners for Democratic Development in a whatsapp message. “Especially with the termination of the USAID partnership, the Swedish government has been our strongest and most dependable source of support.”

Jarwolo said Sweden had “contributed immensely to the advancement of democracy in Liberia, and for that, we remain deeply grateful…The partnership and collaboration we have enjoyed over the years with the Swedish have had a meaningful impact, and its closure is something we never anticipated at this time,” said Jarwolo. “Liberia will truly feel the absence of the embassy and its work. Naymote appreciates the cooperation, friendship, and shared commitment to strengthening democratic governance in our country with Sweden’s support.”

Sweden’s departure also comes at a critical moment for Liberia. The timing coincides with the year Liberia is set to begin its term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council — “a timing that couldn’t be more unfortunate,” Tehoungue said.

George Kronnisanyon Werner, a former education minister in the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration, criticized the Liberian government for failing to avert the pullout.

“We could have articulated Liberia’s continuing relevance in West Africa’s stability,” Werner argued in a Facebook post. “We could have made a principled and evidence-based case for continued bilateral cooperation. We could have appealed to Sweden’s historic role in Liberia’s democracy and peace. But we did none of this. We did not use the tools available to us.”

Government officials did not respond to questions about whether efforts were made to avoid the withdrawal.

Werner called Sweden’s withdrawal a “quiet earthquake.”

“This did not happen overnight,” said Werner, who himself benefited from Sweden’s support when he was at Civil Service Agency. “The consequences will be felt not only in our infrastructure and institutions, but also in our fragile democratic ecosystem.”

Werner noted that the first warning sign might have appeared weeks ago when the Folke Bernadotte Academy — Sweden’s premier peace and security institution — abruptly closed its Liberia program.

“When the agency responsible for Sweden’s global peacebuilding footprint chooses to withdraw from a country, it is rarely a routine bureaucratic decision,” he said. “It is almost always the first tremor before a larger strategic shift. Liberia missed that tremor entirely.”

Tehoungue agreed that the implications of the withdrawal would be far reaching.

“For a country that has worked tirelessly to rehabilitate its post-war image, having a major European partner withdraw suggests either development saturation or strategic deprioritization— I argue, neither narrative helps Liberia’s diplomatic standing,” she said. “While Sweden emphasized the decision is not linked to any policies or events within Liberia, the political message is clear: Western countries are prioritizing the development needs of their countries.”

In August, Sweden pledged to contribute approximately SEK2.7 billion or $US275 million in military support package to Ukraine. The govenrment plans to redistribute  SEK 2 billion or $US200 million Ukraine in the coming years. Some humanitarian support, including for sexual and reproductive health and rights, will continue globally

Experts say the news, coming at the same time as a proposal in the Senate to slash legislators’ pay, will put even more pressure on government to cut corruption and curb excessive spending on itself. Jarwolo urged the government to reassess its development priorities.

“The government of Liberia should focus more on using the resources of the country to support the development and sustainability of democracy, peace and stability,” said Jarwolo. “Political governance, and democracy enhancement could encourage more investments in the country to create jobs, and improve national development.”

This story is a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia Project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia which had no say in the story’s content.

By Joyclyn Wea with New Narratives

WEST POINT, Monrovia-When the sea turns rough, Elizabeth Gray and her family have nowhere to run. Water floods through their home in this low-lying informal settlement, forcing her three children to relieve themselves indoors while waves crash just meters from their door.

As this year’s rainy season gets underway, the family lives in terror. They’ve already lost one house to the sea. Four years ago, the ocean swallowed Gray’s four-room home along with everything inside. Now they live in constant fear that her current dwelling, where seawater regularly floods the floors during rough weather, will be next. Sea levels are rising slowly, but it’s the rainy season, and ocean surges that come with storms, that is taking houses now.

“Our children are not safe,” Gray, 29, says in a recent interview. “Now the sea is giving us a hard time, and we don’t have anywhere apart from this house.”

Gray’s story illustrates the human cost of a climate change adaptation project that has stalled because of failures of Liberia’s government. The Monrovia Metropolitan Climate Resilience Project was designed to protect 250,000 residents from exactly this kind of devastation. But annual progress reports from the Green Climate Fund – the global donor pool that was to fund two thirds of the costs of the project – show that failures of the administration of President George Weah delayed the project for years.

The Weah administration had allegedly diverted millions to fund the 2023 elections. People here received bags of rice from representatives of Weah’s political party. But the election campaign meant little to more than a dozen families here like Musa Bamba. As sea levels surged during storms in the rainy season that led up to the 2023 poll, his 12-room house – home to 6 members of his family – slipped into the sea.

Coastal Defense Project Hailed as a Triumph by Government

The project should have been a triumph of international cooperation. Launched in 2021 by then-Monrovia mayor, Jefferson Koijee, the project secured $17.2 million from the Green Climate Fund and another $1.6 million from the United Nations Development Program. The project’s design would see a so-called “revetment”, placing massive rocks along the shoreline to hold back the sea for at least 40 years.

It was Liberia’s biggest grant to date from the world’s largest climate adaptation fund. Started in the wake of the 2021 Paris Agreement, the Green Climate Fund took money from heavily polluting rich countries to help developing nations adapt to the rapidly changing climate. The government of President George Weah agreed to contribute $6.8 million—one quarter of the total cost. Just $2 million was to be paid in cash, with the rest coming “in kind” – mostly in the form of rocks that would be sourced from Mount Coffee and brought to West Point.

But over three years, the Weah administration contributed just $50,000 total in cash, according to the Green Climate Fund’s 2023 annual performance report, roughly 2.5 percent of the $2 million it had promised.

“Insufficient co-financing provided by the Government of Liberia” caused “significant” delays, the fund’s 2023 report stated. Annual reporting in 2022 blamed delays on the government’s slow pace in appointing project management staff, something that plagued another Green Climate Fund project in Liberia – the $10 million Climate Information Systems project that would have warned millions of farmers and flood victims of weather hazards ahead of time. 

In a phone interview Samuel Tweah, who served as Weah’s finance minister, acknowledged the government’s failure but blamed it on the COVID-19 pandemic. “Under the circumstances, it was just difficult. People were staying home, we had to pay government workers, and all those things,” Tweah said.

But the delays extended well beyond the pandemic and the lockdowns that ended in late 2021. As 2023 went on, the Green Climate Fund report said, the government became increasingly focused on “the 2023 presidential and legislative elections.” New Narratives/Front Page Africa reporting has found that in the run-up to the elections, funds were diverted from almost every government entity. The anti-human trafficking unit in the Ministry of Labor, for instance, saw 90 percent of the $230,000 allotted to it in the annual budget diverted, allegedly, to fund the elections. Tweah and two other top government officials were dismissed from their jobs after being placed on the US Treasury’s Sanctions List, accused of corruption.

Without Government Funding Project Activities Slowed to a Crawl

The funding structure was designed to be straightforward: government contributions would unlock larger international disbursements, a common mechanism to ensure recipient countries remain invested in project success. Without Liberia’s share, the project slowed to a crawl. No more Global Climate funds were sent.

The Green Climate Fund 2023 report revealed multiple attempts by international officials and EPA staff to engage Liberia’s Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. “Several discussions were held to ensure that GoL’s full cash co-financing commitment is captured in GoL’s annual national budgetary allocation,” the report said. These efforts proved unsuccessful.

In an interview Weah government Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) executive director Wilson Tarpeh said he regretted the failures. “Based on the work plan, we did not obtain what should have been done at the time I was there,” said Tarpeh. “Of course, it’s painful. It’s painful when you go to West Point. You see what the people are doing and you see a situation where you go in and out of the Ministry of Finance. I don’t want to say I am blaming the Ministry of Finance; that’s a government work so we take full responsibility for it.”

In West Point, Tarpeh’s expression of regret found little sympathy. After seeing 800 houses – home to 6500 people – washed away in the years leading up to the 2021 project launch, they thought a solution was coming. But as years passed, and houses kept disappearing, they lost hope.

The government “did not have the political will,” said William C. Wea, former West Point commissioner, shaking his head.

Beyond West Point: A Looming National Crisis

The stalled project is just one part of what will need to be a massive effort to protect or relocate an estimated 230,000 Liberians who will lose their homes to the sea by 2100, at current levels of global warming, according to United Nations Environment Program data. Projections suggest the coast could move 190 meters inland by the end of the decade.

Already, 0.8 square km of land has been lost in recent decades due to coastal erosion, impacting infrastructure and nearby population centers. In the Greater Monrovia area alone, a predicted 16 cm sea level rise by 2030 would put at risk 675,000 people and 9,500 hectares of land.

West Point has been particularly hard hit. It’s not just homes. Many of the large fishing community lost their livelihoods as boats and equipment washed away.

“For those who have broken canoes and lost their canoes, it’s almost like they have to sit with somebody in their canoes and join with somebody,” said Thomas Tweh, the township’s focal person for the project. “And if they don’t find someone to allow them to go fishing with them, they too will not go fishing for a season or a month, or a week.”

A New Government’s Inheritance

The election of President Joseph Boakai in late 2023 offered new hope for the stalled project. In an interview, Urey Yarkpawolo, the new EPA executive director, claimed that the current government has “met all the benchmarks to unlock the GCF funding” and secured additional government contributions – $500,000 was released on December 31, 2024, with another $500,000 approved in the 2025 budget.

UNDP Liberia representative Kuukpen confirmed the Boakai administration is now up to date with payments. The 2025 payment is due by October this year. Construction – starting with a road from Kru Beach to Lower West Point to bring the rocks – is expected to begin soon.

“I would say this year and next year, we will see some results,” Yarkpawolo said.

But when construction begins, there are still questions for the community here. One thousand residents will need to be moved to make way for the road.

The UNDP’s Kuukpen made clear that the government would be separately responsible for providing relocation assistance for displaced residents. People in the community say they have accepted the home demolitions are necessary. But they are waiting to see exactly which homes it will be and what the government will offer them.

In a WhatsApp response, project manager Zienu Kanneh acknowledged that there are no answers for community members yet. He said a “Resettlement Action Plan” and Livelihood Restoration Plan” are not completed. But he promised that “all of the questions will be answered once those plans are developed.”

But, for residents like Gray, the renewed promises feel familiar. It’s now four years since Mayor Koijee promised relief was coming soon. “They brought a yellow machine here and all to come see the area, but at the end of the day, we didn’t see anything,” she said.

As the rainy season gets underway, Gray faces daily reminders of her vulnerability. She spends $LD120 daily, (US60cents) for her family to bathe at paid facilities. West Point lacks any sanitation infrastructure.

“It is worrisome to us. Depending on the degree of the rain, you cannot walk here, the place gets flooded, and feces come back into the town,”  Leona Monger, a resident of the township, said. “As a government, be truthful to your citizens; do not scatter their expectations.”

“I am only begging the government to help,” Gray said. “We are begging them, we’re appealing to them to help because right now we are already in the rain.”

This story is part one of a two-part series. Part two will explore the next steps for the Coastal Defense Project now that funding has been restored. This series was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. The Swedish Embassy in Liberia provided funding. The funder had no say in the story’s content.

By Joyclyn Wea and Tetee Gebro with New Narratives

Summary:

• Government suspends national identification rollout indefinitely
• The government had previously suspended the process by 76 days
• Civil society activists call for a thorough review of the process before resumption

Following a chaotic rollout and mounting public frustration, the Liberian government has indefinitely suspended its controversial compulsory national identification program.

The government announced the move in a press release from the Ministry of Information Monday.

“The National Identification Registry (NIR) informs all public social service providers to take note and act in compliance with this directive,” it said. “At the same time, the issuance of the National Identification Cards is hereby suspended with immediate effect for administrative reasons. The public will be informed of the date of resumption of mass enrollment.”

The announcement came less than a week after the government had extended the enrollment process by 76 days. A FrontPage Africa/New Narratives investigation had found many citizens were angry and frustrated at being forced to wait in long lines and be rejected from service for days on end. With 15 centers in Monrovia processing about 85 people a day it would have taken more than three years to process Monrovia’s population of more than a million adults.  

In the meantime many people, including elderly and other vulnerable citizens, were being locked out of banking, government and communications services which were now mandated to demand IDs from customers.

The government’s official statement requested “all commercial banks to relax the enforcement on the usage of the National Identification Card as a pre-requisite for all banking transactions.”

The ID system, part of a global effort by the World Bank to digitize public services and improve government efficiency, had been hobbled from the outset. In an interview with FrontPage Africa before the first suspension Andrew Peters, executive director of the National Identification Registry, said that $2 million in World Bank funding had been blocked because of a $1.7 million outstanding debt to Techno Brand, the Nairobi-based technology firm that constructed the Registry’s digital infrastructure at a cost of $5.9 million. World Bank requirements stipulate that all existing debts must be cleared before new funds can be disbursed.

Peters said the Registry had made a payment plan with the company and was hoping to see World Bank funding unlocked next month. He then planned a dramatic increase to 59 permanent centers and 118 mobile teams. Peters said he was optimistic about processing 500,000 people by August and one million by year-end.

Government initially extended the deadline for registration, but with confusion at banks and other services, the chaos continued.

Transparency watchdogs were strongly supportive of the plan to digitize government services but they welcomed the suspension of the rollout.

“There were just far too many potholes and that clearly shows the unpreparedness of the government to actually meet up with its own policy mandate vis-à-vis the timelines,” said  Harold Aidoo, executive director of Integrity Watch Liberia, in a phone interview. “The timelines were unrealistic because we were not prepared. We should be giving ourselves a minimum one year to make sure that we really do this properly, because there are so many things that come along with making sure that people get enlisted. Our target should not be limited to what World Bank; IMF and multilaterals tell us. Our target should be aligned clearly with our own national development agenda. Work on education, work on the human resource capacity, work on the logistical, work on coordination.”

Eddie Jarwolo, executive director, NAYMOTE Partners for Democratic Development, another leading civil society activist, flagged concerns with the security features of the cards that had been issued.

“The security code is not working,” said Jarwolo in a phone interview. “The barcode is not working. I’ve seen some people whose cards are already damaged, with all the information erased. A national identification should not be like that. Anybody can get that thing from the street.”

“Our national identification has to be linked to every other thing we do,” said Jarwolo, who pointed to successful rollouts in Ghana and Nigeria. “We don’t have the capacity. We need to ask other countries that have done it successfully before, like Ghana. The storage of the information for citizens has to be protected. That feature on our card must be very strong.

If we have a strong national identification, we can even use it for elections. It will save the country a lot of money.”

“If you look at the IDs from across the region, these come along with security features, fiscal and official recognition; the SIM cards that also look at having all your biodata,” said Aidoo. “These national identification systems, we need to see how it harmonizes with what exists across the region. This has to do with national social security, a whole lot of other banking information, a whole lot of information that we are going to be collecting and keeping.  Accessing our national data, there are big question marks around that.”

This week legislators called Peters to Capitol Hill to answer questions about the rollout and the $US5 charge for the ID. For many Liberians living on less than $2.15 a day, the charge was challenging. Some representatives pushed for the process to be free.

The registration initiative is a $US30 million World Bank’s Governance Reform & Accountability Transformation Project or GREAT Project. It is intended to digitize critical services, including banking and telecommunications. Before the government’s latest suspension, only 16 percent of Liberia’s estimated 5.5 million people had been enrolled in the national database, according to the Registry.

This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.

By Aria Deemie, climate correspondent with New Narratives

VARNEY GOWAH TOWN, Montserrado – Kulah Tokpah arrives home from her farm, exhausted, her arms burdened with firewood for the meal she is preparing for men clearing her new plot of land. Her once fertile farm is now a patchwork of withered crops, cracked soil, and dead plants.

Kulah and the men are clearing a swampy area, hoping it will retain more moisture. But even that is a gamble. The cost of replanting was crushing – 500 Liberian dollars per worker, totaling 2,500 LD ($US12) daily. It’s money she can’t afford. For Kulah and her four children, farming is survival. Her children, aged 9 through 16, rely on the farm for food, school fees, and medical care. But without rain, her bitter balls, peppers, and corn dried up before maturing.

“Rain supposed to be falling, but now no rain falling,” she says. “The things dem just dying in our hands.”

Meanwhile in Glanyah, River Cess, Princess Nanna is desperate. In September last year floodwaters swept through this town destroying the little furniture she had and washing away the contents of the provision shop that paid to send her five children to school. With no warning they had no chance to pack their belongings and escape. She was one of more than 100,000 people displaced in flooding across the country that killed at least nine people in the worst rainy season on record.

But reporting by New Narratives and Front Page Africa has found that Kulah and Princess should have had warning. As far back as November 2020 the Liberian government received the go-ahead to build a climate information system to provide weather forecasts and early warnings that would “reduce exposure of Liberia’s communities, livelihoods, and infrastructure to climate-induced natural hazards,” according to the project proposal. With $10 million in funding from the Green Climate Fund, a global mechanism funded by rich countries to help low-income countries adapt to climate change, the Climate Information System would help Liberia’s millions of subsistence farmers and vulnerable communities plan better for increasingly unpredictable weather.

And yet, nearly five years later, as Liberians face another rainy season, the system is still not functioning.

Report Claims Lack of Competent Staff, Inflated Salary Claims and Political Appointments Delay Project

According to the African Development Bank’s first annual performance report into the project, for the year ending December 2023, delays were caused by multiple failings by the administration of then-President George Weah. The report cited a lack of competent EPA staff, slow or delayed responses from the EPA, inflated claims for salaries, and the EPA’s selection of a “politically exposed person” to head the unit without this being indicated upfront. The African Development Bank, which was implementing the project, referred it to the Bank’s anti-corruption section to review “some of the issues for proper guidance”.

The revelations about the project come at the same time as the Legislature is asking tough questions about the $27 million coastal defense project, also funded in large part by the Green Climate Fund. New Narratives/Front Page Africa reporting found the Weah government’s failure to pay its $6.8 million share of the project had brought the project to a halt.

Experts say successive Liberian governments’ failures to implement these two major international projects expose potentially insurmountable obstacles to helping vulnerable Liberians make the rapid adaptation that they will need to avoid catastrophe in coming years. The World Bank predicts that if nothing is done Liberia’s economy will suffer a 15 per cent decline, leaving four in every five Liberians in poverty by 2050.

Liberia’s governments have been at the front of the line at global forums, demanding rich country funding for climate change adaptation. But if they cannot comply with the transparency and technical requirements for funding that is already available, experts say funding will be diverted to countries that can.

Years of Increased Flooding and Higher Temperatures Devastate Vulnerable Communities

Liberians are some of the only people left in the world without the tools to forecast weather. In countries like Kenya, Ghana, Zambia and Malawi, farmers receive SMS weather alerts to guide their planting and harvesting. Vulnerable communities are alerted days ahead of flooding events. In Liberia a network of 30 automatic weather stations that make up the Liberia Meteorological Service is no longer operational. The only station working is an outdated one at Robertsfield Airport.

In the years since the 2020 approval of the “Climate Information Systems” project, flooding and higher temperatures have devastated unprepared communities across the country. Farmers become more desperate as crops failed year after year. A survey by Front Page Africa/New Narratives in 2024 found every single one of 300 farmers interviewed in five counties said climate change had made their traditional practices useless. Without weather forecasts or irrigation they were entirely dependent on the once-predictable weather patterns that had supported farming here for generations.

Farmers have told stories of rising hunger, taking children out of school or sending them to the capital – where numbers of street children and child prostitution have exploded; of falling prey to trafficking scams and resorting to drug abuse.

 “When farmers know that rain is expected, they can prepare,” says climate expert Doreen Lartey. “Even short-term forecasts help them decide how much water to store and what alternatives to explore. This kind of information helps them build resilience against the unpredictable nature of climate change.” 

Lack of Competence and Refusal to Follow Rules Delays Project Start

The grant entered the Green Climate Fund’s official “pipeline” in January 2020. Funding was approved at the November 2020 Board meeting with the African Development Bank as the implementing partner. Independent evaluations of the Fund had found its processes could be too technical and demanding. To overcome this it had created a “Simplified Approval Process” for projects under $10 million. The process required “simpler documents” “fewer pages” and “easier form filling”. Despite this, delays meant the first tranche of $4 million did not reach the Liberian government’s bank account until more than two years later in December 2022.

From there the first step was for the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), then headed by Wilson Tarpeh, the executive director, to recruit a project manager and other staff to lead the project. But the “EPA didn’t follow the laid down rules and procedures in the recruitment of the Project Manager” and other key positions according to the African Development Bank performance report. As a result the bank annulled the recruitment process. An extension for the project start date to October 1, 2023, was sought and approved by the Green Climate Fund,.

By July the following year, the EPA had still made no progress so the African Development Bank sent a mission to help the EPA fast track recruitment and resolve “any bottlenecks”. During the mission the EPA developed a terms of reference for each role in the project unit, memorandums of understanding with implementing partners – International Committees of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, representing the Liberian Red Cross, and the International Center for Theoretical Physics, an Italy-based center for science, setting out roles and obligations of each partner, “in form and substance acceptable to the Bank.” The EPA and the mission agreed on a timeline to “fast track” the project.

But when the EPA came back to the Bank proposing their new choice to lead the project both the Bank’s Financial Management and Procurement divisions again withheld clearance. Mr. Tarpeh has told NN/FPA he appointed Jeremiah Sokan, previously a member of the Green Climate Fund board and the National Coordinator National Climate Change Secretariat, and currently representative for Grand Gedeh district #1.

The Bank found Mr. Sokan was a so-called “Politically Exposed Person” and that had not been flagged with the Bank when they were notified of his appointment. They also found he had a “potential conflict of interest” because he was involved in the project appraisal and preparation of the terms of reference for the position. And the Bank found the pay the EPA was claiming for was inflated and “not comparable to Liberia’s market rate value and practice.”

Extract from the African Development Bank’s 2023 annual performance review

George Weah lost the election in November 2023 and handed power to the administration of President Joseph Boakai in January 2024. Mr. Boakai appointed Dr. Emmanuel Urey Yarkpowlo to head the Environmental Protection Agency that month.

As a Fifth Rainy Season Begins Since Funding Approved, Still No Weather Warning Center

The new administration relaunched the project with a three-day “inception workshop” in July. A launch ceremony attended by key stakeholders including the African Development Bank, the National Disaster Management Agency, and multiple ministries was meant to mark a fresh start, with officials reaffirming their commitment to equipping farmers and vulnerable communities with reliable weather data. 

Nine months later, as Liberians brace for another rainy season, the center is still not operational.

In an interview, EPA head Dr. Yarkpawolo, acknowledged the delays. He said he had appointed Nelson Jallah, an environmental scientist and former project manager with the international NGO Conservation International to head the project, with the Bank’s approval.

“The meteorological center is being implemented in conjunction with the airport,” he said. “There are some existing centers, but they are quite limited at this point, so we need to modernize them. The CIS Project involves a lot of training to get the center operational and functional. So, the project is underway, but it’s not done yet.”

The Green Climate Fund has not yet responded to New Narratives/Front Page Africa request for documents related to the project through its document request service. In an email, Andy McElroy, a senior media specialist with the fund, confirmed the corruption probe had been resolved.

“The EPA, under its current leadership, has completed the recruitment process and appointed the new Project Manager as per the approved procedures,” Mr. McElroy said. “This individual is part of the established Project Implementation Unit, which will oversee the project’s execution moving forward.”

McElroy said the 2024 annual project performance report will be released by September this year, after final reviews from the implementing partners.

Weah EPA Chief Defends Actions, Blames Africa Development Bank for Delays

Professor Wilson Tarpeh, executive director of the EPA under the Weah government, rejected the Bank’s criticisms.

“We did not do anything wrong.” He insisted that Mr. Sokan went through the proper recruitment process and the Bank was wrong in its judgment.

“I can tell you at the time he was not a political appointee. Jeremiah was hired strictly as a technical staff,” Mr. Tarpeh said. “Sokan was selected project manager due to his expertise in climate change and finance.”

Mr. Tarpeh expressed surprise that the recruitment had been referred to the Bank’s anti-corruption section.

“I was taken aback when I heard about the corruption probe,” Mr. Tarpeh said, claiming he had not even heard of the report before it was presented to him by this reporter. “This was a project we ensured adhered to the necessary procedures. The hiring was based on merit.”

“The delay came mainly from the Bank,” Mr. Tarpeh claimed. “There were some transitional processes on their side that held up the project’s execution. I will follow up with the relevant authorities to ensure everything is properly addressed. We will work to clear up any misunderstandings and move forward transparently.”

Farmers Struggle Without Information or Warnings
Here in Varney Gowah Town the delays are devastating. Anthony N. Kollie, 40, another farmer, shows this reporter his once-thriving farm now dried under the relentless sun.

“When we planted in January, we weren’t expecting the sun to be like this,” said Kollie, shaking his head as he looked at what used to be a swamp. “The sun rate is too high.”

He pointed to the remains of his cucumber and pepper plants. “We used fertilizer, we watered them, but they still died,” he said. “Even when we dug holes for water, we found nothing.”

The lack of rain had devastated his farm, and he worries about the next rice season. Anthony says weather reports would have changed everything. “If we had weather reports, we could plan. If we knew how hot the sun would be, we wouldn’t have planted light crops. Now everything is dying in our hands.” 

Without a functioning weather system, farmers are left guessing when to plant, what to plant, and how to survive. 

“We need the government to help us,” said Kulah Tokpah. “Because if not, we will keep planting, and everything will keep dying.”

Eric Opa Doue contributed reporting and photos from River Cess County. This story was a collaboration with New Narratives. Funding was provided by the American Jewish World Service. The donor had no say in the story’s content.