Ending Monrovia’s Hegemony: The Need to Decentralize Liberia
A billboard in Grand Bassa County advertising the Liberia Decentralization Support Program, a U.N.-backed initiative to devolve and democratize local governance. Photo by DAI.
By many accounts, Liberia is a fragile state. With a Human Development Index of 0.480 that ranks 175th globally, a poverty rate of 63 percent, waning economic growth, and stagnant trends in quality of life relative to its West African neighbors, Liberia’s political order is vulnerable to collapse. Although its 14 years of civil war ended in 2003, the quality and quantity of most public goods have yet to surpass pre-war levels, with infrastructure being especially decrepit. Corruption remains pervasive at all levels of the state, and while it has declined over time, the exposure of graft has led to dwindling confidence in the government and the outbreak of violent protests.
The Imperial Presidency Strikes Back
Liberia’s remarkably centralized state is a major contributor to this instability. The Constitution of Liberia enshrines what many Liberians deride as an “imperial presidency.” Comparable to other unitary states, Liberia’s national government has absolute authority over its fifteen administrative divisions, known as counties. But, Liberia stands alone in how practically all subnational matters fall under the purview of the executive. Per Article 54(d) of the Constitution, the president reserves the right to appoint and direct all county-level officials, including superintendents (which are analogous to governors in the U.S.), administrative personnel, and mayors, amounting to over three thousand positions in total. These powers are a major source of resentment for many Liberians, who perceive them as impeding accountable government. Because Monrovia, the capital, has more say in county affairs than residents, this system lacks legitimacy.
The imperial presidency is a relic of Liberia’s authoritarian past, when the administrative state served no purpose beyond enriching the president’s allies. Over-centralization has been a salient issue in Liberia since its founding in 1847―Americo-Liberian colonizers centered in Monrovia sought to extend their domain over inland Indigenous groups. Under the reign of William Tubman from 1944-1971, constituencies were redrawn and bureaucratic positions were created to distribute royalties from American natural resource firms to Americo-Liberian loyalists. The emergence of a hierarchically corrupt state eroded native Liberians’ economic opportunity and self-determination. Growing resentment of Monrovia’s kleptocratic rule led to a 1980 military coup by Samuel Doe that ushered in an epoch of instability, civil war, and ethnic cleansing, which concluded with a U.N. peacekeeping intervention.
The dissolution of the Tubman-era spoils system was to be one of the cornerstones of Liberia’s transition from warlord rule to pluralist democracy. International and domestic pressure was on the country’s first elected post-war president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, to decentralize the state, giving citizens the right to vote on county leadership and granting local officials the capacity to deliver social services. Despite Sirleaf’s lip service, the creation of a Constitutional Review Committee in 2012, and several drafted plans, none of these goals were met. This has also been the case for Sirleaf’s successor, President George Weah. Under his Pro-Poor Agenda, county officials will be required to incorporate locals’ demands into their planning and will purportedly receive the discretion to tax and spend. Neither promise has come to fruition.
Evaluating Liberia’s Hyper-Unitary State Structure
Decentralization is often assessed politically, fiscally, and administratively, and along all three axes, Liberia remains an over-centralized outlier. In a 2012 World Bank study, it placed 177th out of 182 countries for political decentralization, referring to the extent that locals play a role in the subnational decision-making process. Liberia’s low ranking in this category can be attributed to the imperial presidency. There are no subnational elections, so holding office is more a matter of favoritism than appealing to public interests. Participation in county-level policymaking is similarly restricted. In 2010, Sirleaf established County Councils, which, in theory, are forums for citizens and interest groups to debate and vote on initiatives for appointed officials to pursue. However, in practice, these councils meet only twice a year and cannot veto superintendents’ decisions, so there tends to be a wide gap between preferences and policy. In Bong County, $1.8 million has been squandered since 2018 on numerous projects that were neither completed nor desired by locals. Rather than building much-needed medical clinics and repairing collapsed bridges, the superintendent funneled money to the renovation of her residence and a “tuition aid” program that existed only on paper.
Since Liberians have no means to sanction county officials’ misconduct or keep them attentive to their grievances, county-level politics are non-transparent at best and flagrantly corrupt at worst. Officials seldom consider themselves accountable to the constituents they serve, and graft often goes unpunished or unnoticed. Obscene levels of embezzlement occur behind closed doors, taking from already-scarce resources that would otherwise improve the welfare of locals―one audit of Nimba County’s 2011-2013 administration revealed the theft of millions of U.S. dollars from development funds by successive superintendents. Despite the outcry revelations like this one provoke, Monrovian lawmakers remain apathetic. Since so many elites profit from this patronage-prone system (including President Weah himself), it is unlikely lawmakers will seize the initiative to democratize county affairs or empower the now-defunct County Councils.
Then there is fiscal decentralization, referring to sub-national officials’ ability to generate and spend tax revenue independently. Liberia struggles in this category as well, ranking 149th globally. County-level officials are sidelined in the tax collection process, while the Liberia Revenue Authority (L.R.A.) oversees nationwide taxation. Due to Liberia’s broken-down road and electricity networks, the L.R.A.’s regional capacities vary immensely, while administrative overhead is high in remote areas. Liberia’s fiscal centralization also lends itself to inadequate supervision, so tax agents are easily bribed. Many households pay no property taxes whatsoever, and coverage rates fall around 4 percent.
Whatever is collected must flow through Monrovia to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (M.I.A.), which manages the counties’ outlays. These transfers occur in total obscurity, so revenues are subject to elite capture. Representatives and senators in the National Legislature often meddle in the M.I.A.’s disbursement process to siphon tax dollars to supporters. Last September, a Montserrado County senator withdrew $12,000 from Montserrado’s budget to finance a personal development council staffed by acquaintances. Since money is often “eaten” before the counties receive their statutory share, most projects are chronically underfunded. Even if they receive their portion, most of the counties’ development funds are entitled to only around $250,000 annually. Yet, unlike political decentralization, piecemeal fiscal reforms have transpired. In 2018, semi-autonomous treasuries were created in Bong, Grand Gedeh, Nimba, and Margibi counties to phase out the L.R.A. and M.I.A. middlemen. The question remains whether elites will allow further efforts since fiscal decentralization endangers their patronage networks.
Finally, Liberia places 130th in terms of administrative decentralization, or the degree to which the national government gives decision-making power to subnational officials. This somewhat higher rank masks major shortcomings. Most of Liberia’s post-war administrative reforms have prioritized deconcentration, expanding the central state’s nationwide presence, rather than devolution, expanding local officials’ jurisdiction. In particular, the Sirleaf administration built County Service Centers, which process documents and function as regional headquarters for national ministries. Still, the absence of infrastructure in the countryside means that public services remain concentrated around Monrovia. This became obtrusive during the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic. When the outbreak emerged in the Liberian backcountry, nearly two-thirds of all medical personnel were situated in the capital, while only 30 percent of Liberians lived in Monrovia’s metropolitan area. Subsequent initiatives to improve public goods delivery in remote areas have been debilitated by a poor division of labor between government agencies, which operate under conflicting mandates and eschew cooperating with local officials. This even includes the experimental county treasuries―because they are supervised by the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, county administrators have no sway over them.
Since greed runs rampant throughout the central government, there has been minimal devolution of responsibilities from national to subnational authorities. Members of the National Legislature routinely override county administrators by awarding contracts to their own companies or bestowing civil service positions upon supporters. As it stands, rent-seekers set the counties’ agendas. State capacity is also integral to administrative decentralization, and without adequate human capital, resources, or logistics, reform may prove unfruitful. Unfortunately, all of these are in short supply across Liberia. Most of the debate in Liberia on decentralization revolves around this issue―critics argue that county-level incompetence in the present means that devolution will constrain economic development. Central government officials have adopted this rationale to justify the lack of progress made on decentralization overall.
President George Weah signs the 2018 Local Government Act. Photo by the Liberian Land Authority.
This outlook, however, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. By refusing to delegate administrative leeway and subordinating the counties to the Monrovian elite’s desires, the status quo prevents subnational officials from learning by doing and cultivating the expertise to deliver services autonomously in the future. Inadequate county-level discretion also stifles policy innovation. Take schooling, for example―while Liberia’s Ministry of Education has pledged to devolve control over drafting curricula and managing staff, most schools are organized under national guidelines. Thus, the counties’ school systems are barred from harnessing communities and civil society groups to devise novel pedagogical approaches. Indeed, Liberians have demonstrated their innovative grassroots potential. In Montserrado, Marigibi, and Bong counties, citizens founded Community Justice Teams to adjudicate civil disputes outside Monrovia's corrupt justice system. Since the counties exist at the whim of selfish lawmakers, officials cannot tap into this bottom-up innovation.
The Obstacles and Opportunities in Decentralizing Governance
Two and a half years ago, there was genuine hope for a politically, fiscally, and administratively decentralized Liberia. In September 2018, Weah signed the Local Government Act into law to overhaul the County Councils into representative bodies capable of levying taxes, approving budgets, and passing ordinances. Nevertheless, none of these measures have been enacted, neither Weah nor the National Legislature has provided a timeline, and county officials remain presidentially appointed. Patronage politics always defeats decentralization, and Liberians―the majority of whom support such reforms―are rightfully outraged. If lawmakers fail to redress these concerns and grievances continue to accumulate, the consequences may be destabilizing, just as they were in 1980.
Even more frustrating is the through-the-roof opportunity cost of the current system. The upside of political decentralization is non-negligible. County-level elections would give subnational officials a popular mandate, and at the same time, ballot-box competition for the superintendency and other positions would incentivize candidates to make popular promises and oblige incumbents to meet constituents’ preferences. Opening up channels for political participation would be a boon for civil society, improving Liberians’ political self-efficacy. One 2011 study of the popular selection of village chiefs across Liberia demonstrated that these reforms prompted a significant increase in civic engagement. These effects would be scalable to the county level―traditional interethnic societies, church congregations, interfaith groups, and organized labor throughout Liberia provide potent sources for local collective action. At the very least, trustworthy, legitimate, and responsive governance would be partially restored.
The benefits would be equally great on fiscal and administrative fronts. With budget drafting, tax collecting, and spending all closer to the people, county-level authorities’ appropriations would be easier for citizens and civic groups to monitor than officials in Monrovia hundreds of miles away. For this reason, most Liberians are willing to pay more taxes as long as they stay at a more accountable, local level. Local tax collection would further close the gaps in the present-day Liberian tax base―administrators would be familiar with counties they work in, making it easier for them to discern low and high-income households and tax them accordingly. If provided adequate autonomy, the counties could adapt tax collection to local revenue sources such as real estate, business licensing, and natural resources. And, even if local state capacity starts off low, devolution will enable the counties to experiment with policies.
As Liberia’s own Governance Commission contends, solving over-centralization and realizing these gains requires measures more drastic than the Local Government Act. The much-loathed imperial presidency codified by Article 54(d) must be erased from the Constitution and replaced by democratically-elected county leadership. The unitary state need not be dismantled, but the counties must be provided with the power to formulate development agendas, dictate fiscal policy, and coordinate with central ministries, all following local demands. Although not a panacea to its institutional and developmental faults, a politically, fiscally, and administratively decentralized arrangement will prove constructive for Liberian democracy while less susceptible to the fraud that has long undermined governance. The onus is on Monrovia to reform, and if the avarice continues, the country’s violent history may repeat itself. But if the politicians and their cronies give up greed and commit to subnational self-determination, a more sanguine future awaits Liberia.
Luke Seminara is a Staff Writer for CPR and a sophomore at Columbia College studying Political Science. He hopes to visit Liberia someday.