Liberia’s former Minister of Finance, Development Planning, Samuel D. Tweah Jr. has issued a statement addressing what he calls facts surrounding the domestic and international debt between the then ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) and the previous Unity Party administrations, leading up to the year 2023.
Former Minister Tweah unequivocally described any information contrary to what he presented as simply propaganda. According to the former Finance Minister who was recently indicted for alleged corruption, at the end of the CDC regime, the total domestic and external debt amounted to US$2.1 billion. He refuted claims of the CDC alone accumulating US$2.6 billion in debt, labeling it a blatant lie.
Tweah at the same time, provided what he considers as a detailed breakdown of the debt stock, clarifying that the US$2.1 billion consisted of approximately US$914 million in domestic debt, with the remaining portion attributed to international debt from multilateral institutions.
On the issue of domestic debt, the former Finance Minister pointed out that the UP administration left a debt of US$266 million on the books by December 2017. He alleged that the actual UP debt was concealed, estimating it to be more than US$300 million.
To align with IMF standards and initiate an IMF-supported program according Tweah, US$300 million of the hidden debt was acknowledged. He added that an estimated US$100 million was reportedly left at the Central Bank of Liberia for future audits, bringing UP’s domestic debt total to US$566 million or US$666 million when factoring in the unaudited portion.
Tweah further added that under the CDC administration, the domestic debt sum stood at $348 million after deducting the UP’s debt. He encouraged the public to corroborate the information regarding the undisclosed debt with the IMF and emphasized the importance of spreading accurate facts for the sake of a healthy democracy.
Concluding, Mr. Tweah admonished against what he calls baseless propaganda, specifically mentioning the purported US$2.6 billion borrowing figure attributed to the CDC. Tweah clarified that the total domestic and external debt during the specified period did not exceed US$2.2 billion, dismissing any misleading narratives circulating as senseless propaganda.
