Liberia: Ex-President Sirleaf Admits Her Government Failed to Defeat Corruption, Says Menace Persists

MONROVIA — Former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has made a candid admission that her administration failed to defeat corruption in Liberia, acknowledging that despite extensive institutional reforms during her 12-year presidency, the menace remains deeply entrenched and continues to confront the country today.

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By Gerald C. Koinyeneh

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“We did not succeed,” Sirleaf said Tuesday while delivering the keynote address at a Governance Commission symposium on good governance in Monrovia. The event marks the inaugural ceremony marking October as Liberia’s Month of Good Governance, an initiative declared by President Joseph Nyuma Boakai.

The former president said she wished her administration had won the fight against corruption but conceded that its efforts fell short.

“I wish that I could, with all these efforts, have won the corruption fight. We did not. And we are facing the same thing today,” she said.

Sirleaf’s admission comes nearly two decades after she famously declared corruption “public enemy number one” during her inauguration in January 2006, shortly after becoming Liberia’s first post-war president and Africa’s first democratically elected female president.

She served two constitutional terms, leaving office in January 2018 after peacefully transferring power to then-President-elect George Manneh Weah.

‘Audits Were Published and Then Forgotten’

Reflecting on the shortcomings of her administration’s anti-corruption campaign, Sirleaf pointed to weak enforcement, inadequate funding for integrity institutions and the failure to prosecute individuals accused of wrongdoing.

“I have said so before, and I will say it again. Audits were published and then forgotten. Too few cases reached the courtroom, and fewer ended in conviction,” she said.

She also acknowledged that some institutions were given broad mandates without the budgetary resources required to effectively perform their functions.

Sirleaf said the experience taught her that establishing institutions and passing laws, while important, were insufficient to defeat corruption.

“Institutions are necessary, but they are not enough. Accountability without consequence will only be a report on the shelf,” she said.

According to Sirleaf, laws provide the framework for accountability, but their effectiveness depends on leaders, citizens and institutions working together to enforce them.

Reforms, But Corruption Fight Fell Short

Sirleaf defended the governance reforms undertaken during her administration, recalling that her government inherited a country emerging from years of civil war, institutional collapse and widespread public distrust.

“We inherited a nation that had been looted by the people who had lost faith in government,” she said.

She said her administration understood that sustaining peace would require rebuilding public confidence in state institutions.

Among the measures undertaken, she cited strengthening the General Auditing Commission and establishing the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission.

Her administration also established the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission and reviewed concession agreements signed during the civil war, canceling some contracts it determined were not in the national interest.

Sirleaf also pointed to the National Forestry Reform Act of 2006 and the 2009 Community Rights Law, which she said strengthened legal benefits for communities.

Through the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, she said Liberia became the first African country to meet the global standard for publishing information on what companies paid and what government received from the extractive sector.

Her government also passed the Freedom of Information Act in 2010, which she described as the first such law in West Africa.

The administration also secured relief of approximately US$5 billion in Liberia’s public debt, which Sirleaf said enabled the country to meet requirements for national reconstruction.

Yet, despite those achievements and the creation or strengthening of accountability institutions, she acknowledged that corruption remained unresolved.

‘It Starts From the Very Top’

Sirleaf said the responsibility for fighting corruption ultimately begins with political leadership.

“Accountability begins at the top, the very top, or it does not begin at all,” she said.

She argued that citizens are more likely to follow what leaders do than what they say.

“It’s not enough to make laws; enforcement is cardinal,” she said.

The former president stressed that public officials must lead by example and demonstrate integrity in the exercise of their responsibilities.

“It starts from the very top,” she emphasized.

She also called for Liberia’s integrity institutions to receive the full budgetary allocations required under the law, while challenging those institutions themselves to uphold the standards they are mandated to enforce.

Judiciary Must Enforce Its Decisions

Sirleaf also called for greater respect for the judiciary and implementation of court decisions, while warning against treating the courts as the sole solution to Liberia’s governance problems.

“The judiciary and our courts, yes, must be respected, and decisions rendered must be fully implemented,” she said.

But she added that the judiciary itself must be properly staffed with competent and highly principled officials capable of making decisions in accordance with the law.

“Waiting for the courts, waiting for the Supreme Court to take the lead to resolve the problem is not going to help us on this matter,” she said.

‘Exclusion Breeds Resentment’

Beyond corruption, Sirleaf used the symposium to place Liberia’s governance crisis within the broader context of the country’s history.

She recounted Liberia’s establishment by the American Colonization Society for the resettlement of freed Black people from the United States and the declaration of independence in 1847.

She noted that Liberia and Ethiopia were the only African countries to maintain their sovereignty during the period of European colonial expansion and the Scramble for Africa.

But Sirleaf said Liberia’s history was also marked by the exclusion of the indigenous majority from political and economic power.

She argued that the prolonged exclusion created resentment that eventually contributed to the 1980 military coup and the civil wars that followed.

“For more than a century, our Republic was governed and taught the school of loyalty, affirming the axiom that a government that answers only to a few will sooner or later serve only a few,” she said.

“This is what happened. Exclusion breeds resentment. Resentment bred the problems of 1980. And then 14 years of civil war that reportedly took 250,000 lives.”

She said the country’s years of militarism and civil war also destroyed infrastructure, weakened institutions and damaged Liberia’s democratic culture.

Accountability Is Not a Foreign Concept

Sirleaf rejected the notion that accountability and good governance are foreign concepts imposed on Liberia.

“Let us also be clear that accountability is not a foreign idea brought to us from outside,” she said.

She invoked the traditional Palava Hut system, where chiefs who abuse their authority can be challenged by elders and members of the community.

“Leadership is trust and can be withdrawn,” she said, stressing that public authority must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.

For Liberia, she said, good governance should be viewed as a restoration of balance between government and citizens.

‘Freedom of Information Law Belongs to You’

Sirleaf urged Liberians to take greater responsibility for demanding accountability from their leaders and institutions.

She called on citizens to understand and use the country’s laws, particularly the Freedom of Information Act, as a tool for demanding transparency.

“To the citizens of Liberia, our Freedom of Information Law belongs to you as a democracy,” she said.

She also had a direct message for journalists.

“To our journalists, keep asking the hard questions,” Sirleaf said.

Analysts say her remarks at the Governance Commission symposium offered one of the clearest assessments of the limitations of her administration’s anti-corruption campaign, while placing responsibility for confronting the problem on Liberia’s current and future leaders, institutions and citizens.

Recognizing Sirleaf’s ‘Enduring’ Legacy

The event was convened by the Governance Commission in Monrovia and brought together government officials, diplomats, development partners, civil society leaders, media executives and governance stakeholders.

Alaric K. Tokpa, Acting Chairman of the Governance Commission, described Sirleaf’s participation as particularly significant because she was the first chairperson of the Governance Reform Commission, the institution from which the current Governance Commission evolved.

Tokpa praised Sirleaf’s political career and her role as Africa’s first democratically elected woman president, saying her journey from imprisonment to the Executive Mansion had helped challenge longstanding assumptions about women’s capacity to lead.

He also credited the establishment of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development with extending her influence beyond her presidency.

“Your leadership example and great legacy” should continue to inspire women and young people across Africa, Tokpa said in welcoming the former president.

He said the Governance Commission considered Sirleaf’s presence at the inaugural Good Governance Month event especially meaningful because of her historical connection to the commission and Liberia’s governance reform process.

Tokpa urged Liberians and Liberia’s international partners to embrace good governance as a requirement for national renewal, peace, stability and socioeconomic development.

He identified transparency and accountability, effective government, public participation and inclusion, the rule of law, justice, equity and decentralization of power as essential pillars of good governance.