IN LIBERIAN POLITICS, THE question of “who gets credit” for development projects is often louder than the question of “did it get done.” This has now become a normal undertaken since the Boakai administration, which pushes forward with infrastructure, health, and energy projects across the country assumed office in 2024. it is a familiar argument that resurfaced recently following the commissioning of solar plant project with huge national significance.
TAKING OVER FROM ANOTHER Government, the Boakai administration was greeted with development initiatives either negotiated, designed, or started under former President George Weah’s CDC government. Supporters of the former president say the current UP government is merely cutting ribbons on someone else’s blueprint. Government officials counter that initiation means nothing without completion, funding, and management. The politics of who negotiates, who initiates, and who completes a national project will continue to simmer. That is political expediency at work, and Liberia is not unique. From the U.S. to Ghana, successors inherit, rebrand, and sometimes stall their predecessors’ plans. In a democracy, parties campaign on records, and claiming credit is part of the game.
BUT THERE IS A larger reality that cannot be overestimated, and that is to say that Liberia will get better from these steady development drives, knowing that development is a relay, not a sprint. Reality has it that no president builds a country alone in 6 years considering the enormity of Liberia’s problems. This is why Liberians need to understand and accept what a particular leader tried to do in a given space of time.
THESE INSTANCES SPEAK TO the fact a leader will initiate a project, but might not be in the position or have that opportunity to complete same, just as we have seen with tones of projects in time past. For instance, the Roberts International Airport road expansion began under Sirleaf, saw activity under Weah, and is being completed under Boakai. The Mount Coffee Hydropower restoration started under Sirleaf, was revived under Weah, and now needs sustained maintenance under Boakai. The Coastal Highway, LEC expansions, and several hospital upgrades all have multi-administration fingerprints.
TO PRETEND THAT ANY any single government owns development is to misunderstand how nation-building works. Contracts are signed, loans secured, designs drafted, ground broken, and years later, another administration pours concrete. That is normal. What matters is that the baton keeps moving forward, not backward. The real test is completion, not origin Liberia’s tragedy has never been a lack of plans. It has been abandoned projects – white elephants – and ribbon-cuttings with no follow-up. A project negotiated in 2019 but stalled in 2025 helps no one. A clinic started under CDC but staffed, equipped, and opened under UP does help a mother in Grand Kru.
OF COURSE, YES, LET the CDC point to feasibility studies and MOUs signed between 2018-2023, and let the UP point to new budget allocations, contractors mobilized, and communities finally getting electricity or water. Both are part of the story, and as a matter of fact, voters are smart enough to judge. It is safe to say that when politics becomes only about erasing or claiming credit, Liberia loses because projects get delayed while new governments review everything, and contractors are changed for political reasons, and citizens are often told to wait until “our” administration starts “our” projects. This is a cycle that has cost Liberia and Liberians decades of setbacks.
THE BOAKAI-WEAH RIVALRY, detailed in recent reports, risks turning every bridge and every borehole into a campaign talking point. That is politics, but if the rivalry turns into suppression – cancelling viable projects just because Weah’s name is on them, or defending failed ones just because CDC started them, then Liberians, not politicians, pay the price. No matter who gets credit or not, Liberia must get well, and at the end of the day, the woman selling in Red Light does not care which president signed the first MOU.
LEST POLITICIANS AND SUPPORTERS forget that the student in Voinjama does not care which party cut the ribbon; they care if the road is passable in rainy season; they care if the hospital has drugs, and they care if their children have a future. So let the politics simmer. Let CDC and UP argue on radio, in the Legislature, and on social media about who started what. Indeed, that is the essence of democracy. But let the work continue. Let engineers finish the roads. Let nurses staff the clinics.
LET TECHNICIANS KEEP THE turbines running. The measure of any Liberian government in 2026 and beyond will not be the number of projects it can claim from 2018. It will be the number of projects Liberians can actually use in 2029. this is because credit is temporary, and impact is permanent. Liberia does not need more ribbon wars, it rather needs more finished roads.
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