Africa-Press – Liberia. The Senate Committee on Public Works has reported that a minimum of US$7 billion is required for asphalt or concrete pavement of 11,788 kilometers of road throughout the country.
The Committee drew this claim from its first quarterly report on infrastructure development for 2025, targeting road infrastructure projects across Liberia, and presented it to the Plenary on Thursday, May 15.
Nine percent of all roads are paved
Former Senate Pro-tempore Senator Albert Tugbe Chie (Grand Kru County), who chairs the Committee, said the figures were drawn from discussions with the relevant national institutions, responsible for road infrastructure.
“The total length of roads across the country (urban and non-urban) is approximately 13,000 kilometers. Of this number, total length of paved roads as of end of December 2024 is 1,212 kilometers,” the Committee’s report noted. That amounts to nine percent of all roads in the country.
The report further noted that the total length of unpaved roads is approximately 11,788km. “Using an average conservative figure of US$600,000.00 to US$750,000.00 per kilometer for asphalt pavement, it will require a minimum of approximately US$7 billion to pave the above road length with asphalt or concrete.”
The Committee noted that, while successive governments have made some progress, since the end of the civil crisis, road infrastructure development still presents a significant challenge across the country.
The Committee observed that some of the road contractors hired by the Ministry of Public Works (MPW) are not up to the task, specifically the contractor hired to maintain the laterite road corridor from Pleebo in Maryland County to Barclayville in Grand Kru. “We believe there are other under-performing contractors on other road corridors.”
The Committee report welcomes the National Road Fund’s (NRF) decision to embark on a nation-wide assessment of major road corridors to ascertain performance of contractors to which they make payments.
The National Road Fund, the Committee disclosed, is planning some reforms to improve road governance and increase the road fund envelope, which it noted, includes plans to review the National Road Fund Act.
Among its five recommendations to the Plenary, the Committee first called for improved governance over the NRF to ensure that funds earmarked for the Fund go directly into an escrow account from collecting sources, instead of passing through the Government of Liberia’s Consolidated Fund.
The Committee also recommended that the MPW continuously evaluate the works of its hired road contractors and terminate non-performing contracts. Besides the NRF collection, the Committee is recommending that the Government (Executive and Legislature) should make significant annual budgetary appropriations for the pavement of roads across the country.
Further, the Committee urged the Executive to hasten the process to procure yellow machines for the counties, with the funds allocated in the 2025 national budget for road equipment.
The Committee concluded its report by urging the government to institute a significant external and domestic borrowing program to pave “a significant portion of the approximately 12,000 kilometers of laterite roads across the country.”
According to information requested for the First Quarter 2025, submitted by the MPW, the total length of roads paved as of December 2024 amounted to 1,211.24km. About 745 km were paved between 2006 and 2017; 386 km between 2018-2023; and 80.24km in 2024.
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