He is a man of wide ranging discussion. With a double Master’s Degree, Boniface Satu, the first Chief Executive Officer, CEO, of the Liberian National Road Fund, NRF, is well suited for a job that is, today, President George Manneh Weah’s cardinal focus. Satu controls the funds for road maintenance in Liberia. Road construction, maintenance and rehabilitation are the flagship program of the President. In this interview with AbubakarHashim, in Monrovia, Boniface Satu explains what the NRF stands for, his achievements, challenges and the immediate future of NRF in the Liberian economy.
What are your achievements and challenges so far since your assumption of duties?
Thank you for the opportunity, so that Liberians and the world in general, will know about the road sector. First, we thank our president, H.E. George Manneh Weah for the opportunity to muster the courage to get the National Road Fund NRF operationalized.
Historically, the Road Fund was initiated by former President, H.E. Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, passed into law, but was never operationalized. It was PresidentWeah’s government that operationalized the Road Fund, because he wants all parts of Liberia to be connected. Road connectivity is President Weah’s first priority. I’m the first CEO of the fund, recruited competitvely in 2018, involving the international community. Including the World Bank, European Union, African Development Bank and some government institutions were also part of the recruitment process. This makes it highly competitive.
Today, at NRF we have 30 staff, we say special thanks to the World Bank, African Development Bank and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, for the eventual operationalization of the NRF.
Secondly, without the support of the inter-ministerial committee, comprising the Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of Commerce, our achievements will be meaningless. These entities form the governing body or the board of the NRF.
With these structure and framework, we now have a maintenance infrastructure in place for our road sector. Before, we didn’t have a technical team to maintain our roads. With the NRF, we now have a pool of funds to maintain our road corridors. The NRF is a conduit for maintenance and rehabilitation of roads in Liberia.
The NRF generates income through levies, 45 cents from every gallon. The fund has generated $108 million since 2018, when I resumed, to date. Before, roads and other major development projects were donor- funded.
Though some major roads are externally funded, we maintain roads through the NRF. We are part of the African Road Fund Administration (ARFAM), we are also part of the International Road Federation (IRF) based in Washington D.C.
What are your challenges so far?
The World Bank conducted a study in 2016/2017, called the road condition survey. The study revealed that only 6 percent of our roads were paved or in deplorable condition.
When President Weah took over the bar was elevated to 10 percent. This is a significant milestone for our country. Today, we can boast of so many communities with feeder roads. The main challenge or obstacle here is that we are undergoing so many road maintenance and rehabilitation, not commensurate with funds availability. We are now looking at alternative sources of financing to fill the gap. We are looking at the tolling option in Liberia to generate funds for maintenance to close the road deficient gap we are facing in the road sector today. The toll can generate 4 to 5 million dollars per annum.
We are also looking at the weighing of heavy duty trucks to pay certain levies on the roads, to increase our revenue in the sector.
How do you fund ongoing major road projects? For instance, when coming from the airport, there is intensive road rehabilitations ongoing? Even in town, road rehabilitation is ongoing. How do you, swiftly, fund these ongoing projects as there are delays and complaints?
We understand there are delays. You have to understand Liberia’s climate conduction. It rains a lot in Liberia, one of the highest in the world. We have 6 months for road works in Liberia due to heavy rains.
Moreso, our road financing is categorized in to 2 major folds: the road fund revenue meant for maintenance and the rehabilitation of road, which government gives appropriation, like the airport road (RIA) road you mentioned earlier. The airport road is strictly from government appropriation, not from NRF. Then there is the donor funded roads like the Ganta road project and other high ways funded by the donors.
So our funding is a combination of NRF, government appropriation and donors.
Currently, our roads are undergoing massive rehabilitation to bring them to appreciable levels. From government data, we need a trillion dollar to bring our roads to appropriable levels; so we still have a high demand for financing our road sector.
Do you have collaboration with sister organizations in West Africa Region?
Yes. We have the ECOWAS road rehabilitation program, like the Loguato corridor,boarding Ivory Coast. Also, we have the Ganta corridor, bordering Guinea, which is collaboration with the World Bank. The Arab Bank is also in active collaboration with our Ministry of Public Works.
You are 5years since assumption of duties in 2018. In your quiet moments, how do you see the immediate future of the NRF in the Liberia economy?
Good question. Economically, our main challenge is road connectivity. The present momentum by President Weah in road connectivity brings immense economic value to the country. NRF is strategic to the Liberian economy.
When I took over NRF five years ago, (my mandate will soon expire), I had a strategic framework for the road sectors as it is directly correlated to the Liberian economy. I have developed the institutional and strategic framework since resumption of duties. Now, it is to generate more funds to build more roads, inorder to expand the economy. This is our immediate task ahead. This could be done through leveraging on financial instruments, or through public/private partnership, PPP, or Build Operate and Transfer, BOT, models.
This makes the NRF strategic and important, with direct impact on the Liberian people and the economy. We are poised to make the NRF more robust in all the counties in Liberia, as in other countries like Namibia, Kenya and Rwanda.
Source: The News Nigeria
(Visited 5 times, 5 visits today)
