THE GOVERNMENT’S DECISION to transfer driver licensing and vehicle registration services to the private Liberia Traffic Management (LTM) company is a dangerous erosion of public sector capacity that will leave 265 skilled workers in professional limbo while creating troubling precedents for governance. This abrupt transition, implemented without proper legislative oversight or workforce protections, effectively cripples core functions of the Ministry of Transport while raising serious questions about transparency and accountability in public contracting.
AT STAKE ARE the livelihoods of 265 civil servants whose specialized skills in license processing and vehicle registration now face obsolescence. These employees continue reporting to work each day, collecting salaries while performing no substantive duties since LTM assumed operational control on July 14. The shutdown of the Liberia Revenue Authority’s payment processing center at the Transport Ministry on July 9 provided early warning of the institutional disruption to come.
THE MINISTRY OF Transport, established by legislative act in 1987, faces an existential crisis as its most public-facing and revenue-generating functions are stripped away. What remains is a hollowed-out bureaucracy retaining policy responsibilities but losing both operational capacity and financial sustainability. This systematic weakening mirrors the fate of other Liberian public institutions where privatization has replaced rather than supplemented state capacity.
THE CONTROVERSIAL CONCESSION traces back to 2018 when the government first granted LTM sweeping authority over traffic management systems. Legal complications emerged in 2020 when the Transport Ministry improperly signed a competing agreement with another firm, creating years of litigation that only concluded with President Boakai’s October 2024 directive favoring LTM. Throughout this process, fundamental questions about LTM’s ownership structure, contractual terms, and performance guarantees have gone unanswered.
FORMER DEPUTY TRANSPORT Minister J. Ebenezer Kolliegbo has sounded alarms about the lack of transparency, noting that no competitive bidding preceded the original concession. He highlights the legal contradiction between the 1972 Vehicle and Traffic Law cited by authorities and the 1987 Act that explicitly assigned these functions to the Transport Ministry. “This isn’t modernization – it’s state capture by private interests,” Kolliegbo warned, drawing parallels to Liberia’s history of opaque resource deals.
THE HUMAN IMPACT is devastating. Skilled workers with decades of institutional knowledge now face unemployment, their expertise lost to the public sector. The government has proposed no transition plan – no retraining initiatives, no redeployment strategies, no severance packages. Meanwhile, troubling allegations persist about Police Inspector General Gregory Coleman’s personal share in LTM, further undermining public trust.
TO AVERT THIS crisis, we urge immediate action on three fronts. First, the Legislature must intervene to pause the transition and reconcile conflicting transport laws. Second, the government must implement workforce protections including redeployment to other transport divisions, retraining programs, and voluntary severance options. Third, full transparency is required regarding LTM’s ownership, contract terms, and revenue-sharing arrangements.
THIS RECKLESS PRIVATIZATION gambit sacrifices both institutional integrity and worker livelihoods for uncertain benefits. Liberia cannot afford to outsource core governance functions without safeguards. Either the Transport Ministry must be properly empowered to fulfill its mandate, or the government must honestly confront the consequences of its dismantling. The jobs of 265 Liberians – and the future of accountable transport governance – demand nothing less.
