Liberia has been the International Monetary Fund’s model student for decades. We’ve signed every structural adjustment program they’ve handed us. Accepted every conditional loan with a smile. Implemented every austerity measure they’ve prescribed while our people tightened belts that were already cutting into their bone.
By Fanta Kamara, contributing writer
We’ve privatized our resources, opened our markets, and welcomed foreign investors with red carpets and tax holidays that would make a casino blush.
And yet, we’re still drowning.
I’m writing this not as an economist—though I’ve managed hundreds of millions of budgets at a trillion-dollar company and delivered over 200+ strategic initiatives. I’m writing this as a Liberian woman who watched my country bleed through two civil wars, only to be bled dry by a different kind of violence: the violence of debt, structural adjustment, what they have imposed on us as – development assistance-.
They’ve taught us to call it infrastructure help, aid; but this is what it is in actuality.
THE NUMBERS DON’T LIE—EVEN WHEN THE INSTITUTIONS DO
According to the Ministry of Finance’s 2025 Public Debt Report, Liberia owes $2.69 billion in total public debt—nearly 59% of our entire GDP. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly $500 for every man, woman, and child in Liberia, in a country where according to World Bank data, the average person lives on less than $2 a day.
Do the math with me. $500 that every Liberian owes, man, woman and child, completely oblivious they have this burden.
We’re shackled with $1.62 billion is external debt and $1.07 billion in domestic obligations. External debt, that’s the polite term for what we owe to people who will never feel hunger, while the average Liberian child goes to bed with empty stomachs …see the current Global Hunger Index Rankings, fyi, we did terribly, let I not digress, different story for another day.
According to the 2023 Public Debt Management Report, we paid $254.4 million in debt servicing in 2023 alone. That’s enough money to build 100 new hospitals or 500+ schools, or to provide clean water to every community still drinking from contaminated wells, polluted by feces, ridden with water borne diseases due to the lack of functioning water and sanitation systems, again I’m digressing, let’s get back to focus.
But instead of building our future, we’re servicing debt accumulated from our past, the ghost that’s long buried and gone. Much of it from eras they considered illegitimate, if indeed that was the case, why should we repay it? You have the perpetrators, get them to satisfy their debt.
Here’s the cruelest mathematics: the IMF’s own December 2024 Country Report, put our debt-to-revenue ratio at 160.7%. Read that again. For every dollar we collect in taxes, we owe $1.60 in debt. The IMF, those helpful partners who engineered this trap, project this will reach 168.5% by 2025, ecstatic!
We’re not servicing debt. We’re being suffocated by it.
And the terms, predatory to say the least, but what do I know, let’s hear from the experts instead; according to a January 2025 study by the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debts, the World Bank charges Eastern and Southern African nations interest rates as high as 6.59%, while Jordan pays 2.66% and Brazil pays 3.54%. According to their analysis, African countries lose more than $4.1 billion annually due to this “bias premium”, have you heard that before, higher interest rates charged simply because we’re African, smh, God bless Africa, only you can save us now.
Our own experience confirms this systemic discrimination. According to investigative analysis by Liberian civil society organizations, a government loan of $233 million generated over $1 billion in interest charges.
Let that sink in. We borrowed $233 million and will pay back over a billion. That’s a 329% markup.
Try getting those terms at your local Ecobank and see if they don’t laugh out loud or call LNP for attempted fraud.
We’re not borrowing for development. We’re enriching creditors. Money that could go to little Massa’s school fees and gari yogurt, minimally, instead, we’re buying yachts for another billionaire in Maimi, Paris, etc.
You think this is failure, Think Again, It is blueprint, by Design, carefully orchestrated.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF ECONOMIC DEPENDENCY
John Perkins, former economic advisor and author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, exposed this system decades ago. He wrote: “Economic hit men are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other foreign ‘aid’ organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources.” If you haven’t read this book, go pick it up or order it now.
I used to think Perkins was exaggerating. That was before I started actually looking at the numbers. Before I started tracing where the money goes, mathematic gymnastics you might call it, don’t ask me which one, because I suck at trigonometry, which is why my brother is the engineer, et moi, the nocturnal analytical troublemaker.
Our resources, iron ore, gold, diamonds, rubber, flow out like rivers. According to the Central Bank of Liberia’s 2024 Annual Report, natural resource exports surpassed $1.3 billion in 2024. Yet according to the United Nations Development Program 2025 Human Development Index, Liberians remain among the poorest people on earth, ranking 177 out of 193 countries.
Where’s the disconnect? Let’s, follow the money.
International financial institutions provide loans that enrich political elites (acting as brokers) while saddling future generations with unpayable debt. Perkins described the mechanism with surgical precision: “We arrange a huge loan from an organization like the World Bank. But the money never actually goes to the country. Instead, it goes to U.S. engineering and construction companies to build infrastructure projects in that country…The country is left holding a huge debt, and they basically become our servants.” His words, not mines.
I’ve seen those contracts. I’ve reviewed those budgets. The money flows through, leaving debt behind like toxic residue. Where are the roads those billions were supposed to build? Where are the hospitals? Where is the infrastructure?
The money went to foreign contractors who flew in, flew out, and left us with debt and half-finished projects that became monuments to corruption. You might recall Zoomlion, Donfang Electronics, Crossword Ltd, Sable Mining, Chevron, Exxon Mobile, ‘allegedly’ ish.
Naomi Klein documented this pattern in The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism: “In Latin America and Africa in the eighties, it was a debt crisis that forced countries to be ‘privatized or die,’ as one former IMF official put it. Coming unraveled by hyperinflation and too indebted to say no to demands that came bundled with foreign loans, governments accepted ‘shock treatment’ on the promise that it would save them from deeper disaster.”
Klein’s research revealed the brutal truth about these institutions: “While the IMF certainly failed the people of Asia, it did not fail Wall Street—far from it…These firms understood that as a result of the IMF’s ‘adjustments,’ pretty much everything in Asia was now up for sale—and the more the market panicked, the more desperate Asian companies would be to sell, pushing their prices through the floor.”
This is economic colonialism in business attire. And we keep showing up to work for our colonizers, calling it “partnership” and “development cooperation.”
I’m done with the euphemisms. I promise.
AFRICA IS WAKING UP—AND TAKING NOTES
But here’s what gives me hope: Across our continent, something is shifting. Countries are beginning to chart different paths. And they’re not asking permission.
Ghana is leading by example. On January 1, 2026, according to news reports from the African Press Agency, President John Dramani Mahama announced that Ghana is “beginning the process of exiting the IMF program with dignity, not as supplicants, but as partners.”
Read that phrase again: “Not as supplicants, but as partners.” Not subjugation, but assertion.
According to the IMF’s own December 2024 review, after completing several assessments under their Extended Credit Facility program, Ghana expects to fully exit IMF oversight by August 2026. According to Ghana’s Ministry of Finance, their inflation dropped from over 23% at the end of 2024 to a projected 5% by the end of 2025. Their currency stabilized. They restructured their debt “under conditions that protect national sovereignty,” according to President Mahama’s statement. Liberia, please take note.
President Mahama then said something that should be taught in every African economics class: “This will be Ghana’s last IMF bailout. We will never again return to the IMF for financial support.” Where is Gaddafi when you need him?
Let’s be clear, that’s practical policy, not rhetoric. Absolute Sovereignty.
Ethiopia went even further; according to Reuters reporting from February 2024, Ethiopia joined BRICS and immediately leveraged that membership. According to the Ministry of Finance of Ethiopia’s March 2025 statement, they secured an Agreement in Principle with official creditors—led by China—covering $8.4 billion in debt and providing $2.5 billion in debt service relief through 2028.
They’re still working with the IMF on a $3.4 billion Extended Credit Facility, according to IMF Country Report No. 24/180, but now they have alternatives. They’re negotiating from strength, not desperation or destitute.
That’s the difference between a transaction and a trap.
According to official announcements in January 2025, Nigeria, Uganda, and Algeria became BRICS partner countries, joining Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Africa as African nations actively building alternatives to Western-dominated financial institutions. According to Senegal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in April 2025, the country is in “talks” to join BRICS.
Even Indonesia, traditionally aligned with the West became BRICS’ tenth full member in January 2025, demonstrating the bloc’s expanding global influence beyond just the “usual suspects.”
The BRICS New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, offers something revolutionary: infrastructure financing without policy conditionalities (imagine those that have been imposed on us???). According to the NDB’s September 2025 Annual Report, the bank had approved over $32.8 billion in financing across 122 projects. The analysis by the Council on Foreign Relations, reveal project processing time of 18-24 months versus the World Bank’s 36-48 months.
And here’s the kicker: The NDB’s own disclosures, 25-26% of their lending is now in Yuan, Reals, and Rand instead of dollars, reducing foreign exchange risk and breaking the dollar’s stranglehold on development financing.
You’ll think that was wishful thinking, but it’s not. Research data indicates that Indonesia and South Korea graduated from World Bank dependence and became donors. China and Thailand transformed from aid recipients to economic powerhouses. According to World Bank IDA graduation criteria documents, Mongolia graduated from IDA support in 2020, with GDP per capita rising from $1,072 in 1991 to $5,796.48 in 2023.
It’s not impossible, It can be done. We just have to be willing to do it.
LIBERIA’S LEVERAGE: WHAT WE ACTUALLY HAVE
We’re not powerless. Liberia possesses significant leverage, if we’re willing to use it.
In his January 2025 State of the Nation address, according to official transcripts from the Office of the President, President Boakai announced discoveries of uranium, lithium, cobalt, manganese, and neodymium, all critical minerals essential for global energy transition and technology.
Let me translate that from diplomatic-speak: We’re sitting on the minerals that make electric cars like tesla work, your iPhone and android smartphones work, and make renewable energy possible. The entire “green transition” the West keeps talking about? It requires what’s under our feet, right here at home, probably even under Ma-Esther house.
The studies conducted over five decades and funded by China revealed these deposits.
hmm, then why did he ask Trump in 2025 to do a geological study???, wonder shall never end…I’m diverting again, let’s get back.
The government projects $3 billion in investment from these discoveries, with economic growth expected to accelerate to 5.8% in 2026 from an estimated 5.1% in 2024.
According to the Central Bank of Liberia’s 2024 Annual Report, our iron ore, gold, and rubber exports exceeded $1.3 billion in 2024, with strong demand from Europe and Asia. ArcelorMittal Liberia’s 2024 annual investor disclosures suggest, iron ore production is expanding, with the company increasing output and investing in rail infrastructure connecting mines to the port of Buchanan.
But here’s the problem: We’ve been signing away these riches for pennies while accumulating crushing debt to pay for “development” that never materializes.
Can we put the brakes on these never-ending concessions please and recalibrate… your actions today will be consequential tomorrow, stop signing away our birthrights.
HERE’S WHAT WE MUST DO – YES, I ALSO COME WITH SOLUTIONS
1. CONDUCT A COMPREHENSIVE DEBT AUDIT
Ecuador did this under President Rafael Correa. According to reporting by The Guardian in April 2007, Ecuador appointed a Debt Audit Commission to investigate every loan. They expelled the World Bank’s permanent representative and kicked the IMF out of the central bank’s buildings. They identified debts made to dictatorships. Debts with predatory terms. Debts where funds were misappropriated. Ecuador declared portions illegitimate and suspended payment. Creditors panicked. According to analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Ecuador bought back their commercial bonds at 30 cents on the dollar, saving billions.
Guess what, their economy didn’t collapse—it grew.
Liberia must do this. Audit every loan since the civil war. Identify predatory debt. Declare illegitimate portions null. Renegotiate the rest from a position of moral and legal authority.
Yes, they’ll threaten us. They threatened Ecuador too. Ecuador called their bluff and came out green.
2. JOIN BRICS AND ACCESS ALTERNATIVE FINANCING
BRICS bank has approved over $32.8 billion in financing for infrastructure and development projects—without the IMF’s harsh conditionalities.
BRICS institutional documents, the Contingent Reserve Arrangement provides $100 billion for balance-of-payments support.
Ethiopia joined BRICS and secured better terms. Nigeria joined as a partner. According to official BRICS communications, applications remain open.
We can do this too. And we should. Do it for Mama Liberia.
3. RENEGOTIATE RESOURCE CONTRACTS FROM STRENGTH
Our newly discovered lithium, cobalt, and rare earth minerals give us leverage we didn’t have before. Instead of accepting minority royalties (2%) and watching multinationals extract billions while we get a few million:
- Demand majority ownership in all extractive projects, Require technology transfer and local processing—no more shipping raw materials for others to profit from processing
- (Botswana just negotiated 50% with DeBeers and processes all diamonds locally today, creating 1000s of jobs for their people and youth, imaging your 60%+ unemployment rate trending downward, wow, what a legacy… )
- Create a Sovereign Wealth Fund like Norway’s, investing resource revenues for future generations
- Use resource revenues to fund infrastructure directly, cutting out predatory foreign contractors who charge triple and deliver half
4. BUILD DOMESTIC REVENUE CAPACITY
We cannot borrow our way to prosperity. According to the IMF’s December 2024 Country Report No. 24/377, Liberia must strengthen domestic revenue mobilization, including transitioning to VAT and reducing tax exemptions. For once, I agree with them.
We must:
- Tax multinational corporations properly—no more sweetheart deals and brown envelop legislators, bureaucrats and elites receives, leaving us with environmental damage and empty treasuries
- Implement progressive taxation—the wealthy must pay their fair share, not hide behind offshore accounts while the poor carry the burden
- Reduce tax exemptions costing billions annually that benefit the connected few
- Digitize tax collection to capture revenue from the entire economy, not just formal sector workers
5. PURSUE REGIONAL TRADE AND COOPERATION
According to ECOWAS economic data, the bloc represents a market of 400 million people. We should:
- Trade within Africa using local currencies, not dollars—why should two African countries need American currency to trade with each other? Note, our PPP is $12B vs Nominal $5.7B, we get more with local trade.
- Develop regional value chains for our resources
- Build cross-border infrastructure collectively through African Development Bank and regional mechanisms
- Support the African Monetary Fund as proposed by the African Union
According to BRICS trade data, member nations have demonstrated this model works. The Atlantic Council trade using the BRICS cross-border payments system in local currencies is reducing reliance on the dollar and protecting participating nations from currency weaponization.
6. DEMAND DEBT-FOR-DEVELOPMENT SWAPS
Instead of cash payments that drain our treasury, negotiate debt cancellation in exchange for investments in education, healthcare, and climate resilience. International creditors get social impact metrics they can report to their shareholders. We get actual development that changes lives.
It’s called creative negotiation. We should try it.
THE PATH FORWARD: COURAGE OR CONTINUED COLONIZATION
Naomi Klein warned us: “The principle was simple. Economies in crisis desperately needed aid to stabilize their currencies. When privatization and free-trade policies are packaged together with a financial bail-out, countries have little choice.”
But we do have choices. We’ve always had choices. We’ve just been too afraid—or too compromised—to make them.
Ghana is exercising theirs. Nigeria and Uganda are building alternative relationships. Even traditionally Western-aligned nations like Indonesia joined BRICS recognizing the need for options beyond Washington.
The IMF will call this irresponsible. Creditors will threaten us with credit downgrades and loss of access to international capital markets. Western embassies will express “concern” in carefully worded statements.
But remember: They said Ghana would collapse, and according to IMF data, Ghana is exiting with economic stability and single-digit inflation. They said Ethiopia couldn’t negotiate better terms, and according to Ministry of Finance Ethiopia, China led a $2.5 billion debt relief package.
The real irresponsibility is continuing to enrich creditors while our people suffer. The real recklessness is signing our children’s future away to service debt accumulated by criminals and kleptocrats.
What we need now is courage.
I know courage. I’ve been called “difficult” my entire career for refusing to compromise on accountability. For insisting that organizations live up to their stated principles. For demanding that we tell the truth even when the truth is uncomfortable.
They call women like me difficult because we won’t smile and nod while they rob us blind.
So let me be difficult one more time:
Liberia, we are not beggars. We are a resource-rich nation that has been systematically exploited—first through slavery, then through colonialism, then through debt and structural adjustment.
We have uranium, lithium, cobalt, gold, iron ore, diamonds, rubber, and some of the richest agricultural land in West Africa. We have a strategic location, a large maritime registry that generates revenue, and a young population eager to work if given opportunity.
We have the power to rewrite our economic future, but only if we’re brave enough to use it. Cowardice is a disease we must rid ourselves of.
The question is not whether the IMF approves of our choices. The question is not whether credit rating agencies give us their blessing. The question isn’t whether Western embassies express “concern.”
The question is: When will we stop performing for creditors and start serving our people? When will we value our children’s futures more than we fear the IMF’s disapproval? When will we be willing to be called “difficult” for demanding dignity?
I’ve built my career on asking uncomfortable questions and demanding accountability. I’ve been kicked out of rooms, uninvited from meetings, and labeled “too difficult” more times than I can count, all while still generating billions in efficiencies and revenues for them.
And I’m still here. Still asking. Still demanding. Because someone has to.
Liberia deserves better than permanent debt servitude. Our children deserve better than inheriting obligations accumulated by the corrupt and the compromised. This is not radical. This is not reckless. This is justice. This is sovereignty. This is what every developed nation did on their path to prosperity, they prioritized their people over foreign creditors.
It’s time we did the same and stop being performative. Put Liberia First. Always.
Fanta Kamara is a geopolitical analyst, advocate, and host of UNCENSORED by Fanta Kamara. She previously served as SVP in Global Information Security at Bank of America for nearly a decade. Her work focuses on forensic accountability and advocacy for marginalized communities. She holds an International Business MBA and a Graduate Certificate from Harvard Business School in Sustainable Business Strategy. Some call her difficult. She calls it uncompromising.
The post THE IMF’S FAVORITE CHILD: How International Aid Enables Liberian Corruption appeared first on FrontPageAfrica.
Leave a Reply