By: J. Mason Kollie | Lofa Correspondent
Voinjama City, Lofa County |May 12, 2026 |On Sunday May 10, 2026, the Ministry of Finance Development Planning (MFDP) under the Open Budget Initiative (OBI) conducted hour-long stakeholders’ engagement with citizens, the civil society council, the disabled community and several other sectors.
The stakeholders’ engagement was intended to explain to participants about the budget policies, how money is allocated for the county budget, how money is spent, the public sector investment plan (PSIP) and the budget reform and fiscal transparency initiative.
During the stakeholders’ engagement, the National Budget for FY 2026 was summarized and elaborated upon for the benefit of participants and specific emphasis was laid on Lofa County’s budget.
The summary for Lofa covered Local Government services, Health, Education and other specific areas among others.
During the question and answer period of engagement, the CSO chairman Mohammed Kamara and many others raised concern about the existence of the Foya Polytechnic Institute mentioned in the budget with the allocation of 50,000 USD and disclosed that they are not aware of how said resources is being accounted for when the institution is functionally active.
“Over two FY years, Foya Polytechnic Institute has been mentioned in the budget but we don’t know who received the money” Mohammed Kamara indicated during the public engagement in Voinjama city at the William V.s Tubman county Hall.
In response, Lofa County Superintendent J. Lavelah Massaquoi said, some of the allocation don’t really come as proposed in the FY year’s budget.
“Sometimes we don’t receive money from the Ministry of Finance because of the performance report from those entities but it is mentioned in the county’s budget,” Superintendent J. Lavelah Massaquoi said in a special remark.
Meanwhile, the team from the Ministry of Finance under the open Budget initiative OBI promised to reach out to their bosses on the several concerns raised during the engagement in Voinjama.
