NATIONAL NEWS
MONROVIA – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has officially dismissed circulating social media claims that the Government of Liberia is behind on salaries and benefits for Liberian diplomats serving abroad.
In a press statement released on Wednesday, MOFA affirmed that payroll for the country’s 30 diplomatic missions is processed regularly, noting that a brief and isolated hiccup affecting a handful of payments in the last quarter of 2025 has already been resolved.
Posts on social media earlier this week alleged that Liberian embassies and consulates were operating with “unpaid” staff, prompting concerns among members of the diplomatic corps and the Liberian diaspora.
By: Rufus Devine Brooks
The accusations referenced alleged delays in salary disbursements for personnel stationed at several missions, including the embassy in Brussels, Belgium.
Assistant Minister for Public Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Saywhar Nana Gbaa, clarified that regular payroll cycles remain intact.
She stated that salary and benefit payments for all 30 overseas missions are processed through the Central Bank of Liberia on a scheduled basis.
According to the ministry, a limited technical issue occurred between October and December 2025, when four payments destined for the Brussels mission were returned to the Central Bank on three separate occasions due to “transmission misalignments” linked to newly implemented SWIFT banking requirements.
The ministry said the problem has since been rectified. Following a joint working session held on February 17, 2026, between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP), both institutions identified the bottleneck and adjusted processing timelines to accommodate the new SWIFT protocols.
“The swift banking adjustments required by international standards momentarily disrupted the transmission of four payments to our colleagues in Brussels,” the statement read. “We have now aligned our systems with the new requirements and instituted stronger coordination mechanisms to prevent a recurrence.”
