Published: April 24, 2026
MONROVIA — The Ministry of Youth and Sports has received a presidential Excellence Award for its 2025 performance, capping a tenure under former Minister Cllr. Jerror Cole Bangalu that the government’s own evaluation placed among the strongest in the ministry’s recent history.
President Joseph Nyuma Boakai presented the award April 20, following a government performance review that scored the ministry 92.53 percent for the period April 1 through Dec. 31, 2025, placing it in the Outstanding category. The evaluation measured achievement across resource mobilization, system efficiency, institutional capacity building and managerial performance indicators.
The ministry’s revenue generation figures were the most striking result. The ministry raised $400,663 against a target of $150,000, a 267 percent increase that drove much of the high overall score. Senior management meetings were held consistently throughout the period, compliance across seven service areas averaged nearly 99 percent, and the ministry’s strategic plan development scored 42.83 out of a possible 50. President Boakai said the results reflected “strong institutional performance across multiple targets.”
Bangalu, who was appointed executive director of the Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission in January 2026, acknowledged the recognition on Facebook. “I am proud that I left the Ministry of Youth and Sports with an Excellent Performance record for 2025 as recognized by the office of the President,” he wrote, crediting ministry staff and cabinet colleagues for the results.
His tenure, which began in 2024, produced measurable changes at Liberia’s most prominent sports facility. At the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex, Bangalu oversaw a $500,000 floodlight restoration project that replaced outdated analog lighting systems with modern infrastructure, and commissioned FIFA- and CAF-approved dugout seats at a cost of more than $60,000, bringing the facility into compliance with international match standards and allowing Liberia’s national team to host games that previously could not be played there.
Beyond the physical plant, Bangalu strengthened the National County Sports Meet, one of the country’s most unifying athletic events, and launched a five-year strategic plan covering 2025 through 2030 that centers youth development, technical vocational education and training, and entrepreneurship. He was a consistent public advocate for social security protections for former football stars and framed discipline as the foundation on which sustainable national sports must be built.
For Bangalu, the award represented a collective rather than personal achievement. “I remain forever grateful to the dedicated staff of the Ministry of Youth and Sports,” he said.
He now leads the refugee commission, but the visible legacy of his time at the ministry — the lights above SKD, the renewed energy of the county meet, the strategic plan now in its first year of implementation — marks a tenure defined as much by institutional ambition as by the numbers that earned it formal recognition.
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