Published: November 10, 2026
MONROVIA — The government has allocated nothing to Foya Polytechnic in its draft 2027 national budget, ending a subsidy that funneled US$264,000 into seven budgets for a school The Liberian Investigator found in June does not exist.
But the budget also shows the money kept moving after that investigation. The full US$20,000 approved for the polytechnic in 2026 is recorded as spent by Sept. 30, according to the draft budget the executive submitted to the Legislature on Nov. 6.
The line, Ministry of Education subsidy code 251102, appears in the FY2027 draft with no allocation for 2027 and none projected for 2028 or 2029. It records US$19,999 actually spent in 2025, US$20,000 approved for 2026, and US$20,000 spent in the first nine months of 2026.
The Liberian Investigator reported on June 10 that the national budget had set aside funds for Foya Polytechnic in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026 under the same code, while the site in Foya District remained bare ground with no foundation. Town elders had donated the land.
“We gave this area to the government 150 acres because they said they will come and build big school here, but since then, they haven’t come yet, we’re still waiting for them,” Augustine Tumbey, a resident of Bandinine, told The Liberian Investigator at the time.
The investigation traced the budget line to a bill proposed by the late Lofa County District 1 Rep. Eugene Fallah Kparkar, who died in December 2016. It found no record of any law establishing the institution being passed. The investigation found that Francis S. Nyumalin, who succeeded Kparkar in a 2017 by-election and later became minister of local government, set up a board for the polytechnic without that legal instrument. The name entered the national budget in 2018.
Subsidies under the Education Ministry’s Department of Education for Instructions, the unit that carried the Foya line, rose from US$784,000 in 2026 to US$1,069,000 in the 2027 draft, with new recipients added.
Foya Polytechnic is not the only institution dropped. The draft also removes a US$300,000 subsidy to Western University, none of which had been paid by Sept. 30, and a US$75,000 subsidy to PYJ University.
Lofa University’s allocation rises from US$2.05 million to US$3.55 million in the draft, which says the university plans to open an annex campus in Zorzor City.
The polytechnic line vanished from the 2021 and 2022 budgets after public pressure, residents told The Liberian Investigator in June, before returning in 2023. Lawmakers can still add lines during appropriation hearings before the budget is passed.
No one has yet accounted for the earlier payments. When The Liberian Investigator sought comment in June from Education Minister Jarso Maley Jallah, the finance minister, District 1 Rep. Thomas P. Fallah and Nyumalin, none responded to messages or calls.
Eric Kruboson Zubah, coordinator of NAYMOTE Partners for Democratic Development, said then that the matter warranted an independent inquiry to determine whether it amounted to a ghost project, misuse of public funds, weak implementation or administrative failure. “The facts must guide the conclusion, and individuals connected to such funds must be held accountable,” he said.
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