LiMA to Ease Travel to Southeast with Ferry

Published: September 18, 2026

Multipurpose vessel to carry containers, trucks and passengers along Liberia’s coast under a public-private partnership, offering a sea route around roads that fail in the rains

MONROVIA – The Liberia Maritime Authority plans to buy a modern multipurpose ferry to carry containers, trucks, buses, earth-moving equipment and passengers along the country’s coastline. The vessel would give traders and travelers a sea route around roads that routinely fail in the rains.

By Lennart Dodoo

Commissioner Neto Zarzar Lighe Sr. announced the plan in a Facebook post Thursday. He said the government, acting through the authority, “proposes to procure a modern, multi-purpose ferry.” It would move cargo, vehicles and people along the coast and, “where applicable, to neighboring coastal countries.”

The initiative is meant to give coastal communities an alternative way to move people and goods, “particularly to coastal communities and areas where road transportation may be constrained,” Lighe wrote.

Many roads there remain unpaved and deteriorate badly in the rainy season, which lasts up to eight months in parts of the region and often leaves major routes impassable. This year, the Ministry of Public Works barred cargo vehicles weighing 25 metric tons and above from several major unpaved corridors from July 31 to Oct. 15, 2026, to protect the roads during the peak rainy months. A ferry built to carry trucks and heavy equipment would give that traffic a route that does not depend on those roads.

According to Commissioner Lighe, the government will not run the vessel itself. It will be “operated and managed under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Agreement.” The maritime authority would provide the public-sector framework and oversight, while a private partner brings “operational expertise, investment, and commercial management capabilities.” He said the agreement will set out who is responsible for operations, maintenance, safety, revenue management and service delivery.

The ferry would operate under Liberian law and international maritime safety and environmental standards, the post said. Lighe described the project as a step toward using Liberia’s maritime resources to promote “economic development, employment, coastal commerce, and regional integration.”

The announcement moves forward a plan the commissioner has promoted for more than a year. In April 2025 in Seoul, he met executives of South Korea’s Make Group to discuss building a dry dock in Liberia, developing small and medium-sized vessels and introducing modern ferry operations.

By February this year, the authority was conducting market assessments for ferry services along the Gulf of Guinea, with plans to procure vessels to carry passengers and cargo between West African ports. In an interview with the Daily Observer, Lighe described a proposed Gulf of Guinea ferry system to move goods and passengers between coastal states on a predictable schedule. He said the government would buy the vessel and that “Liberians can bid for it.”

The project fits a broader push by the commissioner to turn Liberia’s standing at sea into gains at home. The country is home to the world’s largest ship registry by gross tonnage and holds outsized influence at the International Maritime Organization. The Observer noted, however, that limited inland waterway navigation, river pollution and underdeveloped coastal infrastructure complicate expansion on the domestic front.

Commissioner Lighe took office as commissioner and chief executive of the authority in March 2024. He has since urged Liberians to invest in the sector. Speaking to the European Federation of Liberian Associations in Antwerp, Belgium, he said the country’s maritime sector needs Liberian investors.