By By Staff Writer
Monrovia – Former Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah has weighed into the ongoing debate over Liberia’s poverty statistics, accusing surrogates of the Unity Party government of inventing a 40% poverty rate for 2023 to justify the current rise in extreme poverty reported by the World Bank.
The debate follows the launch of the World Bank’s 7th Liberia Economic Update on November 3, 2026, titled Beyond Growth: Addressing Structural Constraints to Job-Rich Growth in Liberia, which reported that extreme poverty increased from 34.6% in 2024 to 36.1% in 2025, despite 5.1% GDP growth.
In a post that has gone viral, Tweah wrote: “UP Surrogates: Stop Inventing a fake 40% Poverty rate for 2023. The World Bank has no such statistics and if you can’t understand its methodological updates, seek help! Accept the Report and solve the Problems!”
Tweah referenced the World Bank’s 6th Economic Update of September 2025, which modeled Liberia’s 2023 poverty rate at 34.5%, not 40%. According to the documents he cited:
- 2023: 34.5%
- 2024: 34.6%
- 2025: 36.1%
“Da only in UP lying school they can consider the poverty increase between 2023 and 2024 a DECREASE. In that school, 34.5% is considered to be 40%,” Tweah stated, adding “If UP can lie on a whole country that 16 billion missing, da simple year like 2023 they can’t lie on?”
He provided two World Bank links for verification: the September 2025 update [https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099102225104038829/pdf/P181231-be1c51ae-ac87-4202-bea8-c8d24e0b83ed.pdf] and the October 2026 update [https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099110226122556089/pdf/P513207-670cedcb-8ec6-4eb6-9d66-89a2415e8d76.pdf], urging the public to “Use these links to verify numbers for 2023, 2024 and 2025.”
The World Bank report itself describes a paradox. Country Manager Georgia Wallen, launching the report Monday, said: “The economy is growing, yet more people are struggling to meet basic needs,” noting growth was mining-led, capital intensive, and created few jobs while inflation and limited formal employment left households behind.
The report, covered widely, also flagged that approximately 90% of new jobs are in informal or low-productivity self-employment, a key reason poverty reduction has stalled.
Unity Party officials have yet to officially respond to Tweah’s figures, but government supporters have argued that methodological changes in the World Bank’s poverty line – moving from $2.15 to $3.00 per day – make direct year comparisons misleading.
Tweah, however, insists the trend is clear and calls on government to “Accept the report and address the 15 other critical problems the report flagged,” rather than dragging the discussion into a CDC vs Unity Party debate.
