Monrovia – The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Protection, Safety, Intelligence, and Veteran Affairs, Senator Momo Cyrus, has raised critical issues over the Authorities of Liberia’s choice to switch car registration and driver licensing capabilities from the Ministry of Transport to Liberia Site visitors Administration, describing the transfer as a possible risk to nationwide safety and governance.
By Obediah Johnson, [email protected]
In a press release issued Monday, Senator Cyrus mentioned the choice poses grave governance, fiscal, and safety dangers at a time when Liberia’s inner safety panorama is turning into more and more advanced.
He argued that past administrative implications, the switch represents a troubling departure from established statutory order and introduces vulnerabilities into techniques central to public security, id administration, and inner safety coordination.
“Core Sovereign Features”
In line with the Lofa County lawmaker, car registration and driver licensing are usually not routine industrial companies that may be outsourced with out consequence.
“These processes represent core sovereign capabilities instantly tied to nationwide safety, regulation enforcement, intelligence, inhabitants motion monitoring, and inter-agency coordination,” Senator Cyrus acknowledged.
He burdened that the techniques concerned home delicate private, biometric, and vehicular knowledge that should stay underneath direct state management, topic to clear accountability mechanisms and parliamentary oversight.
“Any fragmentation or externalization of such techniques weakens the integrity of the nationwide safety structure,” he warned.
Rising Transnational Threats
Senator Cyrus linked his issues to what he described as rising transnational threats dealing with Liberia. As soon as thought to be one of the peaceable states within the Mano River Basin, he mentioned the nation is now confronting cyber-enabled monetary crimes, illicit telecommunications actions, and opaque non-public networks working throughout borders.
He disclosed that preliminary intelligence briefings from nationwide safety establishments level to the exploitation of digital infrastructure for large-scale monetary crimes, the misuse of telecommunications belongings, and the concealment of encrypted knowledge linked to worldwide legal syndicates working in West Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America.
Of specific concern, he added, is proof suggesting Liberia’s telecommunications and digital techniques are being focused by unscrupulous worldwide actors utilizing entrance companies and complex cyber instruments to launder cash, manipulate knowledge, and obscure illicit networks.
“These developments considerably heighten the danger profile of outsourcing any perform that intersects with nationwide id techniques, car motion data or regulation enforcement databases to entities past direct sovereign management,” he emphasised.
Authorized and Institutional Issues
Senator Cyrus maintained that bypassing the Ministry of Transport, which is statutorily mandated to deal with such capabilities, undermines institutional readability and weakens the rule of regulation.
“The Ministry is legally established to hold out these obligations. Its displacement with out complete reform, legislative approval or clear justification units a harmful precedent,” he mentioned. “It indicators institutional fragility and erodes public confidence in governance.”
Income and Employment Impression
The senator additionally raised issues in regards to the monetary construction of the concession settlement, noting studies that the international operator retains a disproportionate share of revenues generated from car registration, driver licensing and associated companies.
He warned that the absence of clear income ensures, escalation clauses and monetary safeguards exposes the state to potential income leakage at a time of mounting fiscal strain.
“Such an association constrains the federal government’s capability to reinvest in transport security, institutional strengthening and safety infrastructure,” he acknowledged.
Moreover, Senator Cyrus cited studies that greater than 200 Liberian professionals have been displaced because of the switch, describing it as a hollowing out of native technical capability.
“Sustainable reform ought to construct home experience, not exchange it in delicate sectors,” he mentioned.
Name for Quick Evaluate
Whereas acknowledging issues that suspending or reviewing the association might ship adverse indicators to traders, Senator Cyrus argued that sovereign safety pursuits should not be subordinated to industrial comfort.
“A safe, well-governed and law-abiding state is the strongest basis for sustainable funding,” he mentioned.
He referred to as for the speedy suspension of the association’s implementation and the launch of a complete legislative and safety assessment to look at its authorized foundation, fiscal phrases, knowledge safety implications, and broader institutional affect.
Senator Cyrus additionally urged President Joseph Nyuma Boakai to rethink the choice within the curiosity of nationwide safety, sound governance, and financial equity.
“A deliberate reassessment will reaffirm Liberia’s dedication to safeguarding sovereign capabilities, strengthening statutory establishments and guaranteeing a steady, lawful and safe surroundings for reliable funding,” he concluded.
