When "Rescue” Means Excess: Boakai’s Tokyo Visit Justifies Business Beyond Usual
- Michael T
- Aug 17
- 2 min read
Monrovia, August 16, 2025—Liberians waking up to news of President Joseph Boakai’s Tokyo delegation aren’t seeing the “no business as usual” reforms promised under his Rescue Mission campaign during the 2023 elections. Instead, they are confronted with what appears to be the same old excesses—wrapped in new excuses.
The official story presents a delegation of 23 members, but sources confirm the real number exceeds 40 people when ministry aides, special assistants, security personnel, and unnamed hangers-on are factored in. Each official, it seems, brought along someone (or several), inflating costs and directly contradicting the austerity mantra of the Rescue administration.
To defend this, Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah framed criticisms as “a distraction,” insisting:
“President Boakai has not left this country to stay out for 58 days. He hasn’t done it to watch a football game. He has not left this country with a delegation of 50 persons, and you can see that the variables are not the same.”
However, his argument sidesteps the central issue: the 2025 government-issued travel ordinance. This policy—introduced under Boakai himself—strictly caps delegations at five members for routine trips and seven for top-tier global summits, except under extraordinary conditions approved by Cabinet. By that standard, any team beyond seven breaches the very rules the administration set to curb excess.
Critics argue that Piah’s defense falls flat, swapping substance for spin. Instead of adhering to campaign promises of austerity measures and transparency, the administration appears to be doing the opposite. The optics are damning: what was condemned yesterday is being justified today. Similar oversized entourages were dispatched to previous foreign trips, including last year’s China-Africa Summit, producing little tangible outcome for Liberians upon return.
What ordinary citizens see instead is a governing class more interested in business class flights, luxury hotels, and generous DSA allowances than in real solutions for Liberia’s struggling economy. With inflation edging above 11% in early 2025 (World Bank data) and youth unemployment officially above 60%, the message sent by such bloated delegations is an affront to the common people based on the regime's mantra of coming to "rescue".
For many Liberians, the Tokyo trip punctures any lingering hope that the Rescue Mission promised something different. If anything, it suggests that “rescue” now means rescuing the government’s taste for perks and privilege—at the expense of the nation’s battered coffers.
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