By Staff Writer
Monrovia -A quiet but devastating economic strangulation is unfolding across Montserrado and other urban counties, threatening to collapse hundreds of small and medium-sized Liberian businesses.
At the center is an unlawful, duplicative revenue scheme in which two state institutions – the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) and the National Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Commission (WASH Commission) – are levying separate, conflicting tariffs on the same groundwater extracted from wells that private citizens financed, dug, and maintain themselves.
For business owners who invested to survive government failure, the cost of self-reliance has now become extortionate: up to US$9,000 per year, per well, for water the government does not supply.
The Crisis: Taxing Survival
Over 80% of Monrovia remains without regular pipe-borne water, despite annual budgetary appropriations to LWSC. In that vacuum, ordinary Liberians became their own water utility. Small guest houses in Paynesville, restaurants in Sinkor, car washes, hotels in Congo Town, sachet water producers in Duala – they drilled their own wells.
Now both agencies are claiming regulatory ownership over those private wells.
According to business owners and documents obtained by this paper:
WASH Commission annual licensing and compliance fees, which previously stood at US$200 to US$300, have ballooned to US$1,875 to US$3,000 per well, without public hearing.
LWSC is separately demanding US$5,000 to US$6,000 per well annually for “groundwater abstraction and commercial well licensing.”
Combined with other statutory fees – EPA Environmental Permit US$1,500, National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) Water Quality Testing US$125, City Corporation machine fees US$75 – a single-well operator faces over US$9,425 in fixed regulatory costs before selling a single cup of water.
“This is not regulation. It is punishment for being self-reliant,” a restaurant owner in Sinkor told this paper, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “Government could not give us water. We found our own water. Now government wants to tax our sweat twice.”
The Legal Contradiction: Operator vs. Regulator
The foundation of the crisis is a dangerous inter-agency turf war rooted in conflicting interpretations of two laws passed by the 53rd Legislature.
1. The WASH Commission Act (2017) – The Supreme Regulatory Law
Ratified by the Legislature in 2017 and printed into handbills on August 23, 2018, during the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf administration, this Act is explicit.
Section 9.1 declares: “The Liberia National Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Commission is established… and serves as the principal government entity on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) throughout the Republic of Liberia.”
Legal experts argue this language is dispositive. The Act creates the WASH Commission as the sole sector regulator with mandate to regulate tariffs, licensing, and service standards across the entire WASH sector. It was designed specifically to cure the historical problem of duplication of functions, as envisioned in the 2009 National Water Supply and Sanitation Policy.
2. The Amended LWSC Act (2017) – An Operator Claiming Regulatory Powers
LWSC’s new management under Managing Director Mohammed Alie is relying on Sections 88.4 Subsection 5(c) and 8, and Section 5b of its Amended Act, which the Corporation claims empowers it to “issue license for the development, operations, production and maintenance of commercial wells and boreholes in urban cities and towns” and to determine tariffs for wells abstracting above 5,000 gallons per month or used for food/beverage production.
But constitutional lawyers consulted for this investigation describe LWSC’s interpretation as ultra vires – beyond its legal powers.
“LWSC is an OPERATOR, WASH Commission is the REGULATOR. An operator cannot regulate its own competitors. It is like allowing Lonestar Cell MTN to set tariffs for Orange Liberia,” said a senior commercial lawyer.
Under Liberia’s administrative law, two key doctrines apply:
Lex Specialis Derogat Legi Generali: Where two laws conflict, the law that is specific to the subject matter prevails. The WASH Commission Act is the specific regulatory law. The LWSC Act is a general operational law for a service provider.
Doctrine of Regulatory Independence and Conflict of Interest: A service provider that sells water cannot legally regulate private citizens who produce water because the service provider failed to supply them. LWSC is a direct market competitor to private well owners.
Furthermore, under Liberian law, the Ministry of Mines and Energy is the statutory custodian of groundwater resources, not LWSC. Legal sources question by what authority LWSC is levying a groundwater abstraction fee at all.
Critically, while the WASH Commission Act was duly printed into handbills in 2018, the LWSC Amended Act of 2017 cited by LWSC has not been printed into handbills under the Boakai administration, raising serious questions about its enforceability as a completed law.
The Economics of De-Industrialization
The victims are not large corporations. The Liberia Water Producers Association (LWPA) has warned that over 90% of its members operate at a loss due to fragmented regulation.
Consider a small business owner in Paynesville who invested US$8,000 to dig a well because LWSC pipes have been dry for years. He must now find almost L$1,700,000 (One Million Seven Hundred Thousand Liberian Dollars) annually to keep his own well legal.
These costs are passed directly to the ordinary Liberian. A sachet of water that should cost L$1 now costs L$5. The cost of a bucket of water for a cookshop to wash plates has tripled. Youth employed as water sellers, cleaners, and carriers face layoffs as employers collapse.
“This is not revenue generation. It is de-industrialization,” the lawyer said.
The Political and Constitutional Question
This double taxation directly violates key national frameworks:
Article 18 of the Liberian Constitution – Prohibition against extortionate economic measures and double jeopardy in economic regulation.
Article 7 – Government’s obligation for sound economic management and avoidance of wasteful duplication.
President Boakai’s ARREST Agenda and Liberia’s Ease of Doing Business commitment. You cannot declare Liberia “open for business” while two state agencies collect rent on the same private survival asset.
Three critical questions demand urgent answers:
First: Who authorized the WASH Commission’s tariff hike from US$200 to nearly US$3,000 without the public tariff hearing mandated by the WASH Act itself?
Second: By what law does LWSC, a water seller, collect US$6,000 for groundwater when the law vests custody of groundwater in the Ministry of Mines and Energy?
Third: Why is the government taxing self-reliance while preaching self-reliance?
The Way Forward: A Call for Executive and Legislative Intervention
Legal experts are unanimous: the Ministry of Justice must urgently issue a formal opinion clarifying regulatory jurisdiction.
Until that opinion is issued, all collections on private commercial wells should be halted to prevent further economic harm.
The recommended long-term solution is clear and lawful:
1. Affirm Sole Regulatory Authority: In line with the ratified WASH Commission Act, the WASH Commission must be recognized as the SOLE legitimate institution to regulate, license, and set tariffs for commercial wells. LWSC must remain what the law intended it to be – a service provider.
2. Establish a Single Window System: The WASH Commission should create a one-stop-shop licensing regime that harmonizes EPA, NPHIL, and other fees, ending the fragmented extortion that currently defines the sector.
3. Legislative Oversight: The Senate Committee on WASH, chaired with oversight mandate, must summon both the LWSC and WASH Commission to a public hearing to explain to the Liberian people why they are being made to pay twice for water they produced themselves.
Liberians did not dig wells to compete with government. They dug wells because government failed to deliver water.
To tax that survival twice is not governance. It is economic injustice, it is legally indefensible, and it is politically unsustainable.
