Finance Minister Augustine Ngafuan
GBARNGA, BONG COUNTY | The Government of Liberia officially launched its inaugural National Cadet Program on Friday, May 15, 2026, in Gbarnga, Bong County, in a ceremony that drew government officials from all 15 counties, development partners, parents, and more than 1,000 university graduates and graduating seniors who are set to begin six-month practical placements across public and private institutions nationwide.
Serving as Chief Launcher at the invitation of Minister of Youth and Sports Cornelia Wonkerleh Kruah, Finance and Development Planning Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan delivered a sweeping and emotionally resonant address that wove personal biography, national achievement, and moral exhortation into a stirring call to a new generation of Liberian professionals.
“Where you find darkness, spread your light; where you find laziness, spread your strength; where you find hopelessness, share the hope.”
— Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan
A Personal Beginning: The Minister Reflects on His Own Cadet Experience
Minister Ngafuan opened his address with a deeply personal memory. In November 1988, as a student at the Booker Washington Institute (BWI), he undertook a mandatory six-month internship at the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company’s Comptroller’s Department — a formative experience that, he told the audience, transformed him into “a stronger, smarter, more practical person.” The accounting principles he had studied in classrooms finally took life in the real world, and the professional skills he acquired there would serve him across a career spanning decades.
Nearly four decades later, he told the cadets, time and circumstance had granted him the privilege of giving that same formative gift to more than 1,000 young Liberians.
A Pillar of the ARREST Agenda: Youth Empowerment in Action
The National Cadet Program, fully funded by the Government of Liberia and organized under the Ministry of Youth and Sports’ Public Sector Investment Program, is one of several flagship youth empowerment initiatives advanced under President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s administration. Minister Ngafuan situated the program within a broader architecture of generational investment, citing the July 2025 launch of the Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank (YEIB) — an $18 million project targeting 30,000 youth-led businesses and more than 100,000 jobs — and Liberia’s successful bid to relocate the ECOWAS Youth and Sports Center from Burkina Faso to Monrovia.
He also highlighted the Ministry of Finance’s own first cohort of nearly 300 interns, completed in December 2025 and deployed across government institutions including LWSC, MCC, PCC, and NTA, several of whom have already been absorbed into full employment. The Minister announced that a second cohort would be recruited in June 2026.
Renewing a commitment he first made at the closing ceremony for that cohort, Minister Ngafuan urged all institutions hosting cadets to absorb those who prove themselves: “We pose absolutely no objection to employing exceptional young people who complete these programs, because our greater intention is to leave no one behind.”
Answering the Detractors: A Nation Moving Forward
In a passage that drew sharp attention, Minister Ngafuan delivered a point-by-point rebuttal to those he described as detractors claiming Liberia is going backward. He catalogued a series of national accomplishments under President Boakai’s administration: the construction and rehabilitation of more than 100 schools across all 15 counties; road paving to the South-East including Zwedru, Fish Town, and Harper; expanded electricity access in Monrovia and along the RIA Highway; significant salary increases for civil servants including health workers at C.B. Dumbar Hospital in Gbarnga; and the reversal of harmonization for the GAC, LACC, Judiciary, and Supreme Court.
He pointed to the growth of Liberia’s national budget from $738 million to $1.3 billion in just over two years — driven by historic domestic revenue gains — and the country’s elevation to a Non-Permanent Seat on the United Nations Security Council as markers of restored international credibility.
Using a vivid analogy, Minister Ngafuan compared Liberia’s development journey to a road trip from Redlight to Gbarnga: “We concede that we have not reached Gbarnga yet. In two years, three months, and twenty-four days, we may now be not too far from Totota.” He insisted that the distance already traveled represents real and measurable progress, even if the destination remains ahead. “Today is better than yesterday. And tomorrow will be better than today.”
Words to the Cadets: Humility, Integrity, and the Courage to Lead
Drawing on remarks he first delivered in January 2013 at the induction of the second batch of the President’s Young Professionals Program, Minister Ngafuan cautioned the cadets against the assumption that academic achievement automatically translates to professional excellence. The real world, he reminded them, does not always yield to textbook equations. Frustration and disillusionment, he acknowledged, can accompany the transition from classroom to workplace — but they need not define it.
He urged the cadets to enter their placements with humility, discipline, patience, patriotism, and integrity. Teamwork, he stressed, is not optional: “Success does not only depend on what you do, but on what others do. It is often said that teamwork makes the dream work.”
He closed his address to the cadets with a powerful moral charge — one that framed their entry into the workplace not merely as a professional milestone, but as a civic and ethical mission: “Where you find darkness, spread your light; where you find laziness, spread your strength; where you find hopelessness, share the hope; where you find indiscipline, spread your discipline; where you find wheeling and dealing, share your honesty and integrity.”
Ministry of Finance Pledges Continued Support
Commending Minister Kruah and the Ministry of Youth and Sports for the seriousness with which they designed and organized the program, Minister Ngafuan assured that the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning stands ready to support its programmatic and financial needs going forward. “Executing such a massive undertaking is no small feat,” he acknowledged, “and there will be lessons in implementation that we will have to learn from in the future.”
With those words, Minister Ngafuan officially declared the National Cadet Program launched, closing with a blessing that captured the ceremony’s spirit of hope and national purpose: “May these cadets become the professionals Liberia needs and the leaders Liberia deserves.”
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