September 12, 2026, EJS Ministerial Complex Ball Room

His Excellency, Joseph Nyuma Boakai, President of the Republic, Information Minister Jerolinmik Matthew Piah, Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Presidential Press Secretary Atty. Kula B. Fofana, Media Executives, Women Journalists, one and all! Special thanks to the organizers of this second unique presidential media dinner.

Mr. President, thank you for this opportunity. Two minutes, two things, and both of them come out of the name of your own agenda. You did not call it the ARREST Agenda. You called it the ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development. Those last three words are the ones the women in this room read first.

Earlier this month, nine of the 19 seats in your Cabinet were held by women, the most this country has ever seen, and the women of the Liberian press wrote about it with pride. On Friday, that number became seven. Madam George has left National Defense. Madam Dagoseh has left Commerce. We know both are to be reassigned, and no one here disputes your authority to organize your own government. But we count the Cabinet table, Mr. President, because inclusion is not a sentiment. It is a count. When a woman leaves that table, a girl in Grand Bassa loses a picture of what she is permitted to become. So let the reassignments place these two women where their competence still shapes policy, and let the next shortlist reach your desk with women already on it rather than added to it afterward.

The second thing is also a count, Mr. President, and this one costs you nothing. Look at the press delegation that travels with you. Look at who is called on at the briefings, and who gets the sit-down when the story is national. The women of this press and or the media are not missing from the profession. We are missing from the rooms where the questions get asked and the answers get given. Open those rooms and you will hear a different set of questions, about markets, clinics and classrooms, and they are questions your government needs to be asked for an answer to the public.

Then put the investment where the barrier is real. Ask any editor in this room what it costs to keep one reporter filing from Barclayville for a month. That is why your agenda is reported from Monrovia and delivered in the counties. Take the duty off broadcast and internet equipment, and give the county bureaus a connection that works, and you will have reporters living where the roads, the clinics and the classrooms are actually being built.

Inclusive development that nobody can verify is only an announcement. Give us the count and give us the reach, and we will report the rest. Before I take my seat Mr. President, let me make a few recommendations regarding media sustainability and the its economy:

An Independent Public Interest Journalism Fund is the way. With the shrinking donor support declining, government and the media sector should begin discussions on establishing an independent, transparently managed fund to support public-interest journalism. The fund must be protected from political interference. This way, we will be on the path for sustainability and building a strong media ecosystem to support growth and development in Liberia.

Thanks again for the opportunity and we look forward to the actions required. Thank you.