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Jerolinmek Piah
Minister of Information
Incumbent
Assumed office 22 March 2024
President	Joseph Boakai
Presidential Press Secretary
In office 2012 – January 2018
President	Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Deputy Minister for Public Affairs
In office 2010 – January 2012
President	Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Personal details
Citizenship	Liberia
Party	Unity Party

Jerolinmek Matthew Piah is a Liberian government official and a member of the Unity Party. Since 2024 he has served in the government of President Joseph Boakai as minister of information, an office styled Minister of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism when he was nominated. He regularly speaks for the government at the ministry's weekly press briefings.

Piah was Presidential Press Secretary to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from 2012 until January 2018. Before that he was Deputy Minister for Public Affairs at the same ministry from 2010 to January 2012.

In September 2025 a committee of the Press Union of Liberia concluded that Piah's seizure of a journalist's phone and deletion of its recordings in Nimba County was unlawful and an abuse of power. The same committee found that the journalist had breached the union's code of ethics.

Career

Sirleaf administration

By August 2010 Piah was Deputy Minister for Public Affairs at the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism, and the Voice of America interviewed him in that capacity. That December the Monrovia newspaper The New Dawn published an editorial criticizing remarks about opposition politicians that Piah had made at a ministry press briefing and that Information Minister Cletus Sieh had made on a radio and television show. Among those it named were presidential aspirants Charles Brumskine and George Weah. The editorial asked whether the ministry had become a propaganda arm of the ruling Unity Party.

Piah became Presidential Press Secretary in 2012, and the Voice of America described him as Sirleaf's spokesman that April. He kept the post until Sirleaf left office in January 2018. FrontPage Africa still identified him as press secretary during the 2017 election runoff. In April 2015 the Albino Society presented him with a certificate of honor. A society representative said it recognized his support for the group over several years.

Minister of Information

Appointment and ministry

Boakai nominated Piah on 26 January 2024, in a list of twelve nominations that also included the ministers of justice, youth and sports, and public works. Piah was commissioned on 22 March 2024. The ministry described commissioning as the last stage of a process that runs from nomination through a Senate confirmation hearing to appointment.

Tourism oversight had been handled largely within the ministry until the Liberia National Tourism Act of 2025 created the Liberia National Tourism Authority. The minister of information sits on the authority's board. A presentation Piah gave at the EU–Liberia Business Forum in Brussels on 25 February 2026, labeled the body the Ministry of Information, formerly the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism. A March 2026 listing by the Central Intelligence Agency gives his office as Minister of Information.

Media relations

In July 2024, at an event on investigative journalism held under the European Union–funded Liberia Media Empowerment Project, which Internews implements, Piah said Liberian reporters were stronger in political, judicial and sports coverage than in economic, environmental and investigative reporting.

At the second annual Presidential Media Dinner on 12 September 2026, he said no media institution would be shut down under Boakai and urged journalists to verify information before publishing. Reports published two days later said he had disclosed that the government had begun paying legitimate debts owed to media houses for services under earlier administrations. He did not say how much was owed or paid. He also said no journalist would be unlawfully detained.

Government communications

On 12 November 2024, Piah told a press conference that Liberian authorities, acting on information from Guinean authorities and Interpol, had arrested two Guinean nationals suspected of recruiting former Liberian fighters for "subversive action" in Guinea and had handed them over to Guinea. A lawyer for one of the men, a former associate justice of the Supreme Court, had accused the government of taking his client without due legal process. FrontPage Africa reported that a copy of the man's passport showed he was Guinean.

In August 2024, responding to statements by former President George Weah about the prosecution of former officials, Piah said the charges resulted from the work of officials Weah had appointed and should be settled in court. In January 2026, asked about the slow pace of high-profile corruption cases, he said delays often came from defendants' filings, including petitions to the Supreme Court, and that prosecution meant taking cases to court and allowing due process.

In February 2026, asked whether Boakai would win re-election in 2029, Piah said the president was focused on the next generation, not the next election.

On 12 March 2026, after Guinean soldiers crossed into Liberian territory near the Makona River in Lofa County and a civilian was shot during a confrontation, Piah told the ministry's briefing that the situation was a border dispute, not a war. He said an inter-ministerial delegation acting under the National Security Council had gone to Guinea for talks.

On 2 April 2026, Piah defended Boakai's nomination of Jonathan K. Weedor as chairman of the National Elections Commission against criticism from opposition figures and civil society over Weedor's alleged political ties. He neither confirmed nor denied a link to the Unity Party. He said nominees with political connections were expected to give them up, and cited Jerome Korkoya, who had run on a Unity Party ticket before leading the commission.

On 26 May 2026, Piah defended Boakai's use of a small aircraft for a trip to Lofa County. He said it belonged to the charity Samaritan's Purse and not to Bea Mountain Mining Company, as some social media posts had claimed. Critics noted that the Unity Party had objected to officials' travel arrangements while in opposition.

In late September 2026, after reports that Liberia's delegation had joined a walkout during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the United Nations General Assembly, Piah called the reports false and said the delegation had stayed in the hall.

Political activity

Piah sits on the Unity Party's National Executive Committee. On 13 September 2025, the committee voted to suspend 28 of its members for repeated absence from meetings and failure to take part in party activities. The suspensions ran for one month, and most of those named were also fined US$1,000. Piah was among those named. The party reinstated seven of them, including Piah, in October 2025 after they met the terms of the suspension.

Controversies

Press Union of Liberia inquiry (2025)

On 13 September 2025, after a government town hall forum in Sanniquellie, Nimba County, organized by the Liberia Media Democratic Institute, two journalists, D. Franklin Doloquee and Jeremiah Gayflor, interviewed Piah. Doloquee, a correspondent for FrontPage Africa and OK FM, told FrontPage Africa that the minister became angry after he asked why Vice President Jeremiah Koung had not attended the forum. In that account, Piah demanded that he delete photos and videos he had recorded, then took his phone and deleted files himself. FrontPage Africa and OK FM condemned the incident and called for the phone's return.

The Press Union of Liberia formed a Specialized Committee of Enquiry in mid-September. It presented its findings on 29 September 2025. The committee found that the two sides had agreed to an audio-only interview and that Doloquee had recorded video without Piah's knowledge. It found that Piah stopped the interview, took the phone, deleted the video and photographs, and told others present, including Deputy Information Minister Daniel Sando and Gayflor, to delete remaining files.

The committee reported no physical assault. It concluded that Piah's conduct was coercive and intimidating, that the consent Doloquee gave under those conditions was not legitimate, and that deleting the material was unlawful and violated press freedom. It cited Article 15 of the 1986 Constitution and a Penal Law provision on misuse of public office. It also found that Doloquee had breached the union's code of ethics by recording video after agreeing to audio only, and it criticized FrontPage Africa and OK FM for publishing condemnations without consulting the union or giving Piah a chance to respond. The committee recommended guidelines for dealings between officials and journalists, and joint training for government and media staff.

Remarks about protests (2025)

On 22 April 2025, responding to protest plans announced by the group Solidarity and Trust for a New Day (STAND), Piah told a press conference that the initiative was politically motivated and was a disguised attempt by former Coalition for Democratic Change officials to destabilize the country. He added that peaceful protest is a constitutional right.

In July 2025, ahead of a protest scheduled for 17 July by a coalition of activists and citizens, FrontPage Africa quoted a Facebook post in which Piah called it foolish for young people to be urged to protest by people whose own families did not take part. Jefferson Tamba Koijee, a former mayor of Monrovia and secretary-general of the CDC, described the remarks as disparaging and said they conflicted with the constitutional right to assemble.

External links

Official biography at the Ministry of Information