Senator Sumo Kupee provides insight based on his experiences as Chairman of the Senate Ways, Means, Finance and Budget Committee. He describes the committee’s endeavors to ensure that the oversight responsibility of the legislature with respect to the executive is filled, specifically by scrupulous monitoring of the approval and implementation of the national budget.  He further outlines the committee’s work in drafting a public financial management law, and improving the existing investment incentive code, looking to bring about economic revitalization to facilitate poverty reduction. Kupee stresses the importance of the decentralization of the budget, and details the committee’s efforts to ensure that the budget is county-sensitive and efficiently allocated. He also discusses the creation and plans of the Legislative Modernization Committee, going into depth about problems with appointed personnel and the need for qualified/trained staff. In this respect, Kupee describes his experience with his own staff and the training strategies he employed. Acknowledging the competing factional interests that often need to be overcome when conducting negotiations within governance, he outlines the fragmented conception of loyalties within Liberia and discusses how these play out in Liberian politics. Kupee also stresses the need for reconstruction and infrastructure building within Liberia, considering this a major national task. He concludes by providing information about the avenues he explores when looking to draft new legislation.