* Rebuilding Liberia's roads to cost $1 bln
* Mining, agriculture firms to be handed tasks
* Nation sets ambitious targets for growth, development
By David Lewis and Alphonso Toweh
MONROVIA, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Liberia's road network, largely collapsed after 14 years of civil war, will cost at least $1 billion to overhaul, and the impoverished West African state is looking to miners and other investors to provide the funding.
"We are talking about close to about a billion dollars to just improve the basic infrastructure in the various areas," Public Works Minister Samuel Kofi Woods told Reuters in an interview late on Monday.
"That is just an initial investment to get us to where we want to go," he said.
Mining firms such as ArcelorMittal <MT.N>, China Union <00036.SZ> and Severstal <CHMF.MM>, as well as a $1.6 billion palm oil project involving Golden Agri Resources <GAGR.SI>, were possible partners for funding, he added.
Some 14 years of fighting in one of Africa's bloodiest civil wars crippled Liberia and roads remain in ruins despite the rebuilding efforts of donors and a United Nations peacekeeping force which has overseen the nation since the war ended in 2003.
A lack of public funds and problems with corruption mean mining and agricultural companies investing in the country will be central to the rebuilding plans, Woods said.
While some roads in the capital Monrovia have been resurfaced and progress is inching towards the port town of Buchanan to the east, most roads up-country have crumbled -- presenting a costly obstacle to developing and transporting the country's resources.
"LIBERIA RISING"?
President Ellen Johnson Sirfleaf came to power in post-war elections in 2005 and has been widely praised abroad for steps to rebuild the country.
But her government has been plagued by numerous corruption scandals, including one involving her interior minister, who was accused of mismanagement of social development funds set aside by foreign investors.
"There have been some concerns about the way they have been managed," Woods said, adding that Liberia was discussing new ways to manage reconstruction projects, including handing some tasks directly to foreign firms.
On top of corruption, Johnson Sirleaf's government faces headaches that include unemployment rates near 80 percent and tensions over land and ethnicity. It has a proposed budget of just $350 million and must prepare for elections next year.
Most foreign investors fled the country as conflict erupted in 1989 and per capita GDP has fallen to $222, from peaks of around $600 in 1980. Since the war, however, billions of dollars have been signed in mining and agricultural deals.
Still, the public works ministry is struggling to come up with the money needed to do basic projects.
Woods said his ministry last year was given just $27 million of the $40 million it was due. The cost of fixing the drainage in the capital, Monrovia, alone would be $13 million, he said.
Woods backed a government initiative known as Liberia Rising, which says Liberia can become a middle-income nation by 2030, boost per capita income to around $3,000 and secure growth rates between 12 and 18 percent.
No figures are available for the plan, which aims to establish development corridors to reactivate the key mining and agricultural sectors.
"I think we need to be ambitious because if we look around us, there is no reason why Liberia can't be better," Woods said.
Woods recognised problems like corruption were holding the country back, but said that moves such as the establishment of audit and anti-corruption bodies and declarations of wealth by government officials were signs of progress.
"Is it perfect? No. Do we need more progress? Yes. We need to go to the next stage."
(Writing by David Lewis; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Michael Roddy)
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