Latest: Corruption and Money Laundering.

Banking Mess?-Amidst The NPA $250K Debacle.

“For someone to encash a check of a quarter of a million dollar and walk out the door with it just like that without filling in forms or going through other verifications means that there is a need to strengthen the financial sector much better than it is now; our political leaders have to muster the will, set aside their egos or political differences to do something. Liberia is ripe for corruption, money laundering and many other ills in the financial sector, this kind of environment easily attracts drug lords and terrorists.”

Financial improprieties including corruption, money laundering, banking and payroll scams, underhanded money transfers, check cashing conduits, etc. seem to be far from being over in Liberia and have been attributed to a ‘banking mess’ due to the inability or failure of the Ministry of Finance or the Central Bank of Liberia to properly regulate and monitor financial activities in the country.

With the existence of the Public Financial Law and other instruments guiding cash flows, regulated by the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL), revelations by a whistleblower in the LACC controversial report on the National Port Authority (NPA) have raised more questions than answers as to the effectiveness of the regulations and institutions concerned. LACC is the Liberia Ant-Corruption Commission, an institution established to investigate financial and economic crimes.

According to the LACC report, the whistleblower alleged that Christiana Kpabar Pealay (now suspended NPA Comptroller), prepared a check of US$250,000.00 (two hundred fifty thousand United States dollars) in his (whistleblower’s) name. The whistleblower explained that he, along with the former comptroller, went to the Ecobank Vai Town branch, where he cashed the check and turned the money over to the Comptroller, who gave him US$3,000.00 (three thousand United States dollars) for stationery he had supplied the NPA.

Besides, the whistleblower told the LACC that the Comptroller assisted him to register a business entity that entered into contracts with the NPA without observing the Public Procurement Law and Public Financial Management Law. “Thereafter, I was called at different times by the Comptroller to receive the encash checks bearing my name and the cash of those checks turned over to her. I was promised by the Comptroller that I will be given contracts to supply stationery if I continue to encash their checks 

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