Monrovia – The Senior Management of the Millennium Challenge Account Liberia (MCAL) has distanced itself from a FrontPageAfrica publication claiming that Mr. Monie Captan, head of MCAL, was part of a Management Service Contract for the Liberia Electricity Corporation negotiating team.
The publication entitled “Liberia Electricity Corporation Turns Over Management to Foreign Company” alleged that the CEO of MCAL, Captan, was the lead negotiator of the contract and his presence on the negotiating team constitute conflict of interest as he is also a board member of the LEC.
According to the MCAL, Mr. Captan was not the lead negotiator for the LEC MSC, neither was he a member of the Government of Liberia’s negotiating team and was is also not a signatory to the MSC.
“The procuring entity of the MSC was not MCAL, but rather LEC.”
“The negotiating team representing the Government comprised of the LEC Board Chair, Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Minister of Justice, and the Economic Advisor to the President.”
“The MSC was then signed by the LEC Chairman, the Minister of Finance and Development Planning and the Minister of Justice,” MCAL noted in a statement.
According to the MCAL, the signed MSC was approved by the Board of Directors, of which Mr. Captan is an ordinary member.
The LEC MSC was the management arrangement selected by the Government of Liberia under its LEC management implementation plan as one of the policy and institutional reforms it committed to undertake in the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact (Compact).
The Compact was entered into on October 2, 2015 between the Republic of Liberia, acting through the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, and the United States of America, acting through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), in which MCC grants up to US$256,726,000.00 (Two Hundred Fifty-Six Million Seven Hundred Twenty-Six Thousand United States Dollars) to the Government of Liberia to fund activities related to the improvement of the energy and road sectors.
Accordingly, the Government of Liberia, consistent with its Compact commitments and its LEC implementation plan, procured a MSC to manage LEC for a period of three years. Pursuant to the management implementation plan, the Government further decided to select an Interim Management Team (IMT) to manage LEC during the procurement of the MSC.
The MSC seeks to strengthen and improve LEC operations and efficiency.
According to the terms of the MSC, a Tandem Management Plan will be put into place within the first three months of the contract that will facilitate on the job training of designated LEC staff, either existing or to be hired, that will work as the counterparts to the management service contractor’s key staff.
At the end of the tenure of the MSC, it is expected that LEC will become a sustainable and commercially viable entity.
The total cost of the MSC is funded under the Compact. MCAL was created by an Act of the National Legislature as the Government entity responsible to manage certain activities in the Compact and therefore has a mandate to support the implementation of these activities. Consistent with the provisions of the Compact, MCAL adheres to strict principles of accountability, transparency, and integrity.