Monrovia – Alex Cuffy, a member of the President Investigative Team handling the alleged missing L$16 billion saga, has told the FrontPageAfrica that his sister is not a person of interest and will not be investigated nor called in for questioning.
Bettie K. Johnson-Mbayo, [email protected]
Few hours after this newspaper had reported on Friday, October 5, that Alex would have to recuse himself because his sister, Celia Cuffy Brown, who was the acting head of the Freeport of Monrovia when containers of money arrived in the country via that seaport, would have to be probably called in for questioning, even though she hasn’t been included on the “persons of interest” list.
Cuffy called our reporter and said the article was meant to discredit the ongoing investigation. He disclosed that his sister is not a person of interest and will not be investigated by the Investigative Team.
He further revealed that Cllr. J. Augustine Toe, husband of Mariea Grisby Toe, will not form part of the investigation team. Cllr. Toe’s wife is among those on the persons of interest list.
Mrs. Grisby-Toe reportedly wrote the request to enter the Freeport and take delivery of the containers of “printed materials” on March 31, 2018.
Cllr. Toe is currently the Vice Chairperson of the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC), which heads the Investigative Team, also including the Financial Intelligent Unit (FIU).
Cllr. Toe has not done a public announcement on recusing himself from the investigation.
According to Cuffy, FrontPageAfrica should have called him prior to publishing the article something he described as “unprofessional ethics of journalism.”
He and Charles J.L Gibson, Commissioner with oversight on Investigation and Enforcement, Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) and other members of the investigative team appeared at the Information Ministry regular press briefing on Thursday, October 4.
Both answered questions from journalists and Gibson specifically said the team doesn’t interpose objection to the statement made by the Central Bank of Liberia.
The Central Bank on Tuesday, October 2, clarified to the general public and partner in progress that there is no L$16 billion missing.
“The CBL has no records showing that the monies printed under its authority have not yet been delivered into its reserved vaults. Record from the Crane Currency of Sweden, which was contracted to print the money, shows that Crane delivered 15.5 billion through Freeport and Roberts International Airport (RIA) between 2016 and 2018 and that all these monies were logged by the CBL and delivered into the reserved vaults of the CBL,” CBL Executive Governor Nathaniel Patray said that day.
Addressing the regular Information Ministry press briefing, Gibson said the Investigative Team concurs with CBL statement.
“We interpose no objection to the matter. I think it was a good statement. As a matter of fact, if a group of people gives you something to keep for us and someone comes and says it is lost, it is only fair to come and say something.”
According to Gibson and Cuffy, the Bank is cooperating with the Investigative Team; however, he regretted that the press conference came ‘too late.’
Alex Cuffy, also head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), disclosed that the government had received a report from a whistleblower on the suspicious activities of the importation of currency bank note in August of 2018.
Speaking to our reporter on Friday morning, Cuffy said the list of persons of interest does not include his sister despite she served at the time the ‘missing’ billions arrived into the country.
He disclosed that the team has nothing with the National Port Authority, where his sister works and the Roberts International Airport (RIA), another port of entry where some of the alleged ‘missing’ billions arrived into the country.
Cuffy had also worked at the RIA under the Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program (GEMAP) USAID Project, an agreement between the Liberian government and international donors, whose work was to stop the diversion of donor money from RIA to private pockets and implement a system of controls to improve financial management.
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