Monrovia – The Center for Transparent and Accountability (CENTAL) wants President George Weah take appropriate administrative action against the Minister of Justice, Cllr. Frank M. Dean, for failing to ensure that the presidential directive relating to an “investigative audit” was considered and adhered to when he (Mr. Dean) engaged the services of the GAC as an officer of the president.
Report by Selma Lomax, [email protected]
It can be recalled that on March 7, 2019, President George Weah requested the General Auditing Commission (GAC) to conduct an “investigative audit” into how the US$25million earmarked for the mopping-up of excess Liberian dollars was expended.
The president’s mandate grew out of the President Investigative Team’s report, which called for a “forensic investigation” of the entire mop-up exercise as well as the report done by Kroll.
But despite this presidential order for an “investigative audit”, the GAC proceeded to conduct an Agreed Upon Procedure (AUP) Engagement.
In its report, the GAC notes that it provided “possible alternatives” to the president’s request: Forensic Audit or AUP Engagement, and that the Government of Liberia through the Minister of Justice opted for an AUP to be performed.
According to CENTAL, the GAC’s action contradicts the clear and unambiguous mandate of President Weah that the GAC conducts an “investigative audit”.
Rather, according to CENTAL, the GAC has shifted its statutory responsibility to the Liberian people for determination of what went wrong, who did wrong, and how things went wrong. Such was the same outcome of the PIT and Kroll reports and we do not see how the GAC report is any significantly different.
According to CENTAL, the report released by the GAC cannot suffice as an “investigative audit” in light of the circumstances that gave rise to commissioning of the audit.
This could lead the Government or the public to misinterpret the results of the said procedure as the field of financial accounting or audit is technical and specialized.
CENTAL further said this was not the result intended by the PIT and Kroll. “We believe that the PIT’s recommendation of a “forensic investigation”, which formed the basis for President Weah mandating an “investigative audit”, was based on the fact that preliminary investigations,” CENTAL said in a release.
According to CENTAL, the Government of Liberia, through the Minister of Justice, settled for a procedure that does not mirror that which was prescribed by the PIT and Kroll.
CENTAL wonders why Minister Dean, who approved the PIT report (including recommendations) as Chairman of the PIT Steering Committee, would discard the recommendations in favor of a less stringent and basically procedural engagement.
CENTAL also sait it can’t fathom why the GAC provided an AUP as an alternative approach to the president’s directive for an “investigative audit”, being fully aware of the scope limitations of said procedure.
The GAC report, according to CENTAL, has presented facts that have claimed its attention. The report, according to CENTAL, states that US$491,769.00 was purportedly sold to fifteen (15) entities, but that the said entities have denied participating in the exercise. Another US$702,680.00 was sold to twenty-seven (27) entities not registered to do business in Liberia.
On the underlying accounts and records, the report, CENTAL says, finds a variance of LR$17,775,323.78 between the summary report and detailed report of the CBL. It also showed a variance of US$1,466,783.00 between the
CENTAL said the procedure under review amounts to a waste of the Liberian people’s time and money, and it duplicates efforts of the Presidential Investigative Team and Kroll and does little to inform the Liberian people of the ramifications caused by the Technical Economic Management Team (TEMT).