MONROVIA – The Government of Liberia (GOL) has designated the Liberian Bank of Development and Investment (LBDI) a leading partner in its development plan.

With its new positioning, Liberia’s only development finance institution will finance and administer GOL development finance programs designed to support the growth and stabilization of Liberian industries and provide more lines of credit to small and medium businesses.

The Bank will also provide support to independent business people-market women, gasoline retailers, and keh-keh (tricycle) drivers – entrepreneurs who are working hard to be successful across sectors of the Liberian economy.

The Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) says the GOL’s decision is historic, timely and necessary. It realigns LBDI with the mandate of its founding charter and it synchronizes the Bank’s activities and investments with central aspects of Liberia’s Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD).

“The Ministry of Finance and Development Planning is empowering LBDI to be the major engine that powers the private sector in Liberia through strategic investments in key industrial sectors. We have tasked the Bank with scaling critical infrastructure development,” said Mr. Samuel D. Tweah Jr. Board Chair of LBDI and Liberia’s Minister of Finance and Development Planning.”

The LBDI, the country’s largest and only development finance institution, was founded in 1961 by an Act of the Liberian Legislature. Since 1988, it has also acted as a commercial bank.

The bank was led by one its longest post war president and CEO, Mr. John Davies, who stepped down in May after serving his two five-year tenures.

Currently, it is headed by Deo Z. Delaney as the new President and CEO. Minister Tweah said under this new and vibrant administration, the government has decided to place the LBDI at the center of its development drive.

As part of the repurposing under the new administration, he noted that the bank has been designated to lead Liberia’s climate initiative. On this note, the Bank will partner with the private and public sectors to support climate change mitigation initiative.

Minister Tweah, making the announcement in an interview reporters on Tuesday said: “The goal is to help move development faster, to empower a Liberian bank where the Liberian people and the government has the biggest share, to protect the bank and make it more profitable. This will make the bank play a meaningful role in agriculture, road, electricity, and give more loans to Liberian small businesses. For example, people want loan. How do you help the bank to do that? You have to repurpose it to be more profitable.”

The 2016 World Bank Household and Expenditure Survey reported that nearly 70 percent of poor people in Liberia live in rural areas where poverty incidence hovers around 70%.

“Every Single thing we do in this country must be centered on addressing poverty and improving the lives of all of our people, and we are tracking our progress as we do this.”

Minister Tweah added. “We are confident, under Mr. Delaney’s leadership, LBDI can contribute measurably to moving Liberia closer to achieving our seventeen Sustainable Development Goals.

Mr. DeO Z. Delaney, the new President and CE0 of LBDI, says he will prioritize climate finance and economic inclusion for unbanked Liberians as he leads the repositioning and financial recovery of the Bank.

In May, Mr. Delaney replaced Mr. John B.S. Davies whose tenure expired in April.

Prior to LBDI, Mr. Delaney worked as a strategy, management and technology consultant at Accenture in Amsterdam.

“My leadership team will take an analytics-focused, data-centered approach to asset management and capital infrastructure financing,” said Mr. Delaney. Positioning LBDI for the future will take principled leadership and an ability to stabilize operations, inspiring trust and attracting sustainable inward investments that will benefit the Liberian economy and people.

The LBDI was established under the joint initiative of the Liberian government and major international financial institutions that purchased equity in the Bank.

LBDI is predominantly a privately owned institution under private management and a Board of Directors elected annually by its shareholders.

The bank commenced operations in 1965 as the Liberian Bank for Industrial Development and Investment. Under an amendment in 1974, the name was changed to the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment.

Monrovia – An executive of the Liberia Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI) has told FrontPageAfrica that the bank has implicit confidence in their suspended Vice President for Compliance and Investments, Mr. Oday G. Vaye.

By Alaskai Moore Johnson, alaskaijohnson@gmail.com

According to this senior executive, who asked not to be named, Mr. Vaye has worked with the Bank for the last eight years and has not one day been involved with any dubious act.  

The suspension of Mr. Vaye was announced Tuesday, May 19, by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Liberia, which had made the recommendation for the suspension to happen.

Mr. Vaye was suspended for a month without pay for violation of the “Suspicious Transaction Reporting Regulation (STRR).”

Mr. Vaye is not a criminal; he didn’t commit any crime; he is a professional and one of the best Financial Compliance Officers this country can boast of

LBDI Senior Executive

“The Financial Intelligence Unit found LBDI in breached of the regulation for late and incomplete filing of Suspicious Transaction Report (STR). The Regulation mandates all reporting entities to file Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) within three days along with all of the particulars of the persons/ institutions the report is being file about,” an FIU press release on the incident, states.

Providing clarity on the matter after this newspaper sought to further understand the matter, the LBDI executive, who asked not to be named, agreed with the FIU that indeed this particular report of theirs, was submitted to the FIU beyond the three-day requirement period.

The Regulation mandates all reporting entities, including the LBDI, to file Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) within three days along with all of the particulars of the persons/institutions the report is being filed about.

However, this senior LBDI executive thinks that the FIU, which is a government regulatory arm, was very harsh with its penalty, which it recommended to the bank that Vaye be suspended for a month without pay.

“There are three facts in this whole story. It’s truth that the bank has suspended our Compliance Manager; it’s truth that the suspension was based on the recommendations by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). The third fact that the FIU didn’t say and hasn’t said is that it was the man (Vaye) himself who reported the suspicious transaction to the FIU when he noticed it,” the LBDI executive said. “Why is the FIU making the thing to look like Mr. Vaye had stolen or was caught in some dubious act for which he was suspended?” the LBDI executive wonders.

This person further told FrontPageAfrica that the full report had delayed because Mr. Vaye had lost his mother and he had traveled to Nimba to bury her. “It was during this time the report should have been made. We told the FIU all of this but they didn’t seem to care.”

“Mr. Vaye is not a criminal; he didn’t commit any crime; he is a professional and one of the best Financial Compliance Officers this country can boast of,” this senior LBDI executive stated.

“It was just a small bridge in communication. He did everything on the book when the matter got to his attention. There is nothing in the whole transaction that was malicious. He has been with the bank for about 8 years,” another executive at LBDI, also said.

It is said that Mr. Vaye was among the principal persons who help set up the FIU. 

Asked about the penalty for such violation, the LBDI senior executive said that for first offense, which is in this case, a fine of L$50,000 should have been levied on the bank by the FIU. This is according to part three, section 3.2 and 3.2.1 under (Sanctions). L$175,000 for second offense, and all subsequent violations fine is L$325,000 respectively. But the regulator recommended that the Mr. Vaye, who is in charge of compliance at LBDI, be suspended without pay for a month.

It was just a small bridge in communication. He did everything on the book when the matter got to his attention. There is nothing in the whole transaction that was malicious. He has been with the bank for about 8 years,

LBDI Executive

According to the Bank, they didn’t want to haul and pull the matter; “We simply just went by their recommendation. But we want to be crystal clear that the Bank has implicit confidence in our Compliance Manager.” A senior fellow of another bank told this newspaper that looking at what the FIU did to Mr. Vaye, who reported the matter to them, they and other compliance officers from other financial institutions, might now turn the blind eye and not report anything unusual especially when it’s past the statutory period.