Two senior Liberian central bank governors, including the son of former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, have been detained after the release of reports into alleged corruption at the bank, sparked by the disappearance of more than $100m — about 5 per cent of gross domestic product.
Charles Sirleaf, deputy central bank governor, and Dorbor Hagba, director of banking, were escorted out of the central bank in handcuffs on Thursday, according to Reuters, the day the investigations’ findings were made public.
The revelation about the missing money provoked outrage in the impoverished west African nation when it was revealed in September.
A report by Kroll, the international investigation firm, commissioned by the US government at the behest of Liberian authorities, said it had “identified discrepancies at every stage of the process for controlling the movement of banknotes into and out of” the central bank. A separate Liberian government report found that notes worth $16.5m remained missing.
In a statement, the US embassy in Monrovia said the report identified “systemic and procedural weaknesses” at the central bank and “shortcomings in Liberia’s fiscal and monetary management processes that are longstanding and continue to the present day”.
The Kroll report, released on Thursday, found that the central bank signed a contract for the printing of about $50m in Liberian notes more than a week before gaining legislative approval in May 2016. The following month, the bank ordered roughly $100m more in notes without any approval. Mr Sirleaf was the acting executive governor at the time.
Lawyers for Mr Sirleaf and Mr Hagba could not immediately be reached for comment.
In September the information minister announced that two shipments of Liberian dollars totalling almost L$16bn ($100m) had vanished over the previous two years. The revelation prompted thousands of protesters to take to the streets and provoked a political firestorm for President George Weah. Dozens of central bank officials, including its former governor, Milton Weeks, were barred from leaving the country.
In October, however, the central bank said that, contrary to previous government statements, an internal audit had found that the notes — which Liberia prints abroad because it does not have a mint — were indeed in the bank’s vaults.
Ms Sirleaf won the Nobel Peace Prize for stabilising Liberia after her election in 2005 following two devastating civil wars. She recently won the $5m Mo Ibrahim Prize for leadership in Africa.
But at home she was blamed for the weak performance of an economy hit by falling commodity prices and an outbreak of Ebola in 2013. She was also criticised for alleged nepotism after two of her sons, including Charles, were appointed to senior positions.
Liberia, one of the poorest countries in the world, has an annual GDP per capita of $729, according to the IMF.
