The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
January 6, 2020

USAID Director Sara Walter

The United States Agency for International Development has awarded a $16M contract to Nathan, a private international economic and analytics consulting firm, to help Liberia fight corruption. Mr. Jeffrey Singer, Senior Vice President of Nathan, as per Nathan Website, stated that Nathan is excited that USAID selected its Team to help Liberia increase domestic revenue, enhance tax administration, and reduce inefficiency.

Preceding Nathan, USAID has been operating in Liberia for a long time. It was established by US former President John F. Kennedy of the United States to help reduce conflict, support stable, and strengthen democratic societies, etc. in developing countries. In explaining its mission on its website, USAID states that it has strategized an activity called Revenue Generation for Governance and Growth (RG3). Specifically for Liberia, RG3, according to its website, is designed to build the capacity of the Ministry of Finance Development and Planning (MFDP) and Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA).

Continuing, USAID states that RG3 supports MFDP to develop the capacity to formulate revenue policies and supports LRA to become effective and efficient in domestic revenue mobilization. Well, if USAID is advising both MFDP and LRA, how come the two institutions are giving separate and conflicting information on revenue collection? Commissioner of LRA continues to report that LRA is outperforming revenue projections, but the Minister of MFDP is insisting that there is no revenue for the government to pay salaries.

Liberia’s domestic revenue is low, not of the lack of policy and/or the lack of competent staff, but because of administrative decisions in awarding fraudulent concessionary agreements. Did USAID play a role when former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf awarded 66 fraudulent concessionary agreements to private-capitalists, which is reducing revenue collection? The Moore Stephens LLP, the largest UK accountancy (which has now merged into BDO as of 2/4/2019), reported in 2014 that Liberia signed 66 fraudulent concessionary agreements.

Further, what was the role of USAID when former President Sirleaf and Governors of the Central Bank decided and used Central Bank’s depositors’ money to finance excessive salaries. This administrative decision has indebted Liberia to the Central Bank in the amount of $260M in 2016, according to the International Monetary Fund on June 19, 2019, Report.

Did USAID fail in its mission; therefore, it has hired Nathan to help Liberia? Let us review a few of the services Nathan website offers: (1) Macroeconomic analyze and forecasting, (2) Economic policy formulation and reform, (3) Monetary and capital markets, (4) domestic revenue mobilization, (5) Tax policy, and (6) Tax administration strengthening.

From the summaries of the functions of these foreign consultants, can either of these consultants fix Liberia’s economic problems, which are primarily rooted in official corruptions?

1) Was it possible for either of these foreign consultants to have prevented President George Weah from using government money to accumulate real estate, a loss of government revenue? Since becoming President in 2018, Mr. Weah has built over 49 buildings.

2) Was it not the decision of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf that had encouraged Ebola workers to abandon accountability and transparency, which resulted in the loss of excess Ebola money? The International Monetary Fund reported that Liberia’s international partners have withdrawn money from Liberia’s Net International Reserves because Liberia did not account for excess Ebola money.

3) Was it the lack of policies and/or incompetent personnel that allowed Mr. Robert Sirleaf, former President Sirleaf’s son, not to account for the US $10M, a social responsibility fund given to Liberia by an oil company, Chevron? No, rather it was former President Sirleaf who authorized government bureaucrats to forget about auditing the disbursement of the US $10M.

4) Was it the lack of competent personnel and/or lack of policy that prevented officials from infusing the L$16B into Liberia currency circulation? Well, everyone knows now that the L$16B was not infused into the commercial banking system because the government has admitted that it has no new banknotes. Predictably, the L$16B new banknotes are at private homes because former President Sirleaf and President George Weah dictated the transfer of L$16B to private homes or did nothing to infuse the L$16B into Liberia currency circulation.

Another foreign consultant, Kroll, hired to investigate and examine the L$16B saga, I guess, was aware that the L$16B was missing but was encouraged to go along with the Government’s version that small amount of money was missing, but the government should focus on correcting accounting irregularities and personnel negligence. Assumingly, had it not followed the government line, Kroll would have been compelled to follow the International Standards on Auditing (ISA) 500, which requires an external auditor to obtain reliable evidence from third parties (in this case, the nine commercial banks of Liberia).

Responding to letters from Kroll, each of the nine commercial banks would have been required to report the values of new banknotes each received and infused into Liberia currency circulation and the values of old banknotes each returned to the Central Bank. This approach would have revealed that no new banknotes were infused into Liberia currency circulation, which would have confirmed the allegation that officials siphoned the L$16B. Of course, the government was not ready to give the hard truth to the population; hence, our international partners, stakeholders, and Kroll went along.

If I may ask, can any hired Liberian employee or foreign consultant reject President George Weah’s request to get money for any reasons? For reference, I recommend a review of the story of President Ronald Reagan’s attempt to assist former President Samuel K. Doe regime with tax policy, revenue collection and disbursement in the 1990s, and Liberia Governance Economic Management Assistance Program accomplishment, if any.

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