The Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia ( CENTAL) says the recent GAC report authorized by president George Manneh Weah was a total ‘waste of the Liberian people’s time and money.’
The Liberian owned accountability group said the GAC report duplicates efforts of the Presidential Investigative Team and Kroll.
CENTAL Executive Director Anderson Miamen told a news conference Tuesday May 21, 2019 that the just released General Auditing Commission (GAC) report does not state or inform the Liberian people of the consequences caused by the Technical Economic Management Team (TEMT).
According to CENTAL, the GAC report presented some facts that have claimed its attention.
The report, CENTAL stated 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 March 7, 2019, President George Weah instructed the General Auditing Commission (GAC) to conduct an “investigative audit” into how the US$25million intended for mopping-up of excess Liberian dollars was spent.
Contrary to the president mandate, to” conduct investigative audit the GAC went ahead and conducted what it termed “Agreed Upon Procedure” (AUP) engagement.
“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.
CENTAL added that 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.
It said, this was the same outcome of the PIT and Kroll reports and the Liberian people did not see how the GAC report is any significantly different. CENTAL at the same time urged president Weah to send the report back to the GAC for proper conduct of audit.
