Monrovia, Liberia - Liberia’s Finance and Development Planning Minister, Hon. Samuel D. Tweah Jr., says he will never engage in any fraudulent activities against Liberia, denying wrongdoings in the recent mop-up exercise which was geared towards stabilizing the Liberian dollars depreciation against the United States dollars.
An MFDP’s Release issued Monday, March 4, 2019, quotes Minister Tweah, who spoke shortly after his arrival from Egypt, saying that he will never get into any fraudulent activity against Liberia, adding also that whoever is found liable will face the full weight of the law.
“I will never ever engage in any fraudulent activity against Liberia. Whoever that is responsible will face the full weight of the law,” Minister Tweah stressed.
Over US$ 15 million (Fifteen Million United States Dollars) out of US$ 17 million (Seventeen million United States) were infused into the economy by Technical Economic Management Team (TMT), a team set-up by President George Manneh Weah to address the Liberian Dollars rapid fall against the U.S. Dollars.
The country’s Finance Boss revealed that two million United States Dollars (US$ 2 million) were given to Total Liberia as part of the mop-up exercise and assured Liberians that technical details of institutions that received the money will be disclosed in the weeks to come.
Minister Tweah also said about 2.3 billion Liberian Dollars were realized from the $15 million U S dollars (Fifteen million United States dollars) mop-up, and that said amount had been kept at the Central Bank of Liberia. The monies, he explained, came as at December 2018 and were part of the mop-up money.
The statement of the Minister comes in the wake of two reports by the Presidential Investigation Taskforce (PIT), and the USAID sponsored Kroll Associates Inc. audits into allegation of ‘missing’ sixteen billion Liberian Dollars (LD$ 16 billion).
The reports also investigated the mop-up exercise by the Liberian government through the Central Bank of Liberia.
The country’s Finance Minister said the Technical Economic Management Team (TEMT), empowered by the president came up with a strategy to get the huge amount of Liberian Dollars from outside the CBL.
He further explained that in accordance with normal Central Bank’s operations, money auctions do not have impact on the exchange rate, and the TEMT trust the integrity of the CBL to do money operations. He noted that no member of the TEMT outside the CBL saw physical money.
He indicated that that the TEMT acted on the experience of the CBL to do money business, because the CBL monitors risks in the financial sector.
“We acted on the experience of the CBL to monitor risks in the financial sector, because when managing risks, they go to the local banks to know whether they have secured environments for credits.
The CBL also as part of risks management will ask whether the local banks’ policies and programs are safe enough for the public.
He then asked in a rather rhetorical fashion “who am I to tell the CBL we will teach you how to do risks management?”