Liberias Anti-Corruption Commission has accused government officials of refusing to cooperate with efforts to verify their assets. In a report released over the weekend, the commission accused 22 senior government officials, including Defense Minister Brownie Samukai and Police Director Chris Massaquoi of deliberately refusing to cooperate with its assets verification team. Neither man was immediately available for comments. Anti-Corruption Commission Chairperson Frances Johnson-Morris said the huge amounts of unexplained wealth and material omission raise red flags with the commission. We arrived at the description of unexplained wealth on the basis of a persons lawful income. The commission accused the former deputy minister for administration at the Ministry of Public Works, Stephen Yekeson, of having deposited US $305,590.00 into three separate bank accounts outside of his official salary of L$14,137.50. If someone is making, for instance, US$2,250.00 in special allowances and making L$14,000 [per month], to have in your account over a period of maybe two, three months depositing an aggregate of $300,000 plus, then it seems to us that that cannot be explained. They did not explain satisfactorily how they got that money, Johnson-Morris said. She said all the officials whose assets needed verification were invited to appear before the commission. We do not do the exercise in the absence of the declarants. If we cite you, we invite you. We tend to take time within a 10-day period that you will be available to come. So, these people participated in the exercise. We did not do it behind their backs, she said.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 21:42:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015