Press Release

CENTAL Lauds GoL’s Ongoing Anti-corruption Reform Efforts, But Calls for Increased Actions to Achieve Greater Positive Results

Monrovia, Wednesday, January 28, 2026 -  Distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the press, welcome to our office. Thank you for being a great partner in our shared desire to promote good governance and the culture of transparency and accountability in Liberia. On Monday, January 26, 2026, members of the Legislature convened as President Joseph N. Boakai delivered his third State of the Nation Address. Citizens and foreigners alike listened attentively to the address, eager to grasp the progress made to date as well as the challenges confronting the country’s forward march. For us in the governance and anti-corruption space, we were keen on the state of corruption and overall governance and are glad that those areas were reflected.

In his address, the Liberian leader recounted efforts made to promote the culture of transparency and strengthen the fight against corruption. Of notable mention was a requirement for heads of institutions to sign performance contracts and comply with clearly-defined standards as part of a newly-established Performance Management and Compliance System. In relation to efforts made in addressing the culture of impunity for corruption, the Liberian leader announced that the Liberia Anti-corruption Commission (LACC) secured 11 indictments, obtained two convictions, and had one acquittal. These, he said, were in addition to four ongoing prosecutions, suspension and dismissal of officials involved in misconduct and the strengthening of asset declaration rules, amongst others.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, CENTAL welcomes the many positive interventions made by the Boakai administration in addressing the menace of corruption, including the announcement that the General Auditing Commission (GAC) completed 94 of 105 audits, with specific focus on the Domestic Debt Audit from 2018 to 2023, which rejected over US$704 million in unsupported claims; compliance with GAC’s audit recommendations rising from 13 percent in 2024 to 37 percent in 2025; and a near-complete system audit of the House of Representatives covering the period 2021 through 2024. CENTAL notes further that these interventions, including efforts by the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission (PPCC) to expand electronic procurement system to over 50 public entities, reflect progress made in the fight against corruption (though marginal).

While we acknowledge these initial positives in a collective desire to tackle corruption, we wish to stress the many lingering gaps and the need for increased political will and actions to attaining greater positive outcomes.

For example, the government is yet to establish the specialized anti-corruption court to help timely adjudicate corruption cases and hold corrupt persons accountable as well as remove the five-year statute of limitation affecting the prosecution of corruption cases, and the slow pace of the recovery of stolen financial and non-financial assets.   We would like to see timely establishment of the specialized anti-corruption corrupt, removal of the statute of limitation on corruption cases, and the Asset Recovery and Property Retrieval Taskforce (ARPRT) living up to its true mandate by recovering in-country and oversea-based stolen government assets, including funds and real and personal properties. We acknowledge the legal challenge that somehow affected the work of the Task Force, following its constitution. However, more than one year of full operation is substantial period to make significant impacts, in the wake of multiple targeted sanctions by the United States Government of several former government officials for significant corruption, coupled with several GAC audit reports that implicated several individuals for corruption and other financial abuses. We wish to see a more robust, well-financed and an independent Asset Recovery Task Force that collaborates with key actors to achieve key results and make fraud in government and illicit-wealth accumulation issues of the past in Liberia.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, even as we applaud the pace of completion of financial and other audits, we have witnessed an unconvincing approach by government actors, especially the Public Account Committees of the Legislature, to expeditiously review and hold those implicated fully accountable. When you have findings from critical audits stockpiled on the desk of members of the legislature and the president without the required actions, it affects accountability of those implicated and also renders inconsequential the efforts of the GAC. Such vital accountability framework must work and produce for the Liberia, as the trend of key donors’ withdrawal of support presents a more compelling need for Liberia to judiciously allocate and expend its domestic resources. Also, review and oversight processes of the legislature must be robust, transparent and inclusive, ensuring that there is active and meaningful stakeholders’ participation in their activities, including the review of Concession Agreements, deliberations on vital bills and other processes that border on citizens’ interest.

In the same vein, we are deeply concerned about the Liberia Anti-corruption Commission’s (LACC) inability to release an asset verification report, more than two years after several officials of government declared assets, incomes and liabilities with the Commission, in line with the country’s asset declaration regime. From what we see so far, the LACC is still heavy on demanding declaration rather than verifying those assets already declared to identify fraud or discrepancies and hold people accountable.   This is not the true intent of the asset declaration process, whereby LACC cannot produce a single publicly available verification report on exit declarations of officials of the Weah-led administration as well as those of the current regime. We strongly encourage LACC to do the needful, as Liberians more interested in the outcomes of the asset declaration process, rather mere reporting on the number of declarants/compliant officials.

In conclusion, we would like to highlight that success in the fight against corruption is mostly measured by tangible outcomes deriving from interventions and not mere initiation of those processes themselves. Civil society will remain constructively engaged with government, independently monitor budget implementation and other processes and hold state institutions fully accountable to produce tangible results for the public. Meanwhile, we wish to reiterate that Liberians deserve greater transparency and accountability from their government and more impactful development and other productive activities that match the enormous resources of the country. To this end, we strongly urge the Liberia Anti-corruption Commission, Internal Audit Agency and other anti-graft bodies to show more concrete impacts from their activities. While civil society, media and citizens push government for more resources to these integrity institutions, they have to live up to expectation by exceptionally delivering and showing impacts for their current budgetary and other support. More so, the President, Legislature and the Judiciary must better coordinate and ensure that the country’s anti-corruption and integrity building efforts are more independent, robust, citizens’ driven, and impactful in delivering the needed dividends for the people.

Thanks.

Signed:

The Management.