Liberia’s president on Tuesday defended the country’s finance minister against charges of corruption, blaming a lack of procedures for the millions of dollars missing from the state’s coffers.
A report published last week by Liberia’s independent General Auditing Commission accused the finance minister, a close ally of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, of failing to account for five million dollars it spent.
“The Minister of Finance Augustine Ngafuan cannot be held liable for the disappearance of the five million dollars,” the president’s spokesperson Cyrus Badio told journalists.
“It is a lack of system that is the cause of the disappearance of the money. This problem exists since the passed regimes,” he said, adding: “We will do all we can to correct it.”
However, since the audit report was made public, local media have called for Ngafuan to at least be suspended from his ministry while the investigation continues into the missing funds.
Ngafuan has dismissed the report as “politically motivated”.
Sirleaf has pledged to root out corruption in the war-ravaged west African country and since the start of the year has suspended two ministers suspected of graft, including her own brother.
Her former information minister Laurence Bropleh was dismissed earlier this year and has been charged with pocketing the salaries of fictional employees.
Sirleaf’s brother and former internal affairs minister, Amulai Johnson, was forced to stand down in March after being accused of embezzling $100 000. –Sapa/AFP