Monrovia — Among the barrage of procedural, financial, and administrative breaches that characterized the operations of the elite Executive Protection Service (EPS), as uncovered by the General Auditing Commission (GAC), is the fact that ghosts or groups of non-existing employees at the entity earned nearly US$15,000.
The US$68 million question lingers in the air here, among other damaging discrepancies in a recent compliance audit report released by the GAC. How the ghost employees managed to achieve this in the absence of their physical presence within the entity remains a mystery.
The General Auditing Commission's audit of the FPS covered July 1, 2018, to December 31, 2023, a period under the administration of former President George Manneh Weah.
The audit under former EPS director Trokon N. Roberts cataloged breaches ranging from disbursement and expenditure of funds without proper accountability to recruitment and employment of personnel without training and the arbitrary withdrawal of thousands of United States dollars from employees' savings loans for personal use.
Other excesses captured by the audit include regular disbursements made to individual employees without any explanation, including payments to former employees who have either died, were dismissed, or have resigned but whose names still remain on the EPS' payroll as active personnel. Cash disbursed to the ghost employee ranged from US$500 to US$3,400 from December 2020 to September 2023, totaling US$14,925.00.
Pointing out the risk associated with such financial discrepancies, the General Auditing Commission notes that although employees may have left the entity's employ, their names are still on the payroll, which may lead to misappropriation of the entity's funds.
"Management should provide justification for maintaining the names of staff who have resigned, died, or dismissed on the payroll beyond authorized periods. Going forward, Management should facilitate monthly review of the payroll to ensure that employees who have exited the entity are removed from the payroll consistent with Regulations T.8 of the PFM Act of 2009 as amended and restated 2019", Auditor General P. Garswa Jackson, Sr., recommends.
Mr. Jackson notes that personnel-related records such as resignations, dismissals, pensioned letters, death certificates, etc., should be adequately documented and filed to facilitate future review and that this documentation will validate the legality and timing of employee removals from the payroll.
Compliance Audit Report on the Executive Protection Service (EPS) for the Period July 1, 2018, to December 31, 2023. The General Auditing Commission has conducted a compliance audit of the Executive Protection Service (EPS).
The compliance audit has been conducted in compliance with relevant laws and regulations consistent with the Auditor General's mandate as provided for in Section 2.1.3 of the General Auditing Commission (GAC) Act of 2014, as well as in accordance with the Public Financial Management (PFM) Act and Regulations of 2009 as Amended and Restated 2019. Adverse Conclusion Based on the audit work performed, we found that, because of the significance of the matters noted in the Basis for Adverse Conclusion Paragraphs below,
The GAC observes that the financial transactions and operations of the Executive Protection Service (EPS) are not in compliance with stated laws and regulations for the fiscal years July 1, 2018, to December 31, 2023, detailing, "We identified multiple issues of significant materiality that affected the operations of the Executive Protection Service (EPS). These issues can be categorized as follows: Management did not prepare and present approved financial statements for fiscal year 2018/2019 in accordance with the Public Financial Management Act of 2009 as Amended and Restated in 2019 and the IPSAS Cash Basis of Accounting (November 2017).
The Commission indicts the former EPS Management for making payments for goods and services amounting to US$24,749,002.00 and L$621,949,854.95, respectively, without evidence of adequate supporting documents such as payment vouchers, copies of checks, cash invoices, delivery notes, and other relevant documents to authenticate the transactions. "Furthermore, these payments were made in the names of employees rather than the vendors, service providers, direct beneficiaries, or legally authorized representatives. These payments included Special Operation Services and Intelligence Services expenditures amounting to US$15,709,952.00, expended without evidence of field activities reports as required by Section 2(1 6) of the National Security Reform and Intelligence Act of 2011 and Regulation P.9 (2) of the PFM Act of 2009 as Amended and Restated 2019 and Regulations B.28 of the PFM Act of 2009 as Amended and Restated 2019."
The report reveals that former director Roberts's administration received several transfers totaling US$3,800,000.00 and L$172,785,500.00 from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) through the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) without adequate supporting documentation to explain the purposes of the transfers.
It says the former EPS Management also expended an excess of US$12,177,865.76 between the Approved Budget and the Fiscal Outturn Reports for FY 2018/2019 to FY 2023 without evidence of an approved re-casted budget and did not provide detailed ledgers for expenditures amounting to US$64,461,625.71 for FY 2018/2019 to 2023 as stated in the Fiscal Outturn Reports.
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Regarding the EPS Employees Development Funds, the GAC reports that the bank statement shows that James E. G. Helb, Chairman of the Employees Development Funds and an "A" signatory to the account, withdrew more than One Hundred Eighty-Eight Thousand Six Hundred and Thirty United States Dollars (US$188,630.00) from the funds' bank account using the mobile transfer Apps U--Direct and LEO Apps for personal use.
The report gathers that Mr. James E. G. Helb also withdrew Fifty Thousand United States Dollars (US$50,000.00) from the Employees Development Funds to purchase land without authorization from the Board for resale to the employees, non-compliant with approved policy and that Management did not remit into the GoL Consolidated Account the total amount of US$126,860.00 deducted from the salaries of delinquent EPS staff during the period under review.
In response, the former EPS Management acknowledged the administrative, financial, and procedural breaches outlined by the GC, citing low capacity of its financial staff and the need for training opportunities to be in compliance, but stressed secrecy of its operations that does not allow the institution to diverge all of its operational costs which are largely meant for covert activities in the interest of the State.
