MONROVIA -- After weeks of disagreement over whether Liberia's Central Bank should be subjected to a legislative-backed audit, lawmakers have reached a compromise, clearing all 12 Public Accounts Committee (PAC) audit reports, including the contentious Central Bank review, for submission to the President.
The decision, taken during a joint conference committee meeting on March 17 at the Capitol Building, effectively resolves a rare split between the House of Representatives and the Senate and allows a backlog of audit findings, many tied to the previous administration, to move forward for implementation.
Why the Central Bank Became the Issue
The Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) audit became the sticking point after the Senate declined to approve it, even as it endorsed the other 11 reports. That position forced the creation of a joint conference committee to reconcile the differences.
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The Central Bank operates with a degree of independence, including the authority to hire its own external auditors. But the General Auditing Commission (GAC), Liberia's supreme audit institution, also has a constitutional mandate to audit public entities.
Lawmakers had to decide whether those two powers could coexist.
In the end, they said yes.
The committee agreed that the GAC has the legal authority to audit the Central Bank, but it drew a practical boundary that the GAC's work will primarily focus on government accounts held at the bank, rather than intruding into all aspects of the institution's operations.
At the same time, lawmakers acknowledged that the Central Bank can continue hiring external auditors. However, those reports must still be submitted to the Legislature's Public Accounts Committee for review, ensuring that oversight is not bypassed.
If gaps are identified, the Legislature retains the option to refer the matter to the GAC for further checks.
Other reports to be submitted to the president cover institutions and programs central to Liberia's public sector, including the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation and the National Road Fund, the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority, and the National Transit Authority.
They are the product of public hearings conducted in 2024 and span multiple years, in some cases going back nearly a decade.
The findings largely relate to the previous administration.
Inside the Meeting
The session that produced the agreement brought together key figures from both chambers, including Senator Amara M. Konneh, who presided as Acting Chairman of the Joint PAC, alongside Senator Gbehzohngar Findley and Representative Prince K. Koina.
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Held in the House of Representatives' chamber, the meeting focused almost entirely on resolving the Central Bank question, seen as the final obstacle to moving the full set of audit reports forward.
