Vowing to fully execute its statutory mandate, which he said is ‘not only prescriptive but also instructive,’ the leadership of the Civil Service Agency (CSA) has discovered yet another discrepancy with the dubious use of mobile money to pay salaries from the government coffers to those considered civil servants, leading to the annual loss of $89.3 million Liberian dollars and US$1.6 to the State.

The Director General of the CSA, Josiah F. Joekai, Jr. made the disclosure Thursday, September 5, 2024, when he addressed the Regular Press Briefing of the Ministry of Information, Culture, and Tourism (MICAT) on Capitol Hill.

During the briefings, the CSA boss highlighted issues not only concerning the fraudulent use of Mobile Money to pay salaries; he also reported on the

Blocking or suspension of 6,387 unverified individuals on the national payroll as recommended by the GAC; the blocking of 146 unverified employees of the Central Administration of the House of Representatives and provided an update to the public on the 2024 Retirement and Pension Scheme, which is underway.

He started with the Mobile Money Transaction discrepancies on the national payroll, saying “it saddens us to report that the CSA, in its ongoing GoL payroll sanitization exercise, has uncovered alarming discrepancies.”

DG Joekai explained that there are individuals who have been trusted to do right by their conscience and country but chose to deliberately defraud the state. “I know I have had several unpleasant days, weeks, and months knowing how some of our compatriots have consistently plotted to exploit and deprive ordinary Liberians of basic social services that the state should provide through the rightful use of your taxes but that they have flaunted the same in your very eyes,” he lamented.

He said the Government of Liberia, cognizant of the challenges employees in rural areas face in accessing banking facilities and the costs associated with traveling to areas to access banks, rolled out salary payments using Mobile Money Transfer through LoneStar and Orange GSM Companies, and pointed out that as part of our responsibilities to ensure that the GoL has a credible payroll, we reached out to the Attorney-General to pray the Monrovia City Court for a Writ of Subpoena Duces Tecum to the two GSM companies to produce transaction histories of all salaries paid to GoL employees using their platforms.

According to the CSA boss, the two companies are cooperating with the CSA and pointed out that the LoneStar Cell MTN provided several months of payment transactions while the Orange GSM have assured the agency through the Monrovia City Court that we will receive statements of recent transactions.

Accordingly, the CSA team has decided to run an analysis of 4,738 transactions for the month of July 2024, both in LRD and USD. Findings have shown, among other things, that out of the total number, the team of CSA analysts was able to verify only 3,884 transactions matched employees’ names that were on the payroll and whose names also matched the names associated with the MTN numbers; 166 individuals got paid part of their salaries in LRD via mobile money and the USD component through the bank.

In other words, Director General Joekai said these employees were able to access their USD salaries at a bank but could not access the LRD component through the very bank. A category of payment, he disclosed, represents LRD$2,761,628.80 and US$57,052.57, respectively, indicating that annualizing this amount will sum up to LRD$ 33,139,545.60 and US$684,630.84 being paid yearly ‘to individuals who we are made to believe can access part of their salary using a bank and the other part using mobile money.’

“During our analysis,” the CSA boss explained, “we also discovered that payments were made to… seven agents/businesses representing 22 transactions totaling LRD$294,071.00 and US$4,366,” which he noted, when multiplied by 12, will give LD$ 3,528,852.00 and US$52,392. That’s the amount yearly we have been paying from our payroll account to agents and businesses.

Alarmingly, he further explained that a whopping 205 and 223 (mix of LRD and USD) individuals got paid for July via mobile money but are nowhere to be found on the national payroll, and disclosed that on a monthly basis, the government has been paying LRD$ 3,080,614.00 and US$47,550, which annually totaled LRD$36,967,368 and US$570,600.

He also divulged another category of transaction whereby names of individuals on payroll do not match with names associated with mobile money accounts, citing, for instance, saying “the name on the payroll is Josiah F. Joekai, whereas the name associated with the mobile money account is Ellen Peters,to make his case.

This category, he further explained, represents up to 220 transactions with a monthly total of LRD$1,311,360 and US$27,543 paid from our GoL Mobile Money payroll. This amount multiplied by 12, a total of LRD 15,736,320 and US$330,516 have been paid in this category, he narrated.

Stating that the records of these transactions are available and will be made public in the coming days, Director General Joekai was emphatic in staying that names of businesses involved will be exposed, masterminds will be named, and those used to carry out this malicious act will be shamed. “Now let me paint the real picture here after calling all these numbers,” he said, stating that annually, the government has lost LRD$89,372,085.60 and US$1,683,138.84.

Actions Decided

Consequently, the CSA has decided that the 166 individuals receiving part of their salaries through mobile money and the other part through a bank will be BLOCKED immediately pending further notice.

He also announced that the 220 whose names on the payroll don’t match those associated with the mobile money account will also be blocked effective immediately, and that the seven agents/businesses that have received payments to their accounts will be turned over to the appropriate authority for further investigation.

The Director-General noted that individuals responsible for sending salaries to 223 mobile money accounts but are not on the payroll will also be forwarded to the relevant authority for investigation, adding that “A total of 613 names on the payroll will be blocked immediately until further investigation and/or verification is carried out.” He said.

Meanwhile, Honorable Joekai announced the Blocking/suspension of 6,387 unverified employees on the national payroll as recommended by the GAC.

He said a national compliance audit of the GoL payroll was conducted by the General Auditing Commission (GAC), covering the period between 2018 and 2021.

“In 2022, the report, among other things, revealed that 9,287 employees, representing 13% of the workforce and receiving $3.7 million monthly, could not be verified during the exercise. A 90-day post-audit verification exercise was conducted as an opportunity for concerned employees to be verified. Only 2,900 were verified. Since then, 6,387 remained unverified,” he reported, stating that the government continues to lose a staggering US$2.5 million to these potential ghosts, representing about 9% of the total workforce.