Bringing LACC to the People -Cllr. Zoe Outlines LACC Achievements, Including War Against Corruption

MONROVIA – Liberia has taken the fight against corruption from lip-service to tangible actions, and people are appearing excited.

Over the past weeks, the government of President Joseph Nyuma Boakai has mustered the courage by coming up with tougher actions against public officials who failed to declare their assets in line with constitutional provisions and the Code of Conduct.

Those of his officials who thought the president was joking are now seen scurrying to the doorsteps of the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) to file their declarations or risk facing President Boakai’s wrath.

Amid the asset declaration stampede, the public is also smiling with glee as public officials are being reined in by the LACC for investigations into corruption allegations.

And so, for the first time since the President took over, people are now saying that President Joseph Nyuma Boakai has ended the honeymoon with his officials.

In the center of Boakai’s war on corruption is the LACC Executive Chairperson, Cllr. Alexandra K. Zoe, who has been explaining to the Liberian people what her Commission is doing to live up its mandate.

Regarding the activities of the LACC from 2022 to present, Cllr. Alexandra Zoe used the Ministry of Information regular press briefing on on Thursday, February 13, 2025 to explain about the LACC programs and activities, which she said include the mandate to educate the public about corruption, the ills about corruption, and the benefits that come with eradicating corruption in Liberia.

Departments’ Progress Report

According to Cllr. Zoe, for the year 2022, in keeping with its mandate to investigate, prosecute acts of corruption, educate and prevent corruption in Liberia, the LACC undertook several activities which yielded results under the aegis of four distinct departments.

“At LACC we have four departments. One of the departments is the Department of Investigation and Monitoring. The next is the Department of Prosecution. The other is the Department of Education and Prevention; and the last is the Department of Administration.

“Last year, in total we investigated and completed 24 cases. We have done our Annual Report. We have published it on our website in keeping with the law. We have also served our principals, the Legislative and Executive Branches of Government.

“In 2024 we investigated the Ministry of Finance and completed that case. We investigated the Wash Commission, NOCAL, the Ministry of State payroll padding case, in addition to other cases that were brought in either by whistleblowers or the ones we took from the media. I will ask the media to work with us to share the list of those cases that we have concluded.”

Continuing his report, Cllr Zoe said: “Most of the times, the question that I get is why you don’t speak on the investigation that you conducted. Again, I would like to us this opportunity to say to the public that it makes sense to carry the public along with the LACC as we do our investigation. But my hands are tied because the Act establishing the LACC as amended in 2022 prohibits me in any form and manner to make these revelations especially when I am investigating. I will encourage us to take a copy of the LACC Act of 2022, it’s on our website, and just go through it to understand what we can do and what we cannot do. We didn’t make the law.”

According to him the legislature in its wisdom decided that the LACC will be prohibited from speaking on investigations simply because under Liberian laws one is presumed innocent until given due diligence, tried by a competent court of jurisdiction; and when that court can come up and hold verdict of guilty, then the person can be called corrupt.

He said because of that, it is protected under the constitution for every person who is accused of being presumed innocent until they are tried and found guilty, which is the LACC will not come to the public to give information regarding investigation.

“Additionally, we are a security institution. If we come to the public and start saying step by step what we are doing in our investigation, who our intel are, it places the person who is being investigated on the alert because they will know exactly what to do, and the entire process could be compromised. Criminals are very smart.

“The LACC is hiding nothing from the public. We will just ask the public to please work with us. We will not release investigative information when we are investigating. The law says we will only release investigative information until we obtain an indictment from the court and serve the indictment on the person, then we can come to the public and say we have arrested Mr. John Brown for this crime and then we will disclose the report on the entire investigation.”

Cases on Dockets

He said the LACC has six cases that are currently being investigated: the NOCAL case, the National Road Fund case, the CBL case, the LTA case and the LRRRC case which “we are trying our best to be able to conclude by the end of this first quarter”.

He said the LTA and the LRRRC cases, because they started last year, “we are trying to conclude by the end of February. But I know the public is hungry for information. The public also is concerned because investigation takes time. But it is not something that we are doing intentionally.”

He continued: “Take for example, we are investigating John Doe. We bring him, and he comes with his lawyers. He is read his rights. Sometimes the lawyers will ask us for two weeks for his client to compile documents to come back. Sometimes the new head of the institution we are investigating will ask for time to put the documents together. Sometimes our people will have to physically leave Monrovia and move our entire investigative team to Gbarpolu for example, go there, do interviews, do physical verification, come back and compile the report. This is not intended to delay, but we just to be sure.”

According to him, the LACC does not want the situation where it goes to court, “and because we did not do our homework properly, the cause will go against the government of Liberia which is not a good reflection of our efforts to fight corruption.”

“We want to assure the public that we are working closely with the court. In the next few weeks, we will be coming up with indictments in these cases that we have concluded,” he said. “For prosecution, last year we prosecuted six cases. When we say prosecution, it does not only mean when we go to court and present evidence and the judgment is given in the case. From the day we get an indictment, up to the day we get judgment or verdict, it is prosecution. Last year, we got an indictment in six cases.”

Cllr Zoe said one is the LISGIS case, the Red Cross case, Planned Parenthood case, Lower Bank, Margibi County, and the Financial Intelligence Agency.

“Out of these six cases, we went to four trials in three. The LACC one of the case, which is the Planned Parenthood case. In the Red Cross case we had a hung verdict, meaning we can put our pieces of evidence together, go back and retry the case.

“The Margibi County, I am sure we have all been following this. Due to the overcrowdedness of the docket of Criminal Court “C”, as well as the jurisdiction of the case, we decided to try the case. We started from Margibi but because the people who were being prosecuted lived in Margibi County, the jurors lived in Margibi County, we filed a motion before the judge for us to move the case to another county. The judge decided to move the case to Gbarnga, Bong County. We went to trial. We did everything humanly possible. We presented all the evidence to the jurors. The jurors in their frame of mind decided that the people cannot be held guilty.”

He said these are some of the things that frustrate the LACC’s efforts, warning that the fight against corruption is just for the LACC but “It is for all of us”.

“We do our part, we compile the report, we compile the pieces of evidence, we get lawyers, we go to court, we present our case and we expect you put on a rational mind. You need to understand what is obtaining.”

He reported that the Margibi case is a case where USAID gave money to the Republic of Liberia to be used for the Margibi County hospital.

“That recording was all around here. People were sitting and talking and planning on how to divide money,” he said. “You as a citizen, you are performing your duty as a juror, you in your right frame of mind decided that those people were not guilty. These are the issues we have. But we are not deterred. We will continue to go court. We will continue to provide awareness. We will continue to work with civil society organizations to do this awareness, we will continue to work with the Judiciary to keep our jurors aware on the repercussions of their actions.”

“For 2025 we have set targets. For investigations we have decided that we will do four cases every quarter. However, when we have a whistleblower who walks in and presents cases to us, we will take those cases.

“For prosecution, we decided that we will work with the court to take on at least one case every quarter. So, for this year, we intend to try four cases and see them to a logical conclusion.

“Now this brings us to the education and prevention aspect of our activities. We have been talking about prosecuting which is the result of the corruption. But can we do it at the LACC to prevent these corrupt acts? This is where education comes in. If you look the investigative reports, especially  it comes to internal procedures and practices in our agencies and ministries, most of the cases have to do with administrative lapses. The next step we are going to take at the LACC is to begin to do risks assessments with selected ministries. We will start off the pilot phase to be able to move into ministries and agencies, especially high-profile ministries and agencies to be able to identify what the processes and procedures are, and identify lapses, to be able to make recommendations to them.

“We are also going to take our anti-corruption efforts outside of Monrovia, meaning, decentralization is our focus. We are trying to identify Service Centers in rural areas to establish offices and hire staff that will sit there to collect information regarding corruption, and also present service to the public in the counties.

“Currently we have a couple of projects running with the UNDP for awareness. Last year we went to Bomi, Grand Bassa, Bong and Nimba Counties doing awareness programs. We have started engagement with the Ministry of Education to include anticorruption, specifically integrity courses in our curriculum. Once that is concluded we will do a formal launch for the public,” Cllr. Zoe said.

Assets Declaration

On the issue of the trending assets declaration fight, the LACC boss disclosed her institution’s role in bringing to the President’s attention the need to clamp down on errant public officials who refused to declare their assets in line with the constitution.

Said the LACC boss: “Since December 2023, the LACC started awareness around assets declaration. We started with the exiting officials of the former government. We carried on that exercise, and we required them to declare their assets. For that exercise we had over 250 exiting officials that came in. Then in January we started the exercise for this government or incoming government officials.

“The president and the vice president came in February, they started the process, and they declared their assets. Then we saw other officials of the government come in and declare their assets. In May of 2024, we specifically issued a regulation for 2024, setting June 31 as the deadline for asset declaration for all officials of government who were appointed, elected. That exercise concluded on June 31 and we came right here at MICAT and provided information. We extended that exercise up to August, then we published our listing.

“I went on radio shows, I even took my assets declaration team from our placed them in selected Ministries and agencies. Our people sat there, and people did not declare. I pulled my people out and took them back to my office. Then we did our recommendation to the president. On November 27, 2024, the president issued a directive to all public officials who had not declared their assets to do so within ten days. The ten days elapsed in December. Even after the president issued that directive, he did not act immediately on the recommendation because he still wanted to give public officials chance to declare.

“Yesterday, the president took action to suspend all public officials who had not declared their assets. At this point, I will just through what asset declaration is, why we should declare who are required to declare; then give statistics on assets declaration exercise for 2024. I’ve been getting a lot of calls. People are telling me that we have published inaccurate listing. The listing that was published yesterday, we have placed it on our website, our Facebook page, and we published the listing in FrontPage Africa newspaper, The Inquirer. There are other listings that are floating around social media. People are going to previous to our previous quarterly report on our website and bring out reports for which listings have already been amended. We have amended our listing, and we stand by our listing.

“The primary purpose of the asset declaration exercise is to ensure that public officials comply with the national code of conduct and the LACC regulations regarding the declaration of their assets and liability. This exercise is crucial in preventing, detecting illicit enrichment, conflict of interest, and other forms of corruption.

Statistics on Asset Declaration

Cllr. Zoe used the occasion to provide to the public an updated statistics on those public officials who declared and those who refused to declare up to the time President Boakai issued his suspension notice.

“For 2024, the LACC identified 1,986 public officials in the three branches of government who are required to declare their assets, income and liability. This number does not represent the national baseline of Liberia. We still have people that the LACC has not identified. To identify the national baseline, we have begun to write institutions to give us a listing of their staff, along with the positions. Based on the position, we will able to identify who are required to declare. We will come up with the awareness and publish that baseline listing that we have established.

“Out of this number, 1370 public officials were compliant, which means a 69% compliance rate. Conversely, 616 public officials from the three branches of government combined did not declare, which represents 31% of non-compliant.

“For the legislative branch, we identified a total of 73 elected representatives, out of which only 38 representatives were compliant, demonstrating their commitment to the rule of law, while 36 were non-compliant. We identified 56 administrative staff who are required to declare. Out of that number, only two staff were compliant.

“In the House of Senate, we identified 30 elected senators; only 14 senators were compliant demonstrating their commitment to the rule of law, while 16 were non-compliant. In the Senate, we identified 44 administrative staff, only one was compliant.

“For the Executive branch, we identified 1,333 officials who were appointed and are required to declare their assets. Out of that number, 881 officials fully complied with the declaration, while 454 were non-compliant. We also received 110 assets declaration from non-appointed officials, thus bringing the total number of compliant in the executive branch to 991 public officials and appointed officials of government who declared their assets.

“In the judiciary branch, we identified 338 persons to declare their assets. Out of that number, all 338 declared their assets.

“This compliant rate indicates progress, but it also highlights areas for further action. As we move ahead, the LACC extends appreciation to President Joseph Nyuma Boakai for taking the decisive action to enforce our recommendation by suspending officials who have failed to declare their assets. This bold step reenforces the government’s commitment to transparency and accountability and the rule of law. We urge all public officials who have not declared to kindly proceed to the LACC. This is your legal obligation. We call on the citizens to please support us in this effort. The fight against corruption is only the LACC. You can provide and share position information about the work we do at the LACC,” the LACC boss concluded.