Monrovia – A top Liberian anti-graft official has been placed under investigation in connection with allegations of corruption at a key port, which have caused outrage in the impoverished West African country.
The Liberian Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) said in a statement on Tuesday that its own vice chairperson, Kano Bai Gbala, is being probed and has taken a leave of absence.
The move comes after recent articles in Liberian daily Front Page Africa detailed an alleged corruption scheme in the port of Buchanan, a city about 100km south of the capital Monrovia.
According to the reports, several officials including Gbala and the head of Liberia’s national port authority had set up a company and awarded themselves a lucrative contract at the port.
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LACC President Edwin Martin stated on Tuesday that the allegation “has the propensity to derail the progress being made” in the fight against graft.
The affair has provoked anger in Liberia, which ranked 137th out of 180 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 2020.
Liberia also ranks second only to Panama in terms of registered gross tonnage of merchant vessels, according to maritime journal Lloyd’s List.
Gbala has denied any wrongdoing. Front Page Africa reported that Gbala says he bought shares in the company on his sister’s behalf.
In other public statements, the anti-corruption official suggested that the scandal was being used to deflect attention from alleged embezzlement by the port of Buchanan’s management.
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The port in Liberia’s third-largest city had already been in the anti-corruption agency’s sights.
Former Buchanan Port director Charles McArthur reportedly fled the country this year after the LACC began examining allegations that he embezzled money.
Liberia is a poor country that is still recovering after back-to-back civil wars from 1989 to 2003 and the West African 2014-16 Ebola pandemic, which killed 4 800 people in the country.
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Source: AFP
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