According to Ecobank Liberia, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Samuel Tweah, is not a signatory to the LISGIS Census Account with that bank and neither did he move any funds from that account to a personal account in Cote d'Ivoire.

The bank's clarification comes in the wake of allegations made by Alex Williams, the fired deputy director general for statistics at LISGIS, who said last week on Spoon FM that the Finance Minister, who sits on the LISGIS Board, had transferred US$2 million from the organization's account to his personal Ecobank account number 6100005514 in the neighboring Ivory Coast.

Williams and Wilmot Smith were fired by President Weah last week after a number of issues that delayed the commencement of the 2022 national census on November 11 became glaringly obvious.

The procedure had a number of issues, including dubious enumerator hiring practices, poor distribution of census materials, and underpayment of enumerators.

The next census would be the first in 15 years, taking place in 2022. According to Liberia's Constitution, a census must be conducted every ten years.

Williams accused Min. Tweah of defrauding LISGIS while also misleading the President about the facts in the census house after he was fired.

Nevertheless, Minister Tweah, who did not take the accusation lightly, wrote to Ecobank Liberia to ask the bank to look into and clarify the claims made against him.

Mr. Tweah said in a letter dated November 17, 2022, sent to Mr. George Mensah Asante, the managing director of Ecobank Liberia, that "the unsubstantiated claim is harmful and has caused me to respectfully urge Ecobank to supply me with the facts relating to the account in issue. I am completely baffled as to why Mr. Williams chose to level such an accusation against me given the fact that, as Minister, I do not manage the day-to-day financial affairs of LISGIS or any other government agency. I am only a signatory to a personal account I have with Ecobank in Liberia, so I do not have the ability to withdraw money from any account of a Government Ministry or Agency.

Minister Tweah added that he approves transfers of public funds to various government ministries and agencies in his capacity as Finance Minister in accordance with the Public Finance Management Law's established and general procedures.

In his message, he claimed that these transfers made in accordance with the PFM law adhere to set PFM protocols and processes in order to access funds from specified US dollar and Liberian dollar bank accounts at different financial institutions or banks.

"Mr. Managing Director, it may interest you to note that this malignant misinformation provided equally tends to compromise the integrity of ECOBANK because it seems to imply that people who are not signatories to Ecobank accounts may be able to move money from such accounts either through some form of collusion or breach of banking internal controls or through digital hacking," said Min. Tweah. You can establish the facts and put them where they belong, related to the allegation against me as the Minister of Finance and Development Planning and Chairman of the Board of LISGIS, through your research into these possibilities or impossibilities.

The account number 6100005514 Mr. Williams referred to by Williams is a transit account established by Ecobank Côte d'Ivoire, the affiliate bank of Ecobank Liberia, for the specific transfer of US$10,000 on March 18, 2022 to AVIANET CONSULTING, to transport tablets to Liberia. Ecobank Liberia clarified the transaction amid the allegation.

According to Ecobank, this transfer was carried through through Banque Atlantic de Côte d'Ivoire, AVIANET's bank in La Cote d'Ivoire.

In order to execute the transaction to another bank, Ecobank Côte d'Ivoire, an affiliate bank of Ecobank Liberia, sets a Transit Account in Ecobank Côte d'Ivoire whenever Ecobank Liberia delivers US dollars to La Côte d'Ivoire. For this transaction, on March 18, 2022, Ecobank Côte d'Ivoire established Transit Account 6100005514 in order to send US$10,000 to a bank account held by AVIANET Consulting at Banque Atlantic de Côte d'Ivoire. The transferred US$10,000 is equivalent to CFA 5.69 million. Because of this, 6100005514 is not a LISGIS account in Côte d'Ivoire, and Minister Tweah is not connected to one either.

While AVIANET Consulting's account information could not be disclosed by Ecobank because it is a third party, the bank nevertheless provided LISGIS with an invoice from AVIANET for CFA 49, 959, 750 (US$86,267), which represented the cost of transporting tablets for the 2022 national population and housing census.

All LISIGS payments for the US$86,227 cost of shipping the tablets were made through the Cote d'Ivoire transit account.