GN Bank says no syndicate

The GN Bank told journalist Monday that there is no evidence of collusion or syndicate between the bank staff and Finance Ministry  staff have been established.

Mr. Daniel Wolo, Senior Manager, Executive Management Department told journalists that they  are conducting their own internal investigation on facts surrounding the alleged  gradual withdrawal of funds from the  “Unapplied Account” at the bank.

“No evidence of collusion or syndicate between the Bank Staff and Finance Staff have been established,” he said

Last week, the Ministry of Finance said it requested the National Security Agency-NSA to carry out investigation after it established that that over L$6M and over US$30,000 were withdrawn from the bank at different intervals by some unknown people. The Comptroller General of Liberia, Mr. Janga A. Kowo said when they suspected the suspicious transactions, they wrote the bank to freeze the account.

Mr. Wolo said, “the bank can confirm The bank can confirm the issue of fraud on the GoL Unapplied Account as being reported by MFDP. We understand that some checks went missing from the Ministry, though unreported to the bank, and these checks found their way into the bank and cashed at some branches,” he said.

According to him, the bank has good relationship with the MFDP and is also cooperating with investigators from the NSA.  “The NSA has spoken to seven staff of the bank. They were released and are still reporting to work,” said declining to give name of the seven employees.

It was reported on over the weekend what is believed to be a syndicate at the Ministry of Finance Development and Planning-MFDP and other financial institutions which has been defrauding government of several thousand dollars.

“Unapplied Account” is a special Government of Liberia account established to effect payments to government employees.

Those accounts are owned by the Ministry of MFDP for the purpose of salaries that are not credited to employees’ account and later returned to the government due to either, account name mismatch, wrong account number, duplicated entries, etc on the payroll, and rejected by bank system as invalid during automated processing. 

“An Internal Audit investigation has been commissioned,” he said. He  added they are awaiting the outcome of the investigation from the NSA to act. But rigid action will be taken against any employee(s) who may be found liable from its own investigation as well as that of the NSA.

He further said, “The bank will continue to cooperate with the NSA and the Ministry.”