MONROVIA, Montserrado – Alfred Cheeks, the Central Bank employee accused of leaking documents revealing the cost of Pres. George Weah’s first trip to France, has finally been dismissed from the institution for breaching a confidentiality agreement.

“The management of the CBL has resolved to terminate your employment with immediate effect,” wrote George Wilson, deputy director of the human resource department, in a letter to Cheeks dated on April 12.

According to Wilson, the bank’s decision to terminate Cheeks’ employment is due to his gross breach of an oath of fidelity and secrecy, which among other things, require him as employee to maintain the confidentiality of the bank.

Cheeks was suspended, arrested, and held in the custody of the National Security Agency for breaching the bank’s confidentiality policy.

Cheeks was accused of leaking documents revealing the cost of Pres. George Weah’s recent trip to France during a time when many Coalition for Democratic Change supporters had claimed on several Facebook groups that Weah’s entire trip was being paid for by the Senegalese government.

Soon after the claims of the trip being free to Liberian taxpayers were made, a document surfaced on Facebook that suggested that US$52,721 had been requested for the trip.

The document in question is a letter dated Feb. 13, 2018, addressed to Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah and signed by Nathaniel McGill, minister of state, requesting funds to facilitate the travel of George Weah and delegation to Senegal, Morocco, and France from February 14-23, 2018.

Not long after, a Central Bank press release dated February 22 and signed by Cyrus Wleh Badio, head of corporate communications, said the posting of the travel arrangements was “a serious breach of its fidelity and confidentiality policy governing the conduct of its employees.”

The CBL noted that it had ordered its own internal inquiry as a result and “based on CBL’s preliminary investigation, including a careful review of its CCTV video, a staff was seen on camera pocketing a photocopy of the document.”

Liberia does not have a whistleblower’s protection law, but in December 2009, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former Liberian president, issued an executive order while the legislature was on break on the protection of whistleblowers, in advance of the planned submission of a bill.

Featured photo by Jefferson Krua