MONROVIA, Montserrado – President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has weighed in again on the case of the allegedly missing billions of Liberian dollar banknotes. She has called on the Central Bank of Liberia to release reports of an investigation she said it had already completed on the issue.

“Why haven’t they released the report of the investigation? Why are they sitting on it?” Sirleaf told the BBC’s Jonathan Paye-layleh, adding that developments surrounding the case had made her “shocked” and “angry.”

“I was president of this country for 12 years. We never had anything about missing banknotes. We were very clear on the government’s financial processes.”

She expressed concern about the impact the scandal is having on the reputation of the country. Since the news was broken by a local daily, it has been carried by top international news outlets, including the New York Times, Reuters, and the Financial Times.

“Does the president realize what he has done to the country?” she said. “The reputation of the country is also at stake. Talking about L$16 billion – do they know what the GDP of this country is? Do they know what the revenues of this country is?”

Sirleaf appeared certain that there was no container of money missing, concurring with earlier statements made by Finance Minister Samuel Tweah and the former executive governor of the Central Bank of Liberia, Milton Weeks.

“It’s either in the bank vault or in circulation,” she said. “The minister of finance has been clear – he said there’s no missing container. There’s no missing money. I am certain – whatever my administration did was in accordance with the law, the constitution, and there has been nothing that has been missing. What they’ve done since they’ve been in government, I don’t know. And their investigation can look into that, so we can know the facts.”

The former president said under her watch, contracts were signed with a Swedish company, Crane International, to print the banknotes, refuting earlier claims by Information Minister Eugene Nagbe that banknotes were printed in other countries.

“The records on that are clear. Again, Mr. Nagbe is impugning innocent people’s reputation and credibility. He must answer for that,” she added.

She advised the government to review the Central Bank’s records and examine the facts of the case.

“I’d like to call on the government, given that the country’s reputation and innocent people’s reputation have been impugned, they must go back to the media once their investigation is concluded and the evidence and facts are known, they must go back to the media and correct it.”

Featured photo by Zeze Ballah