Liberia: Government Shutdown Electronic Salary Payments

In a drastic move to combat escalating payroll fraud, the Government of Liberia has closed all mobile money salary payments to government employees nationwide.

Earlier this year, President Joseph Nyuma Boakai instructed all spending entities to pay a portion of government employees' salaries in Liberian dollars and a potion in United States dollars through a Mobile Money platform.

The purpose was to address the many challenges government employees face in rural Liberia because of limited banking facilities.

Following the president's instruction, the CSA introduced a policy mandating all spending entities to pay their employee's salaries through LoneStar Cell MTN mobile money and Orange GSM mobile money.

Early this year, the CSA launched the employee status regularization project (ESR), which is intended to maintain accurate employee data in adherence to regulatory standards.

However, CSA boss Josiah Joekai reported alarming payroll fraud in the government's Mobile Money system, which was used for employees' salary payments.

He narrated that the first report they collected from the two GSM companies showed that 166 employees received part of their salary via mobile money and the remainder through banks, resulting in annual payments of LRD 33,139,545.60 and USD 684,630.84.

He added that out of 4,738 transactions from this amount, only 3,884 matched the names on the government payroll.

He also said they could identify that seven agents and businesses received a total of LRD 3,528,852.00 and USD 52,392 annually through suspicious transactions.

The records also showed that 223 individuals received payments via mobile money but were not listed on the official payroll. These transactions, which represented a substantial portion of the payroll, raised concerns about potential fraud.

Based on their findings, they told a group of journalists on Tuesday, October 1, 2024, that they had closed all Orange money and LoneStar Mobile money salary payments.

"Before we move on to our major talking points today, I want to bring to the attention of heads of spending entities that we at the CSA are aware that individuals who are not employees of or work for the government are within proximity to the government and its functionaries."

"This does not only violate network operators LonestarCell-MTN and Orange Liberia. We are very thankful to the two GSM companies for their support and cooperation [in] this noteworthy effort."

"Predicated upon these findings, we have closed down all our payments through their platform."