By this, a well-placed government employee has also attributed this to gratuity or some favors being exchanged to have the auditors and internal auditors partake in siphoning public funds.
The General Auditing Commission’s (GAC) wave of damning audit revelations
against major public institutions have triggered renewed scrutiny, not only of the entities directly accused of violating the Public Financial Management (PFM) Law and internal control procedures. It questioned the effectiveness and relevance of the Internal Audit Agency (IAA).
IAA embedded auditors are mandated to prevent precisely such financial irregularities.
Over the past several days, local dailies extensively reported on explosive GAC
findings involving the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA), the Liberia Petroleum Regulatory Authority (LPRA), and the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL).
The reports exposed patterns of
weak internal controls, questionable transactions, procurement violations, undocumented expenditures, revenue discrepancies and administrative failures spanning several fiscal years.
By this, a well-placed government employee has also attributed this to gratuity or some favors being exchanged to have the auditors and internal auditors partake in siphoning public funds.
The reports, published predominately by FrontPage Africa, The New Dawn, The Analyst, Heritage, News and GNN Liberia, collectively painted a troubling portrait of
systemic governance failures inside some of the most strategically important public
institutions. Yet beyond the sensational allegations and institutional blame, governance experts say, one central question remains largely unanswered: where was the Internal Audit Agency (IAA) while these violations “persisted for years?”
A Growing Audit Crisis
According to FrontPage Africa, the GAC uncovered sweeping discrepancies within
public revenue management architecture, including massive unreconciled variances involving the LRA, Ministry of Finance and Development Planning and the Central Bank of Liberia.
The audit reportedly identified hundreds of millions of United States dollars and billions of Liberian dollars in transactions that could not be properly reconciled between government revenue systems and bank accounts.
The report further disclosed that over US$1.7 billion and L$54.3 billion recorded in the Tax
Administration System, were “missing from the General Revenue Account, while
additional entries lacked corresponding source documentation within the LRA system.”
At the LPRA, separate GAC compliance audit findings detailed what newspapers described as serious governance and procurement irregularities, payroll inconsistencies, weak documentation practices, internal control deficiencies, and alleged violations of established financial procedures dating from July, 2018, through December, 2023.
Heritage news went further, characterizing the petroleum regulator as a “corruption empire” under the previous leadership. The report cited allegations of procurement abuse, irregular licensing transactions, payroll chaos, and widespread disregard for compliance systems.
Although some publications, including The Analyst, noted that portions of the audit findings may predate current management, and that reform measures are reportedly underway, the broader concern remains the
persistence of institutional weaknesses over multiple years without effective internal detection or corrective escalation.
Meanwhile, NOCAL, a state-owned petroleum company, continues to face mounting public scrutiny following previous corruption allegations and procurement controversies that already placed the institution under public integrity concerns throughout 2025.
The Missing Conversation: Internal Auditors
While public attention has largely centered on heads of institutions, comptrollers, procurement directors and senior management teams, financial governance analysts argue that the conversation remains incomplete without examining the operational role of the Internal Audit Agency.
Created to strengthen transparency and accountability across government institutions, the IAA deploys internal auditors in every ministry, agency and commission to conduct risk assessments, review compliance systems, flag irregularities, and advise management on corrective measures before violations escalate into national scandals.
Under the PFM framework, internal auditors are expected to serve as the first institutional safeguard against financial abuse, procurement breaches, undocumented
expenditures, payroll manipulation and weak internal controls.
However, the scale and duration of the irregularities now emerging from the GAC reports have prompted growing questions regarding whether IAA-assigned auditors at the LRA, LPRA and NOCAL identified these problems early enough, escalated concerns appropriately, or were simply ineffective within the institutions to which they were assigned.
Governance observers note that many of the alleged violations the GAC cited included
unsupported expenditures, unreconciled accounts, procurement irregularities, weak
documentation controls and payroll discrepancies; are precisely the types of deficiencies internal auditors are expected to routinely monitor.
“This is where the accountability discussion becomes uncomfortable. If these institutions had resident internal auditors for years, and these same issues persisted over multiple audit periods, then the country must legitimately ask whether the internal audit function is working, being ignored, or being compromised,” a Monrovia-based public finance expert familiar with government auditing systems remarked.
Structural Weakness or Institutional Capture?
The emerging debate has now shifted beyond individual audit findings toward deeper structural concerns surrounding public financial oversight architecture.
Several governance experts argue that the repeated recurrence of identical audit findings at multiple institutions suggests a deeper institutional crisis involving weak enforcement mechanisms, political interference, poor audit follow-up culture, and limited consequences for noncompliance.
Critics say, one recurring pattern in public sector remains the treatment of audit reports
as post-event administrative formalities rather than active compliance tools designed to prevent abuse in real time.
Others argue that internal auditors assigned through the IAA may face institutional resistance, inadequate independence, operational limitations, or political pressure that weakens their ability to aggressively enforce compliance measures against powerful management teams.
The GAC itself has increasingly expressed frustration over chronic noncompliance within government institutions.
Auditor General P. Garswa Jackson, recently warned that ministries and agencies failing to submit financial statements on time could face punitive measures under the
PFM Law.
But accountability advocates argue that enforcement cannot stop at external audits alone.
“If internal audit systems were functioning effectively, many of these issues should have been detected and corrected long before the GAC arrived. The IAA cannot remain invisible whenever massive public sector irregularities are exposed,” another financial accountability advocate noted.
Calls for Broader Investigation
The latest GAC reports are expected to intensify pressure on anti-corruption institutions, including the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC), the Ministry of Justice, legislative oversight committees, and the Executive Branch to pursue further investigations and possible prosecutions where evidence supports criminal liability.
However, transparency advocates now say the scope of inquiry should also include evaluating
the performance of internal audit units assigned at the affected institutions.
They argue that without reviewing whether internal auditors issued warnings, documented concerns, submitted management letters, or escalated violations through proper reporting channels, the country risks repeatedly addressing symptoms while ignoring institutional failures
within its preventive oversight mechanisms.
The situation also raises broader policy questions regarding whether the IAA possesses sufficient operational independence, staffing capacity, technical expertise, and enforcement authority to
effectively police increasingly complex public institutions handling billions in public resources.
For many Liberians, the growing stream of audit scandals has become less shocking than
predictable.
What remains uncertain is whether the current wave of GAC revelations will finally trigger meaningful institutional reforms; not only within the agencies accused of violating financial regulations, but also within the very oversight systems designed to prevent such abuses from occurring in the first place.
As pressure mounts for accountability at the LRA, LPRA and NOCAL, the national conversation may now be shifting toward an equally critical question: if internal auditors were present, why were these warning signs not stopped earlier?