Liberian President George Weah announced an overhaul of the central bank’s leadership to restore confidence in an institution that has been beset by scandals and is hampering efforts to deal with an economic crisis.
President Weah’s changes include the immediate resignation of Deputy for Economic Policy, Mounir Siaplay and the departure of Executive Governor Nathaniel Patray. Patray will retire within the next three months. Patray was appointed in July 2018.
The government will open nominations for a vetting committee to appoint the bank’s new leadership, said President Weah.
Mr. Weah also pledged that the government would no longer borrow from the central bank for its equity needs — a recommendation made in March by the IMF, which said that “strong policy actions” were needed to reduce inflation and boost growth.
“All of these reports point to a major lapse of controls at the Central Bank of Liberia,” said Weah. It “calls into question the ability of its present leadership to effectively revamp its internal mechanism to provide greater accountability and professionalism.”
He also announced that the International Monetary Fund was to send a team to draw up a program especially “tailored for Liberia”.
The West African nation’s economy has failed to reignite in the five years since the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola brought growth to a standstill. The Liberian dollar depreciated by more than a quarter in 2018, causing inflation to accelerate to 28% by December and the International Monetary Fund to revise its economic growth forecast to this year to 0.4%, from 4.7%.
The president said a series of policy measures are underway to stabilize the national economy in the short term and position it for growth in the medium to long term.
“We are working with stakeholders on measures that are intended to bring down prices,” said President Weah who noted that his administration continues to work to attract new investments in agriculture, improve our business climate to reduce the costs and hurdles of doing business in Liberia.
