Saleeby Booted Out of CBL
The Analyst (Monrovia)
May 12, 2004

Ellie Saleeby, the man who presided over the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL), the nation's highest monetary institution amidst controversies and allegations of impropriety has finally been hurried through the back door on the insistence of a visiting IMF delegation to Liberia.

The delegation is in the country, according to our sources, to help reconstruct Liberia's broken monetary links with the outside world and establish conduits through which funds promised by donors during the recent Conference on the Reconstruction of Liberia held last February in New York.

According to our source, the delegation felt so despondent with the status of the nation's monetary arrangements and financial management system that they issued a vote of no confidence in the executive governor of the Central Bank of Liberia.

They reportedly refused to work with the nation's financial managers unless Mr. Saleeby were removed and replaced with someone of sound principles and skills.

Our source did not say what Mr. Saleeby did personally that made his premature departure from CBL a prerequisite for the work of the delegation to commence, but analysts believe it may have to do with decisions that he took that undermined some aspects of the Finance Laws of Liberia.

For instance media reports say Governor Saleeby authorized the disbursement of more than L$900 million to former president Charles Taylor even though it was clear that the president was a lame duck willed out by the international community as part of the peace process.

Besides taking thrashing from the NTLA for printing and flooding the Liberian financial market with Liberian banknotes without seeking its authorization early this year, Mr. Saleeby's management style was largely blamed for the liquidation problems that assail LUBI and now TRADEVCO, two commercial banks that shut down for reasons ranging from bankruptcy to insecurity.

Recently, a World Bank delegation reportedly expressed surprise at the failure of the CBL to account for the deficit in the foreign exchange earning of the government of Liberia.

The bank reportedly said at the time that it had no statistics on the movement of hard currency in the country since the economy was in ruins.

Meanwhile, an Executive Mansion release issued late yesterday says Mr. Saleeby has been replaced by veteran banker, Mr. Charles A. Greene.

According to the release, Mr. Greene will act as Governor of CBL "effective immediately pending the appointment of a substantive Executive Governor." Mr. Greene, who served as governor of the defunct National Bank of Liberia (NBL) comes from the background of member of the Board of Governors of CBL to become acting executive governor.

What Mr. Greene's assuming the executive governorship would bring to the CBL remains yet a huge speculation since he was a member of a board that earned the IMF delegation's vote of no confidence.