Lprc case to lacc authored by roland kartee

Chocolate City, Gardnersville
Monrovia, Liberia
March 7, 2014
Cllr. James N. Verdier, Jr.
Executive Chairperson, Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission
Gurley Street, Monrovia, Liberia
CC : Her Excellency Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf : Mr. Alieu Ngum
President, Republic Of Liberia Executive Director (Sudan,
Executive Mansion/Foreign Affairs Ministry Gambia, Liberia, Ghana etc.)
Monrovia, Liberia c/o Margaret Kilo
Resident Representative
: The Hon. Speaker & Members of the House African Development Bank
Of Representatives, Capitol Building Group, Sophie Community
Capitol Hill, Monrovia, Liberia Old Congo Town, P.O. Box 18144
Monrovia, Liberia
: The Hon. President Pro Temp & Members of
Of the Senate, Capitol Building : Mr. John Mark Winfield
Capitol Hill, Monrovia, Liberia Director for Mission to Liberia
United States Agency for
: Madam Deborah Malac International Development
United States Ambassador to Liberia (USAID), 502 Benson Street
U.S. Embassy, 502 Benson Street Monrovia, Liberia
Monrovia, Liberia
: Ambassador Attilio Pacifici
: Madam Karin Landgren Head, Delegation of European
United Nations Secretary General Special Union to Liberia
Representative to Liberia 100, UN Drive, Mamba Point
UNMIL Headquarters, Pan African Plaza P.O. Box 10-3049
Tubman Boulevard, 1st
Street, Sinkor Monrovia, Liberia
Monrovia, Liberia
: Amb. Chigozie F. Obi-Nnadozie
: His Excellency Mr. Naoto Nikai Nigerian Ambassador to Liberia
Ambassador of Japan (Liberia, Ghana etc.) Nigerian Embassy, Oldest
Embassy of Japan, P.O. Box GP 1637 Congo Town, Tubman
5th
Avenue, West Cantonments, Accra, Ghana Boulevard, Monrovia, Liberia
: His Excellency Zhang Yue : The Country Director
Ambassador of China to Liberia c/o Michael Nyumah Sahr
Chinese Embassy, Congo Town Communications Associate
Monrovia, Liberia World Bank Monrovia Office
Bright Building

Sekou Toure Ave., (UN Drive)/ : Office of Auditor General
Gibson Streets, Monrovia, Liberia General Auditing Commission
Ashmun Street, Monrovia, Liberia
: Mr. Thomas Doe-Nah
Executive Director, Center For : Mr. Archie Sannon, President
Transparency & Accountability in Coalition for the Transformation
Liberia, CENTAL, Atop Luck Pharmacy Of Liberia, Marketplace Building,
Opposite JFK, 2nd
Street, Mon-Lib. Carey Street, Monrovia, Liberia
: The Party Executives, Unity Party : Mr. Vandarlark Patricks, National
Congo Town, Monrovia, Liberia Director, Campaigners for
Change, Marketplace Building
: The Party Executives Carey Street, Monrovia, Liberia
Congress For Democratic Change (CDC)
Congo Town, Monrovia, Liberia : Center For the Exchange of Intel-
lectual Opinions (CEIO)
Movement for Progressive Change (MPC)
Congo Town, Monrovia, Liberia : Center for the Promotion of
Intellectual Development
Liberty Party, Monrovia, Liberia
: Friend of Friends Hathia Assoc.
Liberia People‟s Party (LPP)
Monrovia, Liberia : The President & Members of the
Federation of Liberian Youths
: The Party Executives (FLY), Monrovia, Liberia
Alliance for Peace & Democracy (APD)
Vamoma House, Sinkor, Monrovia, Liberia : The President & Members of the
University of Liberia Student
: The President & Members of the Union (ULSU), Capitol Hill
Press Union of Liberia (PUL) Monrovia, Liberia
Clay Street, Monrovia, Liberia
: The President & Members of the
: Chairman Sheik Kafumba Konneh & Student Council Leadership
Members of the National Muslim Council African Methodist Episcopal
of Liberia (NMCL), Vai Town, P.O. Box 417 University, Mon., Lib.
Monrovia, Liberia
: President Dee Maxwell Kemayan
: President Rev. Dr. Jonathan B. B. Hart & & Members
Members of the Liberia Council of Churches Liberia Business Association
(LCC), Monrovia, Liberia Monrovia, Liberia

: Chairman Zanzan Karwar & : The President & Members of the
Members of the National Student Council Leadership
Traditional Council of Liberia Stella Maris Polytechnic
Monrovia, Liberia Capitol Hill, Monrovia, Liberia
: The President & Members of the : The President & Members of the
Student Council Leadership Student Council Leadership
African Methodist Episcopal Zion University United Methodist University
Benson Street, Monrovia, Liberia Ashmun Street, Monrovia, Liberia
: The Liberia Correspondent : Mr. Jonathan Paye-Layleh
Radio France International (RFI) Liberia Correspondent
Offices of the Press Union of British Broadcasting Corporation
Liberia, Clay Street, Mon-Lib. Offices of the Press Union of Lib.
Clay Street, Monrovia, Liberia
: The Party Executive
National Patriotic Party (NPP) : Mr. Sampson S. Tokpah
Congo Town, Monrovia, Liberia Head of Secretariat
Liberia Extractive Industries
: Mr. Julius Jensen Transparency Initiative (LEITI)
National Coordinator Bureau Office of the Budget
Liberians United to Reform Liberia Office, Adjacent the Executive
Cocoanut Plantation, Mamba Point Mansion, Monrovia, Liberia
Monrovia, Liberia
Dear Cllr. Verdier:
Please accept my warmest compliments for your nomination by the President of Liberia and
your subsequent confirmation by the Senate to the Executive Chairmanship of the Liberia
Anti-Corruption Commission, a position that in my opinion carries along the delicate
responsibility or potential of finally making or breaking Liberia.
By way of introduction, I am Roland S. Kartee, a concerned citizen and a member of the
Liberia petroleum Refining Company (LPRC) family, although currently at cross purposes
with my company‟s authorities.
Being aware of the fact that there is no hard and fast rule about when, or under what
conditions, a responsible citizen can fearlessly decide to rise up to the challenge of erecting
check points for certain negative activities within his/her society or governance structure, I am
honored to use my current situation to bring my company‟s entire leadership (Management
and Board of Directors) to the spot for the level of wanton misapplication, waste and
pillaging of our nation’s financial, human and other resources; the willful breach (or
actions to facilitate breach) of corporate policies and internal controls, the dubious and
criminal administration of the company; the unspeakable exposure of the company,

government, and country at large, to public disrepute; and the reckless abuse and misuse of
power, influence and authority etc., all backed either implicitly or explicitly by the Board of
Directors.
Kindly bear with me for the strange length, breadth, and style of presentation for this formal
complaint/report. It may not appear conventional or the normal way a report of this subject
should appear, but I am constrained to present it this way because I do not think we are living
in normal times; I instead think that we are in an unannounced, silent, but very destructive war
fare, and that I see myself as a key „military commander‟ at this battle front, as the mood,
narrations, and experiences etc. presented in the rest of this work will demonstrate to you; so
please follow these detailed narrations with very keen national interest.
My conscience is terribly suffocated to find myself remaining mute, mincing words, or only
pursuing my personal or family interest at this critical moment, when I am quite conscious that
all these vices listed above are gravely exerting a negative impact on our overall national
survival, growth and prosperity, and continuously imposing our country on the international
community as a complete liability and an enduring embarrassment. With your interest and
cooperation, LACC, I am prepared to sacrifice blood, sweat and tears as I have started for
some good bit of time now, to substantiate to the letter, all, or even more than the number of
claims made above, against the current LPRC leadership, with a determination to use this one
scenario, God willing, to begin the process that will spark the right kinds of reforms we need
now to change our country around for the better. I am prepared to stand in any open court of
competent jurisdiction against LPRC on behalf of the poor masses of this country in an effort
to put a check to these bad practices because of my strong conviction that we, who are a bit
privileged and opportune among millions, in a highly handicapped society like ours, are
unfortunately not Eating, Sleeping, and Breathing our country, a mishap I think is
responsible for why our country continues to go down the drain as we see it going today. In
the words of the Greek Philosopher Plato, which I always reference,” Excess generally causes
reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in
individuals, or in governments.” The way I see LPRC proceeding with business, if this is how
Liberia‟s other numerous revenue generating agencies and/or fund raising institutions are
going about things (which is what the news talks about every time), then no wonder why our
country tends to remain on the side of begging for loans, grants and other forms of largesse
until hell freezes over; and why our governments will keep failing miserably on almost all of
their promises to improve the lives of their own people. This is a war, called
„CORRUPTION‟ THAT HAS BEEN WAGED AGAINST all peace-loving and productive
people. CORRUPTION has been from the very beginning of this Liberia, and continues
unabated as the principal reason why majority of us are just Existing Rather Than Living, in
this country; the reason why, just in 24 years, according to an unofficial tally from my
personal research conducted, over Thirty Four Billion US Dollars (US$34 billion) have been
lost from the coffers of the international community and Liberia‟s own wealth, to the effects of
war and the search for peace and reconciliation, which are still illusive despite the fact that
they form part of all of our politicians‟ daily speeches, and command a good fraction of our
yearly budgets; the reason why, in 23 years, Liberia‟s leaders sat in about 21 different

internationally-organized peace accords and conferences (each of which cost multiple millions
of US DOLLARS ) just discussing how to share ministries and government agencies among
themselves based upon which of these institutions generated more revenues according to their
own readings; the reason why, although a mere robot, Kirobo, now executes, in space,
assignments given to it by its Japanese human superior, Mr. Koichi Wakata, and this robot is
talking in clear speech, in conversation with its human superior, processing questions and
constructing answers from his vocabulary, taking photographs and sending messages to twitter
etc. according to Wikipedia.org, Liberia is still decrying a messy national primary education
program (let alone the mess at the secondary and tertiary levels); the reason why, although
the Deep Learning Revolution in Information Technology has now made it possible for a
computer to recognize the voice of cat and call it a cat, according to the British Broadcasting
Corporation’s Science and Technology Program, more than 95% of Liberians STILL HAVE
NO ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY (Liberia’s Finance Ministry’s 2013 Report) and more than
98% of Liberians HAVE NO ACCESS TO THE INTERNET (according to the US
Department of State); the reason why, although many parts of the world are now looking
beyond the use of double-decker, 4, 5, 6, and even 7 lane modern roads/streets, and
contemplating the design of triple-decker roads/streets, ONLY about [a questionable ] 45%,
according to a Ministry of Finance 2013 Report, of households in Liberia have access to an
all-seasons road within ONLY 5 kilo meters, and much of the country‟s interior is cut off
from its [so-called] capital city during the rainy season, after 192 years of existence; the
reason why, although US Four Billion Nine Hundred Million Dollars (US$4.9 billion) of loan
money, used by its former leaderships to, in their words, develop the country (but they could
not pay back), was waived completely by the international community in the year 2010, key
human development indices still carry the embarrassing facts that Liberia, a 43,000 square
mile country, ONLY contains about a mere 500 miles of [inferior quality, 1 to 2 lane] paved
roads and more than 85% of its people still live on less than $1.00 a day; the reason why,
although the country has never been able to ever, since its existence convincingly and
independently, raise up to Five Hundred Million US Dollars(US$500 million) in revenue in
any of its annual budgets, Liberia, according a Media Consultant at the Ministry of Finance on
a local radio talk show in September of 2013, consumes over Four Hundred Million US
Dollars (US$400 million) in recurrent expenses annually, meaning, when contingencies and
provisions for „negligible‟ debt payments are considered, which is a matter of must, the
country is NEVER, EVER, left with anything for investment into capital projects
independently; the reason why, although Liberia has established, and is funding all of the
expensive anti-corruption and transparency & accountability enhancement institutions like the
General Auditing Commission GAC, the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission, LACC, the
Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, LEITI etc., the country, just in 3 years,
interestingly won twice, the disgraceful and notorious title of the world‟s most corrupt country
on a planet that hosts over 200 independent countries and autonomous territories (2010 and
2013) according German-based Transparency International; the reason why, although
Liberia has only 17 ethnic groups, a survey report from the Harvard Institute of Economic
Research‟s work done in 2002 and featured in the Washington Post designated Liberia as the
second most ETHNICALLY DIVERSED COUNTRY on Planet Earth (according to

http://rupertsimons.org) over such countries as Nigeria, for example, with over 250 ethnic
groups, and Papua New Guinea etc., with over 850 ethnic groups; the reason why, although
Liberia had its first democratic elections 167 years ago, September 27, 1847, according to
Joseph Saye Guannu’s “Liberian History up to 1847”, and since then used to go to the polls in
General & Presidential Elections every 2 years, then every 4 years, and to date, every 6 years,
the country‟s democracy is still being described deceitfully, sycophantically, and shamelessly
today as „immature‟, „premature‟, „underage‟, fragile, young, fledging etc. instead of
facing the fact, calling spade a spade, and declaring this poor, old, West African country as a
complete failed state, as implied by the Fund for Peace’s Foreign Policy Magazine’s Failed
State Tracking for 2013, which put Liberia critically high at 95.1 marks in failure [one would
safely say 4.9 marks in success] according to www.concordtimes.net.
When states fail in such a grotesque manner as ours, it calls for everyone‟s honest and selfless
efforts to completely dismantle (through civic and legal means) the old structure that in our
case was built on the foundation blocks of CORRUPTION and its accomplices of extreme
greed, deceit, cruelty, ethnic prejudice, dishonesty, parochialism, bigotry, unspeakable
marginalization etc. and rebuild a new and better one on the promising and ever strong and
dependable foundation blocks of HONESTY, with its disciples of righteousness (good moral
justifications for actions), fair play, unconditional justice, accountability (not the Liberia‟s
accountability that focuses only of figures, again poorly, but accountability that is applicable
to all of people‟s actions, past and present), and hard work etc. This is our biggest collective
challenge today as a people, and we must start confronting it from somewhere right now.
These are just a few of the very numerous reasons why I am so passionate to get everyone
involved as much as possible here in trying to wage a winning counterattack against this Old,
Giant, National Threat, called CORRUPTION, that is terribly defeating our country year after
year and day after day. I care to include most of our international partners also because these
are the people who continue to sacrifice their blood and meager material resources in rushing
to our aid each time we childishly and disgracefully mess things up for ourselves, as we have
started doing again, as old as this country is, and hard to learn.
With that said, I would now like to outline a couple of instances or specific details relating to
each of the general claims made above, for which the authorities at LPRC need to be
investigated now. I will also be providing you additional documents and sufficient pieces of
prima facie evidence against these and other claims that may arise based upon your scope and
interest. As I stand prepared to cooperate to any extent possible and at every level of these
investigations, it is my urge that based upon the interest that you will derive from the initial
analysis of the facts presented thus far, you kindly request the President of Liberia to relieve
these people of their respective current positions before we all delve into the substantives of
these very grave issues because I will never want to be part of any process that will just be
„bearding lions in their dens.‟ For keeping these people in authority while investigations into
these very serious issues ensue will be more like fighting a losing battle in this Liberia
according to my convictions. Below are categorized case by case narratives for your
investigation:

I. WANTON MISAPPLICATION, WASTE, AND PILLAGE OF OUR
NATION‟S FINANCIAL, HUMAN AND OTHER RESOURCES
1. When Mr. Harry A. Greaves took over the helm of leadership at LPRC in 2006, the
company had a bloated payroll of 650 employees, 16 functional departments, and 6
management layers. (LPRC times: August – October, 2008). Note, LPRC Times is a
corporate periodical. In his first 150 days, Mr. Greaves instituted a massive restructure
scheme in line with government‟s platform of creating lean and efficient institutions. At the
close of his first 6 months, in concert with experts from the USAID‟S GEMAP program,
Greaves had made redundant 415 employees, reduced the number of departments from 16
to 6 and slashed management layers from 6 to 3, among others. The company was now
right-sized with 235 employees, 6 departments, and 3 management layers, ready to face the
future. Because of government‟s sensitivity at the time, the redundancy program was
crafted with handsome severance benefits to empower affected employees to now venture
into the private sector or make ends meet at other fronts. As such, US$1.5 million was
spent exclusively to settle severance benefits, apart from other obvious peripheral expenses
associated with this scheme.
With all this knowledge, after having served as Deputy to Mr. Greaves, when Mr. Thomas
Nelson Williams, current Managing Director, took over LPRC in 2009, he embarked upon
his part of corporate restructure exercise in 2010, just 31/2 to 4 years after that of his former
boss. Payments, as such, against Mr. Williams‟ restructure activities started in early 2011,
and his part of management consultancy firm is called Subah Belleh Associates. By the
close of 2011, Mr. Williams had expended a record One Hundred Five Thousand United
States Dollars (US$105,000.00) restructuring LPRC “again” or re-restructuring” the
company. Here is a break-down of the payments he made to the Subah Belleh Associates:
#. Date
Payment Voucher
Number
Amount Bank Acct#/Bank
1 March 22, 2011 PV – 12284 30,000 110001-LBDI USD Checking A/C
2 May 3, 2011 PV – 12876 30,000 “
3 Nov. 11, 2011 PV – 15661 15,000 “
4 Nov. 15, 2011 PV – 15677 30,00 “
TOTAL
105,000
Please check up management‟s confirmation of this exercise and the payments made to Subah
Belleh Associates in the Concords Times Newspaper’s Wednesday, April 17, 2013’s article
“Trend of Vicious Lies and Gossip Abhorred.” You could specifically read paragraphs 7, 8, 9
and 10, second column of page 4.

At the close of Mr. Williams and his Board‟s expensive restructuring exercise, that unlike that
of Mr. Greaves‟ did not pay out any severance or related fees, a Harry Greaves lean and
efficient LPRC of 235 employees, 6 departments and 3 management layers now has over 300
employees, about 300 contractors, cadets and other casual workers, over 6 functional
departments, and 5 management layers.
Meanwhile, a terribly dilapidated storage facility embarrassingly decried by investors even
during Liberia‟s Civil War years still virtually remains the same since 11 years of stability
now, as the once described urgent rehabilitation works somewhat initiated by the Edwin
Melvin Snowe‟s Management around 2004 or 2005 has not yet been consummated. After a
spade of expensive and wasteful contract cancellations by each new management team, the
final 36- months urgent rehabilitation contract signed by the Williams management in October
2010 has not, as yet, convincingly crossed its halfway mark; and LPRC, this age and time,
still remains a mere storage facility for Lebanese and other business men. LPRC, or as I would
safely call it, LPSC (Liberia Petroleum Storage Company) has not as yet been able to start
importing finished product for her own sales activities, let alone to begin preparing for
elementary refining activities, when Liberia has already auctioned out 10 oil blocks for
exploitation. The current storage capacity of LPRC during these rehabilitation works is a mere
43,000 Metric Tons provided from 14 product storage tanks, with storage capacity expected to
increase to around 75,000 Metric Tons upon completion of the rehabilitation works. LPRC‟s
single biggest revenue contribution ever to government in this entire 21st century is a 2013‟s
contribution (that has not even been paid totally yet) of US$4.3 million, when according to a
BBC business day online, March 2009 report on our next door neighbor and conflict victim,
Ivory Coast‟s Oil Refinery Activities indicates that SIR (Societé Iviorrenne de Rafinage), as
of the year 2006, had 100 combined storage tanks; a storage capacity of over 1.5 million
Metric Tons; produced over 1 billion gallons of refined products per annum and was reporting
annual profits after taxes of CFA 1 Trillion 73 million or its US Dollar equivalent of around
$2.2+ billion. To date, SIR‟s capacities have increased and Ivory Coast now has a second oil
refinery with a slightly lesser capacity than SIR as suggested by this same BBC report; when
the country has not even, or at least up to the date of the report, had not even formally
discovered oil yet, let alone auctioned out 10 oil blocks like carefree Liberia. From this BBC
Report, one can deduce why Liberia is poised never to be able, ever, to construct
independently for herself a 100 mile asphalt road with this current business practice, mind set,
and economic and political status quo.
2. MD Williams and his cohorts are in the habit of devising all sorts of clever schemes to
pillage the company‟s resources. At LPRC, one sensitive revenue generating tool is called
the truck loading order (TLO), a ticket used at the meter to load products into container
trucks. Because of their sensitivity and importance to income generation, we normally
purchase TLOs in huge quantities and keep supplies in stock readily. But at the same time,
the high significance of these tickets adds to their vulnerability of being used by illicit
wealth-seeking corporate executives, as requests for TLOs can be quickly acted upon,
especially from the top. It was clear to Procurement and other authorities at LPRC, that by

late 2010, there were still enough supplies of these tickets in stock that could even take the
company for more than two years. But MD Williams and his Comptroller (Miss Elizabeth
M. Tubman), for their own selfish motives, still chose to authorize the purchase of 10
additional boxes of TLOs. The total cost attributed to these 10 boxes by the duo was
Ninety Five Thousand Three Hundred United States Dollars (US$95,300), paid to a vendor
called Crown Graphics in three installments as follows:
#. Date
Payment Voucher
Number
1 Nov. 3, 2010 PV – 10651 45,900 110001-LBDI USD Checking A/C
2 Jan.17 2011 PV – 11252 3,500 “
3 May 5, 2011 PV – 12889 45,900 “
TOTAL
95,300
The painful story is that after all these payments; some fake papers called TLOs were brought
to the office that could not work with the system. MD Williams and his team, as of last year,
2013, said they were still working with their vendor, Crown Graphics to resolve the problem.
But to even add insult to injury, this same MD Williams authorized the Procurement Officer (a
handsome, young, married man and very closed confident of the MD) and the Comptroller (a
cantankerous old spinster, who is sometimes a bit critical of the MD‟s spending habits, and a
woman always boasting of her special connection with President Sirleaf) to travel to Beirut,
Lebanon, to, in the words of management, “perform due diligence on a new factory that is
supposed to start printing TLOs for LPRC. The pair was honestly bulldozed onto this trip, but
cleverly, as they attempted twice on this one trip. During the first attempt, they stopped in
Accra, Ghana, and came back to Monrovia due to what they described as news of disturbances
coming from Beirut. In a few weeks, they got signal that Beirut was ok, so they took off for
the second attempt which was successful. All this was happening around October and
November of 2012. I was only privileged to have gotten across two payment accounts against
the pair‟s Beirut plane ticket as follows:
#. Date
Payment Voucher
Number
1 Oct. 5, 2012 PV – 19192 2,095 110001-LBDI USD Checking A/C
2 Oct. 30, 2012 PV – 19191 2,585 “
TOTAL
4,680
As most of their operations of this kind are done covertly, it was only a whistleblower who
later revealed that the pair had used a staggering Three Hundred Thousand United States
Dollars (US$300,000) on their TLO expedition in Beirut, Lebanon. My claim of the

management breeding COLLUSION from the onset of this letter stems from developments
surrounding this Beirut trip. Since their return, it is an open secret at LPRC that the
Procurement Officer now called Assistant Procurement Manager and the Comptroller are now
alleged illicit lovers – A Very Big Threat To All Financial Internal Controls. For more
details on this count, I am pleased to refer you to the New Democrat, Tuesday, March 19, 2013
edition, paragraph 6 of the left most column on page 4, and the Wednesday, April 17, 2013
edition of the Concord Times Newspaper, paragraph 6 of the right-most column on page 5.
3. Sorry for the extensive explanations and references here, but please bear with me that this
is a revolutionary work, intended to impact an old, chronic situation at all costs, God
willing.
Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostle compared life to a marathon race
and insinuated that people who find themselves lagging behind in this running race need to
exert a much more aggressive effort than those already ahead, in an attempt to “catch” pace
with those ahead, if at all those trailing behind will ever want to be counted among
successful people. Then Joseph Persico in his blog post entitled “Making Up For Lost
Time”, added flavor to this admonishment above when he said among other things, “The
fact remains that the clock keeps ticking and ticking, and minutes, hours, days, weeks,
months and years keep moving without our control, with each time unit being lost forever.
There is no guarantee in life, and if we choose to waste time, or unnecessarily lose time,
perhaps we will never be able to make up for it, as it might be too late when we finally
realize our mistakes and ask ourselves why….We only will be left with regrets about what
we could have done had we come to ourselves earlier …. Nevertheless, if we have lost
time, then we need to do our utmost best to redeem it. And as people say with money, we
need not to throw anymore good money after bad or worthless things. Similarly, we need
not throw anymore good time after worthless pursuits or trivial things. Finally, if we follow
these principles, and live each day the best we can, we will be able to put behind that
unproductive lost time and perhaps even forget those ugly memories some day.”
This food for thought ushers us into the actual count #3 of our case. LPRC, with the major
priorities confronting it, in terms of the direly needed activities to help boost its revenue
generating capacity; like for example, rapidly improving the plant facility, pumping money
into process (es) that will lead to importing finished products for its own sale activities instead
of merely surviving on storage fees etc, took onto another glaring money eating scheme again.
In the year 2012, MD Williams and his cohorts embarked on an „ambitious‟ corporate
rebranding exercise. By September 12, 2012, a record total of US Thirty One Thousand Eight
Hundred Ten Dollars (US$31,810.00) had been expended by the LPRC authorities to rebrand
the company, and the activities in this exercise were as follows: print new complimentary
cards for senior management; print new t-shirts for employees, call the company’s first MD
Hon. Cletus Wortorson for an open-air one hour honoring program, and change the
company’s logo that no one had ever complained about. At the close of the rebranding
exercise, after expending US$31,810, the only legacy of this money spent could probably be
the changed logo, but the complimentary cards became virtually useless in less than two

months, as almost 98% of those for whom they were printed were demoted in management‟s
controversial vertical integration exercise (although they called it a mere title change), and the
content of the huge billboard was discarded during the same two months period. Money
actually grows on trees in Liberia. The US$31,810 was disbursed as follows, when
government has embarrassingly failed for the third year running to create even 5% of the
20,000 jobs per annum for our growing number of both skilled and unskilled labor force as
promised by the President:
#. Date
Payment Voucher
Number
1 Aug. 17, 2012 PV – 8708 6,400 110001-LBDI USD Checking A/C
2 Aug.22, 2012 PV – 18803 4,750 “
3 Aug.23, 2012 PV – 18850 2,660 “
4 Aug. 30, 2012 INV – 5001 15,500 *The payment against this invoice will be
checked later, but pmt was made definitely
5 Sept. 12, 2012 PV – 18967 2,500 “
TOTAL
31,810
4. At an elaborate management retreat we held in the township of Marshall in early
November of 2011 using Thousands of US Dollars of corporate funds, among other things,
two major issues were brought up, and based upon the significance of these two issues, two
top management members were designated forthwith to begin implementation of the first
issue and to conduct feasibility studies on the second issue with time frames of one to two
years to complete these tasks. But sadly up to this 2014, we see no results as yet with
respect to these two issues; meaning, they were just another tactical lip service or another
form of Liberia‟s “business as usual”. The two issues were the construction of a new
administrative office building for employees to move into by year end 2013, and Mr.
Williams was designated to spearhead this; while, the next issue was that LPRC should
begin importing finished product for sale by the same year end 2013, and Mr. Jackson Doe
was selected to head this project or its feasibility studies and make speedy report.
a) The current LPRC PST (Product Storage Terminal) facility on the Bushrod Island was
originally intended to only host one of the company‟s many departments, the
Operations Department, and a few of LPRC‟s business partners such as the inspectors,
importers etc, and it was the Liberian Civil Conflict that brought all of the staff together
at this single, tight location. But 11 years after the end of this conflict, all seven of the
company‟s functional departments, including other semi-autonomous sections
constituting a workforce of over 300 employees, and almost the same number of
contractors, cadets and other casual laborers still come together every morning at PST
for work. To add to this embarrassment, each category of the company‟s business
partners does have an office, or at least a place to work from, at the PST. Far beyond
prewar numbers, there are now more than nine petroleum importing firms, over eleven

petroleum distributing firms, all of which work as independent groups from within the
PST compound, apart from the independent inspectors, Ministry of Finance‟ Customs
Officers etc. By 2010, it had become so embarrassing that some LPRC employees go to
work without a desk to sit behind, and even those with desks or office space experience
very minimum personal flow state as an obvious result of over-crowdedness, noise etc.
At Marshall, we at the retreat resolved to call it quits with this situation immediately.
Based upon this resolution, One Hundred Seventy Thousand Five Hundred US Dollars
(US$170,500) was disbursed from the company‟s coffers between June and September,
2012 for the purchase of land to commence construction of an office building. Up to
this date, no one knows where the land is located and LPRC PST compound still
remains a “clustered box of matches”. The US$170,500 was disbursed as follows:
#. Date
Payment Voucher
Number
1 June 28, 2012 PV – 15430 500 110001-LBDI USD Checking A/C
2 Aug. 8, 2012 PV – 18631 42, 500 “
3 Setp.18, 2012 PV – 18993 127,500 “
TOTAL
170,500
b) LPRC was established in 1978 pursuant to the Liberian Business Corporation Act to
carry on the business of Producing, Refining, Storing, Supplying and Distributing
petroleum products throughout the length and breadth of Liberia. Further, in 1989, a
Legislative Act was approved and published in July, granting LPRC exclusive rights for
the Importation, Sale, and Distribution of petroleum and petroleum products within
Liberia. Although the company was also given the right under this Act to designate or
appoint agents to execute any of these functions, I still think its role should not
perpetually be restricted to mere storage, as the case currently is, with shamefully no
sign of changing this situation right away. To put this disparaging situation to rest, at
the Marshall Retreat of 2011, we instructed Mr. Jackson Doe, DMD/A to do the
feasibility studies for this possible importation jumpstart project and make all of the
recommendations that will lead us to getting the show on the road by year end 2013.
Certain information are considered highly privileged at LPRC, so probably Mr. Doe‟s
feasibility study‟s report has fallen into this category, as we have not heard any thing as
yet about this worthwhile project, and LPRC continues to remain a “glorified” gas
station, and even worse than this description because LPRC doesn‟t even sell gas. But
the interesting suspicion surrounding management‟s continuous tight lips about this
importation issue is that there is news that top management members are allegedly in
the business of receiving bribes from business partners (Lebanese and others) to keep
conditions in these business people‟s favor. There is news that LPRC‟s top
management allegedly inflates certain refundable losses we call demurrage in favor of
the importers so as to be able to get their share while helping the business people to

make a killing on the backs of the poor and suffering Liberian people. A whistleblower
account of this demurrage inflation allegation can be found in the New Democrat,
Tuesday, March 19, 2013, page 4, last paragraph of the left most column and first
paragraph of the 3rd column from left to right, with LPRC’s flimsy denial in the
Concord Times Newspaper edition of Wednesday, April 17, 2013, page 4, paragraphs
14 – 19 of the second column. What is even more troubling about these denials is the
incredible level of insincerity of the LPRC leadership, people who have consistently
proven to be dishonest in very little things. According to German born Theoretical
Physicist Albert Einstein, “Anyone who does not take truth seriously in small matters
can NEVER be trusted in large ones either.”
A country and people in a race against time can never succeed by proceeding this way.
THIS LIBERIAN PUBLIC SECTOR IS TOO MESSY; IT KEEPS HEADING
TOWARDS UNMITIGATED DISASTER WITH EACH NEW ADMINISTRATION.
IT NEEDS A COMPLETE OVERHAUL NOW, THERE’S NO TWO WAYS ABOUT
THIS!!!
II. THE DUBIOUS AND CRIMINAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE
COMPANY
1. If Mr. Williams and his lieutenants were smart enough to have sensed the potential
legal risks their appointer (the President, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf) faces for the
economically imprudent way in which she and her Thomas Nelson Williams
management are running a major revenue generating arm of government like LPRC,
they would not have exacerbated the situation by the criminal way in which they have
been proceeding with the direly required rehabilitation need of the company. LPRC‟s
1960s facilities have been dilapidated since the 1990s. Petroleum importers and other
business partners started decrying the poor state of these facilities even during the heat
of Liberia‟s Civil War, with some of them threatening to stop bringing their products to
Liberia. This situation pushed the Edwin Snowe Management of 2003 to 2006 to
hurriedly enter into a US$12 million contract for the urgent rehabilitation of the plant
with a Lebanese engineering firm, the Mechanical Engineering Group (MEG). As
everyone knows, signing and sealing huge international deals like these can be very
expensive and time consuming, taking into account all of the peripheral costs before the
deals become done and dusted. Unfortunately, all these realities were ignored, and
when Mr. Harry Greaves took over in 2006, this MEG contract was nullified on
grounds that its scope was inadequate among other claims. (LPRC Times; August –
October 2008). Mr. Greaves used over US Five Hundred Thousand Dollars
(US$500,000) to initiate a new contract; again, for the urgent rehabilitation of this
looming danger, the LPRC facilities. Payment records of almost every peripheral
expenses surrounding this new Greaves secured US$24.7 million PST rehabilitation
contract with Zakhem International Construction Ltd of the UK, which include various
payments for consultancy services, various payments for press and contract awards
publicities, plus an initial payment of US$500,000 to Zakhem International are in my

possession. Our president, with the consent of the Legislature, was reported to have
helped nullify this contract after all these expenses, when it has been very difficult, if
not totally impossible, for Liberia to ever nullify many faulty oil contracts, even if the
faults are glaring to a 2 year-old child. Indeed, money really burns a hole in
Liberia‟s coffers. (Daily observer, Monday, September 7, 2009).
I am sorry for our struggling citizens in school; I worry where the opportunities will
come from for them to get a job to do when the current public officials are so careless
with the use of our resources like this.
This Greaves‟ initiated 36 months rehabilitation contract was signed and sealed on May
1, 2009 and was ready for physical work in October of 2009, and an aggressive and
more result-oriented Harry Greaves had already assured his employees and the public
of a well rehabilitated and new LPRC PST by year end 2013. I say this with emphasis
because I have known Mr. Greaves all along as a man that means business and a man of
his words.
Mr. Williams, a national leader, cognizant of these embarrassing economic wastes and
a show of grave unseriousness by our country „s top decision makers, took over the
mantle of authority in September of 2009, and by October 22, 2010, had struck his part
of 36 month, urgent LPRC rehabilitation contract with another UK-based company,
Motherwell Bridge Ltd. for a purported US$22 million in a contract document that was
only meant for a very privileged few in top management and probably some angels
from heaven for the level of its secrecy. Fortunately, one of the chairmen of the Board
of Directors, Cllr. Negbalee Warner, (mid 2011 to very early 2012), got confronted
with this situation and lamented the shadiness of this very opaque deal in a FrontPage
Africa Article, pointing out among other things, the following:
 The contract actually had no definite price (meaning any figure could be infused in
there at any time).
 The contact was signed October 22, 2010; Cllr. Warner assumed the Board‟s
Chairmanship of LPRC around July of 2011after the dismissal by President Sirleaf of
Professor Wilson Tarpeh early July 2011. Cllr. Warner was in this position for about 7
months, between July 2011 and January 2012. According to the Councilor, it was
during almost the close of his tenure, more than a year after the October 22, 2010
signing that MD Williams brought to his (Cllr. Warner and by extension any LPRC
Board‟s attention for that matter) for the very first time, an instrument that Mr.
Williams called an “Amendment of the PST Contract,” according to which LPRC
assumes all tax obligations of Motherwell Bridge Ltd as well as other dues, fees and
charges ought to be paid by this foreign company to the Liberian Government.
 The „killer‟ news is that the amendment and the main contract bear the same date,
October 22, 2010, according to the Councilor.

Cllr. Warner, overwhelmed by this, and many other acts of gross dishonesty on the part
of the MD Williams Management, tendered in his resignation in January 2012, barely 7
months after assuming such a lucrative position. Please read FrontPage Africa,
Monday, February 13, 2012 and Daily Observer, Thursday, February 16, 2012 editions
for more details.
One deep concern I have had about all this all along, is time. This 36 months urgent
rehabilitation contract, signed on October 22, 2010, was strangely started after almost a
year and a half, April 2012. I am attaching here a communication to this effect.
Moreover, the rehabilitated and new LPRC PST that we employees and passionate
nationalists were assured of by Mr. Harry Greaves to be available by year end 2013 is
now being promised by Mr. Williams and his Motherwell counterparts to be ready
between mid 2015 and early 2016; meaning, in Madam Sirleaf‟s and MD Williams‟
own sweet time. Meanwhile, almost 10 years have gone by now since Mr. Snowe
entered into the first contract for the urgent rehabilitation of this 1990s‟ pronounced
dilapidated plant, and 8 years have gone into the administration of Liberia‟s most
“Economics-trained” President, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The question remains,
what good examples of time and resource management have our national leaders
exhibited in this scenario for young people to emulate?
2. The LPRC leadership did bring disgrace to our country at the handling of a Japanese
Oil grant given to the government and suffering masses of Liberia in 2011. The actions
of this current LPRC leadership in this deal have both led to the continuous suffering of
a vast majority of Monrovians living and doing business along the entire Somalia Drive
route and have also implicitly made the Government and People of Japan to start
looking down upon us, Liberians.
Between August and September of 2011, the Government and People of Japan gave
Liberia a simple business test in the form of a grant, and this test fell in the laps of MD
William‟s LPRC. Japan gave 15,000 Metric Tons of mixed petroleum products that they
had used US$ 13 million of their tax payers‟ money to purchase for Liberia. Because this
was a business test in disguise, the Japanese and Liberian Governments went into a
memorandum of understanding (MOU) about how the sale of these products should go.
They also jointly opened an escrow account at the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) where
proceeds from this deal should be deposited. The sincerity test, and thus, the business trick
here was that, LPRC, the entity handling the grant was given a threshold targeted deposit
of US$8.5 million. In the layman business sense, Japan was telling LPRC, no matter how
bad business went, you should not report less than US$8.5 million out of this US$13
million oil we purchased and gave to your country. Japan had planned to continue with
more of these kinds of grants based upon Liberia‟s performance with this first one.
Shamefully and naively, in no time, LPRC used Aminata & Sons to sell the products and
she (LPRC) quickly deposited the exact threshold amount of US$8.5 million into the
escrow account at the CBL. She had other monies to pay, and other costs associated with
this transaction as it is normal with all business transactions, but when LPRC presented the

breakdown of all the costs incurred, including other monies paid to stakeholders, including
the US$8.5 million deposited, her total earnings from the transaction did not still
breakeven with the Japanese principal of US$13 million. It fell short of the actual principal
by US$1.6 million. These kinds of national embarrassments are not to be taken lightly.
This was a show of cruel rapaciousness on the part of the LPRC leadership; it was
shameful and criminal. What they did here was a complete mortgaging of Liberia‟s future
opportunities with Japan, just because Mr. Williams and his cohorts have to live far above
the standards of fellow Liberians at the expense of the poor citizens.
I wish they knew the secret behind a businessman and his concept of breakeven, whether or
not he was testing, joking or giving a free gift to his subject; and what free gift, like in this
case, would ever come with all these conditions and monitoring mechanisms attached? To
get a gist of what the LPRC leadership privately and criminally benefited from these
transactions unofficially or roughly, let‟s look at this analysis:
The products given by Japan were mainly PMS (Premium Motor Spirit) and AGO
(Automobile Gas Oil). An amateur conversion index of these products from Metric Tons to
gallons is 1 Metric Ton of PMS =350 gallons and 1 Metric Ton of AGO=305 gallons,
taking an average of these two would mean 327.5 or 328 gallons. When we multiply this
average by Japan‟s 15,000 MTs, we would be talking about 4,920,000 gallons of mixed
products. LPRC however gave some excuses and said that they received 12,472 Metric
Tons in total (Daily Observer, Thursday, February 16, 2012), then later they said they
received 12,404.041 MTs (the New Democrat; Friday, February 17, 2012). The press
however was able to track a total gallons receipt by LPRC of 4,196,343 (Daily Observer,
Thursday, February 16, 2012). Granted this figure, the wholesale price of these products at
the time were US$4.40 per gallon for PMS and US$4.55 per gallon for AGO. Taking the
average of these two at US$4.475 and multiplying this amount by 4,196,343 gallons
amounts to a total revenue generated by LPRC and her partner, Aminata & Sons of
Eighteen Million Seven Hundred Seventy Eight Thousand Six Hundred Thirty Four US
Dollars Ninety Three Cents (US$18,778,634.93) from the Japanese oil grant, holding all
things constant, but LPRC sales breakdown, including the US$8.5 million deposited into
the escrow account, only summed up to Eleven Million Three Hundred Sixty-Five
Thousand Six Hundred Ninety-Five Dollars and Sixty-Nine Cents (US$11,365,695.69)
(The New Democrat, Friday, February 17, 2012)
Issues surrounding this oil deal are also covered in the FrontPage Africa, Monday,
February 13, 2012 edition and the Thursday, February 16, 2013 edition of the Daily
Observer Newspaper. This translates into the fact that the LPRC Management still has a
little over US Seven Million Dollars (US$7.4 million) to account for, out of this
Japanese Oil Grant given to our country to help improve the lives of the poor people.
Our President, well informed about all these kinds of embarrassing acts by her
lieutenants, leaves the main issues, and was heard during her early February 2014‟s
appearance at a local intellectual center, Center for the Promotion of Intellectual

Development (CENPID), pointing fingers at peaceful Liberians, particularly the youths,
for spreading negative news about her administration.
Let us not forget that Japan was approached back then in 2009 by the Liberian
Government to rehabilitate a major street in Monrovia, the Somalia Drive (The
National Chronicle, January 30, 2012), something the Japanese agreed to do in
principle, that would cost their tax payers US$50 million. As said earlier, it was
moreover the intention of the Japanese to continue giving the Liberian people such oil
grant to boost our development process, according to the then LPRC Public Relations
Manager, Madam Nyonblee Karnga Lawrence. As we speak, it is this same Japan that
gives the hungry Liberian people through the GOL about US$400,000 worth of rice as
free food per year. Just very late 2013, the Japanese Ambassador to Liberia was heard
on tape at the Foreign Ministry in Monrovia dishing out US$5.1 million to the Liberian
people in extra food aid. This same Japan, instead of keep throwing us a bone, decides
to teach us how to fish, and a cruel and selfish LPRC Management decides to damage
this opportunity for ever. Further, Japan is currently using millions of US Dollars to
help resuscitate our hydro-plant at Mount Coffee, but I know by the time the project
gets completed and that enterprise gets up and running, corruption there would even be
worse than LPRC because Liberia has decided to succumb to this menace completely,
God forbids. WE WILL FIGHT IT WITH OUR ENTIRE LIVES HENCEFORTH,
GOD WILLING. When would a now disappointed and reluctant Japan come to start the
rehabilitation of our Somalia Drive? I don‟t think Liberians deserve all this hell at the
hands of a few cruel wealth-seeking people calling themselves national leaders, and our
time has come to act now!!!!
3. This LPRC Management demonstrated hyper greed, insensitivity, and serious lack of
moral rectitude in its handling of the out of court damage payments for the wrongful
death of a 2-year old child, little Marcus Larma, killed in an accident on August 25,
2010 by an LPRC vehicle, BC-1772, in the Chicken Soup Factory Community in
Gardnersville. The vehicle was being driven by one Patrick Flomo, an employed driver
with the company.
On September 2, 2010, Mr. Charles Larma and Madam Adama Barry, parents of little
Marcus Larma filed a lawsuit against LPRC to recover damages for the wrongful death
of their child. The LPRC Management, through its Board of Directors opted for an out
of court settlement with the parents of the deceased child in a Board Resolution dated
December 16, 2010. This out of court settlement was to be facilitated by Board
Member, Madam Nowai Gbilia, upon the Board‟s mandate because of Madam Gbilia‟s
professed influence over the late Marcus‟ parents. On this date, the Board adopted a
resolution approving the payment of US$30,000 as an out of court settlement to Mr.
Charles Larma and Madam Adama Barry for closure of this US$1.5 million wrongful
death case brought against the company. Still, this same Board resolution, referenced as
RES. No. BD/2010/035 also approved US$5,000 to Madam Gbilia as compensation to
spearhead negotiations with late Marcus‟ parents. (Special Investigative Report of the

Auditor General on the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company for Fiscal Year
2010/2011.)
On December 24, 2010, Mr. Williams mandated Ms. Elizabeth Tubman, the
Comptroller, to process the payment of US$30,000 in favor of Madam Adama Barry,
mother of the deceased, in the absence of Mr. Charles Larma, the father, and all of the
lawyers concerned. Meanwhile, Madam Gbilia had earlier purportedly informed the
Board that both parents would be at the signing and receiving of any money from this
compromise deal. The payment however went ahead on December 24, 2010, Christmas
Eve, to Madam Adama Barry alone on LBDI Check #:951377.
To put up maximum security for Madam Barry, especially also to help her in checking this
huge cash on x-mas eve, Mr. Williams instructed Board Member Madam Gbilia to escort and
help Madam Barry at the LBDI Bank; and in fact, apparently, Mr. Williams himself, so
interested in this payment owing to his humanitarian feelings for Adama, either followed, or
was closely monitoring what was happening before the LBDI teller booth that mournful x-mas
eve because he himself later claimed that the LBDI Bank Manager, Madam Gloria Menjor was
present when Madam Gbilia was disbursing the money to Adama, a claim Madam Menjor out
rightly denied. Interestingly, bereaved Adama claimed to have received US$17,900 of this
US$30,000; meaning, MD Williams and Madam Gbilia of the Board had probably rewarded
themselves a handsome x-mas treat of US$12,100 for their hard work and grave concern for
the little dead child and the fate of his parents. (Heritage Newspaper, August 28, 2013). On
January 24, 2011, one month after this payment to Madam Barry, MD Williams instructed
Comptroller Tubman to process payment of US$5,000 in favor of Madam Gbilia, the Board
Member, his „errand girl‟, and Honorable Mediator. The payment voucher was raised and
approved by both the Comptroller and the MD, and the payment acknowledged by Madam
Gbilia. This should have closed the entire tale about little Marcus‟ wrongful death and the
resulting out of court settlement with LPRC.
But because extreme greed and corruption render leaders reckless and absentminded, this was
just the beginning of little Marcus‟ wrongful death case after US$35,000 had already left the
company‟s coffers. Approximately ten months on, Cllr. Sayma Syrenius Cephas and Sylvester
Rennie, lawyers representing the deceased child‟s parents, requested a Notice of Assignment
from the Civil Law Court to proceed with the trial again. The lawyers proceeded to court; this
time around, to represent one of the deceased‟s parents, Mr. Charles Larma, on grounds that
the US$30,000 paid to Madam Adama Barry was without the knowledge of Mr. Charles
Larma and therefore not binding on him. The Board again, opted for an out of court settlement
of this same case for the second time, with an equal amount of US$30,000 awarded to the
father of the deceased.
On November 4, 2011, the Cllr. Warner Board adopted a resolution approving a payment of
US$30,000 to Mr. Larma on recommendations of the LPRC Board‟s Compliance Committee,
which the Board had earlier asked to intervene when the issue of the second out of court
payment came up. On November 17, 2011, Chairman Warner instructed MD Williams to
implement the Board‟s resolution and release a cheque of US$30,000 to Mr. Larma ONLY

after going through the formality of legally withdrawing the case from court. But interestingly,
on this same date, Mr. Williams instructed the Comptroller to process US$30,000 in favor of
Cllr. Witness Doryen, an employee of LPRC, contrary to the mandate of Cllr. Warner, for
onward payment to Mr. Charles Larma. This second US$30,000 was paid on an IBL
(International Bank Liberia Ltd) check for settlement to Mr. Larma. This information was also
contained on the customer transaction detail report of IBL for that date (although Mr. Larma
claimed to have only received US$6,000 out of this amount.
Now, here is the conclusion. The General Auditing Commission (GAC), after this work,
indicts LPRC as follows: “The conduct of the LPRC Board and Management in the handling
of the out of court arrangement was characterized by compliance deviations, resulting in a loss
of US$35,000.00 to the company. This loss of US$35,000.00 comprises the second payment
of US$30,000.00 to the father of the deceased child and the payment of US$5,000.00 to
Madam Gbilia of the Board. The Compliance Committee of the LPRC Board alluded to this as
procedural errors on the part of management in making the first out of court payment of the
US$30,000 to Madam Adama Barry. The separate claims made by Madam Adama Barry and
Mr. Charles Larma that they received US$17,9000 and US$6,000 respectively, portrayed
mistrust and dishonesty on the part of the LPRC Management and their parties that
participated in the out of court settlement. Officer Bill S. Thomas of the Liberia National
Police (LNP) who witnessed the first out of court receipt was interviewed by the Special
Financial Investigation Team of the GAC and he confirmed Adama‟s claim of receiving
US$17,900 out of the intended US30, 000.” (Heritage Newspaper, August 28, 2013).
According to the LPRC Management, it agrees that certain procedural errors were made in
handling the out of court settlement, in that, according to them, “we now realize that at the
time of the payment of, or, prior to the payment to only one of the parents, Madam Adama
Barry, a Notice of Withdrawal should have been field by the complaining party, the parents, at
the court.” But the LPRC Management reiterated that the intent of this out of court
arrangement was to save the company US$1.2 million [not US$1.5 million again] (Heritage
Newspaper, September 2, 2013).
One day after this kind of ignominious confession, i.e. September 3, 2013, a naive and belly-
driven Public Relations Section of LPRC posts an article to www.gnnliberia.com, entitled “LPRC
Reacts To GAC Reports,” making further mockery of this grave situation as in the following
excerpts, “The management of LPRC is taken aback by the GAC report in which it was
queried for making payment of US$60,000 in an out of court settlement … The Board and
Management did inform the GAC on December 16, 2010 that the decision to authorize
payments was the result of its sympathetic feeling that surrounds the loss of life and the out of
court settlement was the most economical and less risky option….The Management and
Board, through its Compliance Committee in finalizing the out of court settlement did not in
any way engage in any fraudulent act as erroneously reported by the GAC. The amount of
US$60,000 paid as a result of the out of court settlement is insignificant to the staggering
amount of US$1.5 million of tax payers‟ money that would have been paid to the parents of

the deceased as a result of the lawsuit.” [it has now become US$1.5 million again, instead of
the US1.2 million claimed a day earlier in the Heritage Newspaper]
The comportment of the LPRC Management and its collaborators in their handling of this
deceased little child‟s issue establishes one of the major priorities „misorderings‟ my research
about this Liberia has discovered, which is the tendency of prioritizing religiosity over
righteousness (good moral justifications for our actions), a very sad mistake that only keeps
us running around in circles). If we change this priority around, even an atheist could do
great things for this country because righteousness will make us strongly obey the dictates of
our consciences first, before thinking about other pursuits. Just few days ago, for example,
February 7, 2014, British Immigration Minister Mark Harper had to willingly and
spontaneously resign his post, all because he had discovered that his domestic worker had
faked her documents to win an employment with him, something that was against a recent
immigrating legislation he had helped to engineer. Mr. Harper opined he should have been the
cleanest example. (www.theguardian.com, www.bbcnews.com)
All those major decision makers at the LPRC, at the level of the top management and the
Board are big religious players seeing themselves in a web of disgraceful and criminal
activities like these, but even at the point that these issues have come to light so broadly, none,
not even the immediate culprits will ever relinquish their positions gracefully, but almost all of
them claim to have American or Western lineages or connections. Dr. Herman Brown,
Chairman of the current Board is a Reverend at the Episcopal Church; Mr. Thomas Nelson
Williams is the President of the Men‟s Department of the Bethel World Outreach Ministries
Church; Board Member Emmanuel Bowier is reportedly a Reverend; Mr. Aaron J. Wheagar
(DMD/O) is said to be a Pastor in the Transea Bible Church; and Mr. Jackson Doe (DMD/A)
is a Prominent Member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the same denomination to
which I coincidentally belong etc.
But the workings and track records of MD Williams and his cohorts have ever since proven
that they are just a bunch of shrewd contrivers. Like the devil, their first line of expertise is
devising white lies and half truths. And they are progressing so cleverly with this. But let me
remind them about what one key writer says here. According to Criss Jami, “Just because
something isn‟t a lie, doesn‟t mean that it is not deceptive. A lair knows that he is a liar, but
one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.”
Sorry, I don‟t intend to be personal here, or judge anyone, but these issues should be boldly
presented because they are now in excess, terribly hampering ours, and our children‟s future.
We must deal with these issues root and branch, which will not be possible void of the major
players.

III. RECKLESS ABUSE OF POWER, AUTHORITY AND INFLUENCE TO A
POINT THAT EXPOSES THE COMPANY, GOVERNMENT AND
ENTIRE NATION TO AN EXTREME PUBLIC DISREPUTE
1. On Friday, January 18, 2013, Mr. Williams and his deputies called into the LPRC
Training Hall all of the company‟s departmental and sectional managers, a group of
which I am a part. The message at that meeting was that top management was now
ready to implement a certain key provision of the Subah Balleh Associates‟ restructure
scheme; in their words, this provision calls for a title change for all existing managers.
Whether they were ignorant of the connotations of this item on their own strategic
management agenda, or they meant to be cleverly deceptive again is anyone‟s guess,
but the actual wordings of the two related provisions on their strategic management
agenda, which they did not even disclose to us in that meeting, are outlined below. On
the so-called 5 year strategic management agenda proposed by Subah Balleh Associates
(the management consultancy firm that had earned the US$105,000 from the LPRC
Management that we earlier mentioned), counts 4 and 7 respectively of “Vision 2011-
2016 General Objectives read thus:
4. “Implement a limited program of vertical integration and create and mobilize a
marketing or commercial function to support it…..”
7. “Rationalize the organizational structure, the workforce, and incentive regime…….”
(made available later at www.lrclib.com)
I am surmising here that these accounts were meant to be the bases for what they wanted to do,
but their vision, reasoning, understanding and professionalism got clouded by cruelty, deceit,
sinister selfish motives and ineptitude, so they were explaining totally different things in this
meeting. At one point, they said they had observed that the number of managers now at LPRC
had increased, and as such, they wanted to reduce the number to match the reality during
former MD „Lewis Brown‟s time.‟ At another point, they said they just wanted to change the
tittles from „Manager‟ to “Assistant Manager‟ but that everything else, including current
earnings would remain the same. So few of us became suspicious and thus critical of their
mixed explanations; including, the Human Resource Manager, Victor Badio, Training
Manager, Jayjay Duncan and me, the Business Applications Manager, Roland Kartee. Some of
our colleagues were proposing that the managers needed first an increase in their current
earnings before accepting such a title change; others said, it was prudent to pay off those who
would not want such title change their complete severance; while still some of us maintained
there was no need for any such H/R related tweak if it was not based on economic constraint
(s), as was confirmed by management. This is because our company was growing financially
strong year after year, after former MD Greaves had placed it, and left it, on a very aggressive
revenue generating trajectory, although we had been advocating more aggressive revenue
generating avenues to match overall national realities in non-related arguments to the issue at
stake here. An LPRC that Mr. Greaves met in 2006 with a bank balance of US Fifty Thousand
Dollars (US$50,000) and a debt burden of US2.2 million, was at the time of our January 18,
2013 meeting, earning over US$23 million in gross revenue, and that the argument that,

because during Lewis Brown‟s time, LPRC had around 5 or 6 managers, and so, it should go
back to „status quo‟ when we are in 2013 was just irrelevant, among other pitfalls in their
arguments. And my last question that disbursed the entire meeting, requested top management
to present or quote to us the part of their Subah Belleh document that explicitly targeted
managers for „demotion‟, since this document continued to remain at the time a „holy secret‟.
With this question unanswered, Mr. Williams right away signaled an excuse on grounds that
he had some urgent engagement elsewhere; requested a postponement of the meeting; and
instructed DMD/A Jackson F. Doe to work with the Managers Club‟s Authorities to organize a
new meeting at a later date, at which all these emerging sticky issues would be adequately
addressed and resolved. The rest is history.
When we got back to work the next week, instead of phoning the major stakeholders to
arrange our new meeting, MD Williams took Monday January 21, 2013, to device his evil
ploy against me, apparently angered by the developments from Friday‟s meeting. Tuesday,
January 22, 2013, he sent for me, but I was out for lunch; when I got back to the office and
attended to his summon, he was engaged with guests, so we could not meet. Wednesday
morning, the same week, when we got back to work, I was summoned right away by the Hon.
MD because we had this unfinished business. The MD then displayed to me an informal
personal loan agreement sheet between me and a woman he claimed to be his church mate,
and further threatened that I quickly liquidated the balance on that paper or else… I nodded in
agreement and left. Thursday, the same week, the MD called me to his office and confronted
me this time with a different issue. Mr. Williams now claimed that he had been receiving some
tip offs (I would say gossips because he‟s well known at LPRC for entertaining gossips) that I,
Roland Kartee had been using the company‟s name to do my private business at Cellcom
Communications, an allegation or observation from him I immediately refuted in the presence
of his other guest, one of our company‟s lawyers, Mr. Robert M. Beer, that I met him in a
chitchat with, when I entered earlier. The MD then tried to show me certain paper on his desk
(although I didn‟t quite see it) with records of a certain transaction I had authorized almost
four months back, September 2012, which was in his words, fishy because it did not have all
of the supporting vouchers/business documents attached, and he called the amount. I
immediately acknowledged the transaction, admitted that I had authorized it, but on an
expediency basis, and then requested that he gave me some time to get back and investigate
why the vendor had not come as yet to run after the other documents in formalizing this
transaction – a situation regularly experienced in the business world especially when vendors
and customers get used to one another. And even with the particular vendor in question,
Cellcom, and other institutions, there had been numerous transactions of such expedient nature
that were formalized later. In certain instances, urgent technical work or other dire need can
call for a good fate „temporary dodging‟ of some red tapes to come back later and settle out on
them – MD Williams and all of his lieutenants know that this has been a norm at LPRC by
precedence. But all that the Managing Director wanted to hear from me that Thursday
afternoon was an admission that I was the one who in fact authorized this transaction, all other
issues surrounding this authorization were none of this concerns, as this man was dug in his
heels to use this slightest perceived opportunity to ultimately destroy this bane of his life,

Roland Kartee. Friday, January 25, 2013, the same week, while I was thinking that when we
got back to work, I would now have the time to investigate my little 4-mouth old transaction, I
only saw the DMD/A, Mr. Jackson F. Doe and his Assistant, the Director of Administration,
Mr. Cornelius Miamen, marching into my office with a rashly prepared dismissal letter and
asking me out of the company‟s premises. The letter was so hastily prepared that the claim or
allegation made in it is so ambiguous; but worst of all, the dismissing authority or title was
misrepresented. Mr. Jackson F. Doe, Jr., the approving authority for all hires and fires at
LPRC bears the title Deputy Managing Director for Administration (DMD/A) and not
Deputy Director General For Administration (DDG/A), as presented in their so-called
dismissal letter given me, and so, this was the first and major point of the failure of their plot
against me. To even make my argument stronger, the dubious or fake title was signed unto, by
the title holder himself and not even a proxy. When I tried to flag these points, I was warned I
should leave respectfully or else the security forces were going to be called in. I left, and every
subsequent attempt I made since then to come back to work, knowing that I had a fake
document in my hand, and that my bosses were scammers, I got denied by the LPRC Security.
While home and asking God for what next to do, few workmates called, disclosing that a
couple of interventions were made by different employee groups, and that every top
management member they confronted told them that my situation was not any serious, but that
I should just write, even a single sentence of apology, and I would be back to work the next
day. This, though, was out of the question for me, and going to court too was not an option, for
the simple reasons that; firstly, the instrument used for the so- called dismissal was something
fake or inauthentic, that I would never lend credence to, ever; secondly; the issues that led to
this witch hunt-driven action needed a more critical and radical approach than a mere running
to court; and lastly, the reluctant and cowardly way in which such a glaringly flagrant
miscarriage of justice was greeted and approached by my superiors, and both my peers and
subordinates in a family of fellow employees and citizens, spoke volume of a major societal
problem with civic- awareness and civic-mindedness that needed an immediate attention now.
Some I consider big fishes would tell me, “Roland, we are taken aback by such an abrupt and
cruel action from our bosses, but what to do, that‟s the kind of society we find ourselves in.”
At this point, apart from going to court, which still was totally out, two other options at my
disposal were, in my opinion: (a) to embark on an unbending direct action that would demand
that I get reinstated because what‟s in my hand called a dismissal letter is fake. This would
have brought a quicker solution; or. (b) to take up a formal complaint/appeal process, and I
chose the latter based on a couple of reasons as follows:
 Although embarking on a formal complaint/ appeal process meant lending some credence
to an inauthentic piece of instrument, it avoided initial confrontations; it preserved a
somewhat cordial relationship with my bosses turned detractors, which would afford me an
opportunity to gauge their levels of leadership and objectivity more; and that it further
provided me an opportunity to bring to their attention more respectfully that the dismissal
letter given me had a fundamental fault that I can never violate the dictates of my
conscience to compromise.

 Engaging in this process, though a long row to hoe, but with my little civic education and
awareness, would help me to study my environment and society better, in terms of those
direly needed principles that we must try to inculcate into society now, despite the near
impossibility etc. It would also enable me to gauge, according to my own standards, the
level of principle-mindedness, objectivity and responsiveness of each stakeholder I
confront up the ladder in this general grievances settlement procedure, among other
experiences.
So I made up my mind to disengage from behind those big HP and DELL „whooming‟ server
computers and sink my teeth into this very cumbersome assignment that would eventually lead
me into adequately studying my company; studying my government, and then my entire
country. This was also a test to establish whether a fair or objective redress could ever, or
could easily, be received in this Liberia in the absence of money, or a sectional or fraternal
affiliation.
As provided by our LPRC employee handbook, I got the search for redress off the ground on
January 30, 2013, 5 days after the bogus dismissal action, with a formal complaint letter to the
Managing Director, Mr. Williams, and a complimentary copy to the Board Chairman, Rev. Dr.
Browne, as required. This search for justice, or even a simple recognition of the major ethical,
professional, human rights, or legal breaches that have occurred to me in this witch hunt and
other accompanying actions, have been on for a year now, and every rung of the ladder of this
complaint escalation process has now been either encountered or approached by me, up to the
office of the President, without any meaningful response as yet, as you will discover in the rest
of the narration below.
Interestingly, the enemy or major player I have seen or discovered all through this complaint
process is CORRUPTION, which appears in different forms, and a tendency to protect this
culture. The root cause discovered thus, far for this tendency, is the extreme desire that a very
vast majority of Liberians possess, that pushes us to always want to put
personal/family/group interest far above all else, no matter how the general good is
negatively affected and no matter how much damage or loss society suffers. In no productive
society, to the best of my practical or reading knowledge, have almost 95% of the leaders and
people tended to hate the truth as I see here in Liberia. This is our collective national disease
of the worst effect. This can change however, provided we begin dealing with the major
national issues root and branch right now.
Being a manager, and by extension a leader, I have learnt to employ the technique from this
quote of Paul Hawken, as a major formula in solving complex problems. According to Mr.
Hawken, “Good management is the art of making problems (especially an established
chronic national problem like ours, CORRUPTION) so interesting, and their solutions so
constructive, that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.” Determined to
apply this approach, and desirous of deriving greater benefit for society from this painful, but
interesting ordeal of mine, I decided to remain calm and unruffled in approaching every
provocative and tantalizing experience that has come my, and my very young family‟s way,

and continue to come our way, all through this long, boring journey. The physical,
psychological, and economic toll on us has also been tremendous. During this ordeal, and up
to present, my children have been out of school; we live at the mercy of our landlady now who
we owe Thousands Of Dollars in rental arrears and continue to beg on a daily basis, and I and
my fiancé‟s beautiful career paths have been brutally interrupted, but God continues to help us
remain steadfast and enduring, careful not to short circuit the desired big picture results
sought. Here are some of the tantalizing and provocative experiences encountered thus far,
which also have helped to build my claim that MD Williams and his accomplices‟ abuse and
misuse of power, authority and influence, have exposed the company, government and entire
nation to an extreme public disrepute:
A. As said earlier, this witch hunt action was taken by management on Friday January 25,
2013. Because of its incredibly abrupt and cruel nature, a whistleblower reported it
immediately the next working day, Monday, January 28, 2013 in the Microscope
Newspaper under the back page title “Witch Hunt At LPRC-One Dismissed, Others To
Follow”. Although the report was laden with many typographical mistakes, the
whistleblower, through the paper, reported or suggested among other things, the
following:
a. One Roland Kartee was allegedly dismissed out of witch hunt for comments he
made against a certain management demotion scheme.
b. LPRC had allegedly paid up to five media houses not to speak to the malpractices
going on at the entity.
c. The current demotion in question was targeted at those who had not acquired
overseas education.
d. That the dubious demotion scheme had already started the Friday earlier, with
scores of managers and directors being demoted by management.
e. That MD Williams was also trying to make some room for fraternal brothers (or
accommodations) from institutions like Alpha O. Alpha, the Masonic, and (other)
traditional societies etc. Note, it‟s actually Alpha Phi Alpha. (Microscope Newspaper,
Monday, January 28, 2013 Pg. 7 and back page).
Now, a conscious and professional MD would have known very well that I, Roland Kartee, am
knowledgeable enough to substantiate totally, or at least partially, each one of the five grave
allegations presented above, but being very irresponsible, remorseless and unscrupulous,
owing to criminally impaired judgement and calculations, MD Williams, through management
went two day later to the People Newspaper and refuted almost everything that had been
reported in the earlier Microscope Publication. In the words of the LPRC Management, the
Microscope report was false, misleading, reckless, condescending and with no iota of truth -
leaving no room for discussing anything further in this article. (LPRC Dispels Media Report:
The People Newspaper, Wednesday, January 30, 2013).

Fortunately, with the knowledge I have about the situation and the bone I have to pick with
management already, this was a glorious opportunity for me to burst onto the airwaves the
next day and grab them by the short hairs, but again, I remained cautious of many things,
including the fact that I had gone nowhere yet into the complaint process that my mind was
already made up to follow to its logical conclusion; my professional ethics as an information
custodian doesn‟t encourage going public too fast, and as a person from an administrative
background, I knew corporate entities were not meant to be run in the press. Moreover, with
the intent of using this case to positively impact society, I needed to involve more stakeholders
including the press. It was necessary to know how the press too was tackling each one of
corruption‟s accomplices or helpmates, such as „cadeaus solicitations or requests to publish
stories‟, influence peddling, irresponsible leadership, lack of principle-mindedness; and
fortunately, two media houses had already fallen onto my radar (Microscope and the People),
but I had to pause them for a while and go according to the road map. This takes us to point
(B).
B. I started following up on the appeal/complaint process with my protest letter already on
the desk of the MD and Board Chairman. After putting up some pressure in few days, I
got a response on February 4, 2013 narrating something like a post-action (post-
dismissal) investigation report, with even additional wild allegations coming against
me. LPRC had now formally investigated me in my absence, as suggested by this
February 4, 2013 letter. To avoid a looming vicious cycle of a war of words, I decided
to start engaging the Board Chairman and Reverend in person, a trend which started
yielding some outcome. The Chairman acknowledged that my complaint had some
substance, but requested my patience so that the entire Board could look into it during
their February sitting. This seemed to have been another scam as February went by,
March came and left, and we were now well into April 2013. Each time I phoned or
„popped‟ into the Chairman‟s Office to find out when my fate would be finally decided,
I got an assurance of the next Board meeting. Exhausted by their whole bag of tricks, I
and my immediate family embarked on a peaceful direct action (a sit-in) before the
LPRC PST Compound on Monday, April 22, 2013, demanding justice; and the
argument was, if management stood by their allegations and trusted the authenticity of
the instruments served me thus far, then they should take me to court, as their first
action was not enough for a convicted criminal, while I maintained and still maintain
that I cannot litigate on a fake document. I also demanded (I and my family) that in
the absence of management meeting this condition, I needed to be given access to the
office for work; and I needed to be receiving my pay checks in the interim as my
family was starving and experiencing excruciating circumstances at the hands of
these very cruel people. The Liberian National Police is knowledgeable of this April
22, 2013 civic action. I was begged by the LPRC Management for us to handle this
issue at the Board level once again, but they asked me to formally request an audience
with the Board directly so as to secure a spot on the agenda of the Board‟s next meeting
which was due in very few days, May the 3rd
or thereabouts. In further cooperation, I
did the communication on April 26, 2013 as you will see attached or enclosed here.

Another foot-dragging began, that prompted some pressure from me again, so I was
formally invited by the Board for the first time since the wrangle started, and this
happened June 19, 2013. After my explanation, the Board promised it would launch its
own investigation, and urged me to remain all ears in the next few days as I will be
called upon for inquiries or other requirements. They actually encouraged me that all
this would be done in a matter of days for this issue to be finally laid to rest. This again,
was another scam, as nobody from the Board or Management ever cared to call me
again and June winded to a final close. During the early morning hours of July 1, 2013,
I phoned the Board Chairman, and in strong terms I registered by suspicion of being
scammed by their too many verbal promises and I would not rest until I got a formal
assurance. That was when the Board Chairman quickly put some communication
together the same day, using both manual and computer scripts, requesting on behalf of
the Board, to get to me in a couple of weeks. His secretary called me for this letter
during the afternoon hours of July 1, 2013. I am attaching a copy the letter here.
I then formally responded two days later, in again, another somewhat strong terms requesting,
among other things, that my family be surviving on my pay checks while the Board foot
dragged with their investigations, especially since it was convincing now that my complaint
had substance. I also requested a time frame for their investigations. Apparently aggravated by
this genuine claim of mine, Rev. Dr. Browne, who had all through these months admitted to
the merits of my complaints, hurriedly and unprofessionally prepared another letter, this time,
confirming to me the Board‟s concurrence with management for that bogus January 25, 2013‟s
action, and thus closing this case from the LPRC‟s end, after close to 7 months of delay
tactics.
I am meanwhile an aggrieved senior staff of 10 years service going through all this, along with
my young family, at the hand of a Rev-Dr. chaired Board of Directors, when this same Board
took less than one week to galvanize thousands of U.S Dollars of corporate resources to
convene an emergency meeting to discuss and conclude upon a „mere‟ whistleblower claim.
This too is Liberia!!! (Concord Times Newspaper, Wednesday, April 17, 2013 page 4,
paragraphs 1 and 2).
C. With this July 15, 2013‟s closure by Rev. Dr. Browne of our case from the LPRC‟s end,
I now turned to my next stakeholders, the press, for the last part of July and the entire
month of August 2013. I knew with our general Liberian mentality, these late January
publications had now become stale news after 7 months; but for me, once they had been
inked or penned down, they remain significant tools for work. I got particularly
motivated that I was about to delve into a January 28, 2013 and a January 30, 2013
story in July and August 2013 because of the following reason. My thorough research
about Liberia has proven that this country hates or has decided to ignore the use of
HISTORY as the major tool to help us understand TODAY, fix the issues of TODAY,
and secure a much better TOMORROW. It is my wish that all Liberians acquaint
themselves with the triplet below, a beautiful combination of three related quotations
about the IMPORTANCE OF USING HISTORY IN FINDING SOLUTIONS TO

OUR CHRONIC PROBLEMS as we move ahead as a country, so I do include them in
almost all of my writings nowadays:
 James Burke and David Mclollough jointly say, “If you don‟t know where you come
from, then you wouldn‟t know where you are”; and so, “History is who we are,
and why we are the way we are.”
Those who don‟t know History are probably also not doing well in their English
and Maths “ - this is according P. J. D’Rouke; and finally,
 Bettina Drew says, “The past reminds us of timeless human truths and allows for
the perpetuation of cultural traditions that can be nourishing; the past contains
examples of mistakes to avoid; the past preserves the memory of alternative ways
of doing things; and the past is the basis for self understanding.”
With this worthwhile side tracking, let‟s get back to my engagement with the press starting
late July on these old January stories. My first two papers to visit physically were Microscope
and the People’s Newspapers, where I met authorities; introduced myself as the Roland Kartee
allegedly dismissed out of witch hunt, according to their January 28, 2013 and January 30,
2013 whistleblower and subsequent rebuttal stories respectively. I was granted some interview
by both papers and I also left with them some physical documents as prima facie evidence
against some of the issues I had raised during the interviews. During the interviews, I touched
on each of the five major whistleblower allegations as presented earlier according to the
Microscope’s January 28, 2013 story as follows, among other things:
a) One Roland Kartee was allegedly dismissed out of which hunt for comments he
made against a certain management demotion scheme: To this whistleblower claim,
although the LPRC management had already declared it reckless, with no iota of truth, I
presented my bogus dismissal letter; explained the circumstances ensuing, and
disclosed that from the LPRC‟s angle, they really meant a legitimate dismissal as I have
always been stopped from entering the company‟s premises, but I still considered it a
scam that I would never dignify until certain conditions are met. I also made a
correction to my title in their papers.
b) LPRC had allegedly paid up to five media houses not to speak to the malpractices
going on at the entity: Again, while LPRC said this was false, misleading, and
reckless, I told both papers, I was still investigating this claim.
c) The current demotion scheme was targeted at those who did not acquire overseas
education: To this point, I responded, true to management‟s argument during our
fateful January 18, 2013‟s meeting that they wanted the number of managers reduced to
match Lewis Brown‟s time number, (Note, Lewis Brown served as MD of LPRC from
1997-1999), the current number of managers at LPRC was now around 7, 4 of which
are „imported bureaucrats‟ and the balance 3 either MD William‟s cronies or closed
ethnic affiliates, though I was not doubting their qualifications. And let me put myself
on record for this, I am not against bringing Liberians down for work from overseas,

but I am against doing so at the detriment or disadvantage of fellow Liberians that
remained and suffered here to acquire their education, not forgetting those that are even
currently in the process of struggling here in this tough terrain to achieve their
education. And secondly, for our economic and social status, we only need high caliber
technical and /or technological experts “imported” for work, and not just every Tom,
Dike and Harry, Period!!! What is the economic benefit and essence of “importing”
Business Management, Sociology, Political Science etc. degree holders when our
universities started training people in some of these and other areas 100 years back, and
our universities to date, continue to put out thousands of students in these areas every
year? But if we, as a nation, feel that these statements are too strong, and that Liberia
should remain dead set in her culture of perpetuating political accommodations,
cronyism, and sectionalism etc. then we can give it a try for the next century again, to
see if growth, development and prosperity will ever be attained in this country.
d) That the “dubious” demotion scheme had already started the Friday earlier,
meaning the same January 18, 2013, with scores of managers and directors being
demoted by management: To this claim, I disclosed, it was true, although I could not
get hold of the communication to this effect. I therefore encouraged them to send their
own journalists to LPRC to investigate the claim. I further explained that to prove this
point, all those managers that bore the current version of ID and complementary cards
as mine, were now demoted. Some of my affected colleagues I mentioned included
Mark W. Bropleh (who had now ceased from being called Technical Manager to
Assistant Technical Manager), Jayjay B. Ducan (Training Manager, was now both
demoted and laterally transferred as Assistant Human Resource Manager), Victor G.
Badio (Human Resource Manager, was now demoted and laterally transferred as
Assistant Credit Manager, an Accounts Receivable handling position, then later
transferred to a marketing function) etc. You could even read more about these
unprofessional and demoralizing demotion and lateral transfer activities in the People
Newspaper, Wednesday, January 30, 2013 edition, page 6 second column from left to
right, paragraph 2 under “LPRC Dispels;” the New Democrat, Tuesday, March 19,
2013 page 4, second column from left to right and 4th paragraph under” LPRC
Whistleblower Writes President Sirleaf”; and the Concord Times Newspaper,
Wednesday, April 17, 2013 page 5, paragraphs 6,7 and 8 of the first column left.
e) That MD Williams was also trying to make some room for fraternal brothers (or
accommodations) from institutions like Alpha O. Alpha, the Masonic, and (other)
traditional societies etc. Note, it’s actually Alpha Phi Alpha: To this claim I
responded, it was very highly probable because of the following related observations:
MD Williams often times dishes out our hard earned corporate monies to his personal
fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, for reasons God knows why. Two instances to the best of my
knowledge include:

#. Date
Payment Voucher
Number
1 Oct. 28, 2010 PV – ? 1,000 110001-LBDI USD Checking A/C
2 Jan. 9, 2012 PV-16547 1,000 “
TOTAL
2,000
Moreover, I got a very credible tip off that MD Williams was targeting my current position
(Business Applications Manager) for one of his fraternal brothers, but as soon this alarm
blew in the newspapers and he went and denied the dismissal, coupled with the fact that I too
have been proving stubborn to do their so-called one-line apology letter, as if he and his
lieutenants were strong enough to ramp something down my „conscious‟ throat, the Business
Applications Office, my office, continues to remain vacant after over a year. This was a
position highly recommended by the GEMAP Program, through an Egyptian Information
Technology Consultant, and I, the first and only occupant thus far, received a bulk of my
training under the direct supervision or recommendation of the GEMAP Program. It is a very
mission-critical function with respect to emerging technological and information management
systems and environments. The current Management Information Systems (MIS) Manager at
LPRC, Mr. John M. Dukuly, and the last serving GEMAP Comptroller, Mr. Kamau
Lizwelicha, now in Florida, the USA, can attest to this claim. To date, over a year after my
illegal ex-communication from the LPRC premises, my personal bag remains in the office, and
the position remains unoccupied as if it were my personal position - if they really meant that
their actions were legitimate. Whether a productive and responsible leadership can behave as
such is another million dollar question. Or, just as the Government of Liberia now stabs the
Anti-corruption and General Auditing Commissions in their backs after qualifying for debt
waivers and starting to contract new loans, the recommendations and legacies of the GEMAP
program are now worthless because Liberia is now well-off. Note: GEMAP is the Governance
and Economic Management Assistance Program, a scheme setup by the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID) to help Liberia build a proficient public sector.
After all these explanations and the presentation of extra documents to prove these and other
improprieties of the LPRC Management at the offices of both the Microscope and the People’s
Newspapers on Friday, July 19, 2013, “without doing the normal Liberian thing, the „cadeau
payment to get stories published”, I was promised by both papers that they would balance their
story by soliciting, or investigating the LPRC side of things, and that they would call me for
any inquiries if necessary.
Between Monday, July 22, 2013 and Tuesday, the next day, Microscope went to LPRC “to
conduct her probe”. I too was blessed with my part of insider tip off that Microscope was
given some “cadeau” by the LPRC Management to, in their words, „discourage the news
maker.‟ Wednesday, July 24, 2013, I saw a funny, carelessly prepared public service
announcement in the Microscope Newspaper that read, “The Management of the Liberia

Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC) wishes to inform the general public that Mr. Roland
Kartee is no longer in the employ of the company. Anyone doing business with him in the
name of the company will be doing so at his/her own risk. Thanks for your understanding”,
(The Microscope, Wednesday, July 24, 2013, pg. 3); there‟s no stated reason(s) whatsoever
and no clue at least as to when the severance happened. This is the same Roland Kartee whose
„illegal‟ dismissal revelation in the Microscope Newspaper of January 28, 2013 caused the
LPRC Management to unleash all of the grandiloquent terms they‟ve learnt from Atlanta and
Chicago, describing the newspaper‟s report as false, misleading, reckless, condescending,
and with no iota of truth. LPRC had enough loose cash that Wednesday to discourage
Roland Kartee‟s efforts and wreck his family‟s life, so they were all around the place featuring
this same announcement with the same wordings in several local dailies. Another newspaper I
was able to lay hands on was the Nation Times Newspaper, Wednesday, July 24, 2013, page 4.
It looked as though the People‟s Newspaper was not satisfied with her part of the „cadeau‟ so
they delayed their part of the Roland Kartee announcement publication until LPRC apparently
showed down adequately. Monday, July 29, 2013, they published theirs, same wordings.
Those were the local dailies I could lay hands on.
I became more conscious of count (b) of the whistleblower‟s allegations above, that LPRC
had paid up to five media houses not to speak to the malpractices going on at the entity. It
was time to test the veracity of this allegation at other media houses despite the fact that my
family was, and continues to „catch hell‟. I took my story and some of my documents to the
National Chronicle, the New Democrat, and the In Profile Daily, three of Liberia‟s giant anti-
corruption reporters. I still maintained a more civic-oriented posture in all of my narratives,
calling on the appointer of these guys, the President, to intervene by relieving them of their
respective positions for us to go to court and get exonerated one by one, because while they
were suffering me around for a single allegation, refusing to prosecute me, I had, and continue
to have, over 10 solid allegations, all strongly bordering on our nation‟s future and interest,
that I can substantiate all in court, God willing. Taking the air waves has not been my target. It
is only the In Profile Daily that brought up something about my story in their Tuesday, August
27, 2013 edition, under the title, “Dismissed LPRC Employee Opens Up,” and although I had
a couple of problems with their report here and there, especially as they focused more on the
issues of a single transaction as opposed to the more civic minded approach I had targeted, I
remain on the overall very appreciative to them, the In Profile Daily. But to date, the National
Chronicle and the New Democrat are still investigating to balance their story. I will try to
engage the PUL (Press Union of Liberia)‟s authorities for all of the above more actively than
this, God willing.
I took my search for redress next to the highest rung of the ladder by writing the President‟s
office twice; first, humbly seeking an audience, to enable me narrate some of these things
personally. I got no response, and after a couple of weeks, I wrote a second and more forceful
letter, this time delving into some of the substantives at LPRC and reiterating my civic stance.
The first letter was dated September 2, 2013 and the second letter was dated September 23,
2013 and each letter was delivered to the Executive Mansion/Foreign Ministry within one to
two days of its preparation. I received no feedback for any of these communications, although

Lprc case to lacc authored by roland kartee

Lprc case to lacc authored by roland kartee

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