Monrovia – Nimba County Senator Prince Johnson at a news conference on May 21, 2023 claimed that the Liberian Senate authorized the Central Bank of Liberia to print 64 billion Liberian Dollars, adding that the government has printed and using it to campaign.
Claimed Senator Johnson: “The 64 billion, y’all lied that y’all wanted to change the old notes to new notes. If we have refused, they would say the Senate refused the change of old notes to new notes. So, we granted the permission; they printed it and kept it. That’s what they’re taking around in pickups and paying people to cause trouble”.
Local Voices Liberia Fact Checking Desk reviewed the senator’s allegation and checked evidence but found the claim that the CBL was authorized to print LD$64 billion to be incorrect.
To arrive at this verdict, we reviewed the “Joint Resolution #001/2021 Adopted By the Senate and House of Representatives of the National Legislature of the Republic of Liberia: Authorizing the Central Bank of Liberia to Print New Family of Liberian Dollars Currency” signed on May 6, 2021 and found that the figure mentioned by Senator Johnson is far more than what was authorized by the Joint Resolution.
The document obtained by the iVerify team from the National Legislature states that “the National Legislature comprising the Senate and House of Representatives hereby authorizes the CBL to print and mint new family of currency in an amount up to Forty-Eight Billion, Seven Hundred and Thirty-Four Million Liberian Dollars as requested”.
This means, the Legislature authorized the CBL to print 48.7 billion Liberian Dollars and not 64 billion as claimed by the Senator.
Our fact checker also found that Senator Johnson was one of the 22 senators that signed the resolution granting the approval to the CBL to print the 48.734 billion Liberian dollar.
We also reviewed the March 29, 2021 edition of the New Dawn newspaper with the caption ‘Senate concurs to print LRD$48 Billion’.
In the publication, the newspaper reported that “a joint committee of the Houses of Representatives and the Senate met and agreed to authorize the Central Bank of Liberia to print the new family of Liberian Bank notes to the tune of 48.733 billion.”
Conclusion
We, therefore, conclude that the claim made by Senator Prince Y. Johnson that the Legislature authorized the CBL to print 64 billion is incorrect.