In summary: The Chair of the Office of the Ombudsman Cllr. Finley Karngar recently claimed during a radio interview that the Head of the Weast Africa Examination Council (WAEC) Liberia Office is a presidential appointee. We have fact-checked this statement and found no evidence or law to back his claim.
On September 9, Cllr. Finley Karngar, Chairman of the office of Ombudsman, appeared in an OK FM radio interview also live-streamed on Facebook, and argued that the Head of the Liberia Office of the West African Examination Council is a presidential appointee.
Cllr. Karngar made the assertion while discussing his office’s actions against WAEC Liberia for not providing information about a leaked Mathematics test allegation.
According to the Executive Mansion, the Ombudsman is an independent official appointed to investigate and address complaints against officials of government agencies or other institutions regarding violations of the Code of Conduct.
In August this year, several media institutions reported about an alleged leaked WAEC Mathematics test. This prompted an investigation by the office of the Ombudsman which led to a subsequent court order to the head of the WEAC office, as reported by the media here and here.
The Claim
Cllr. Kanrga’s exact words: “The head of WAEC [Liberia] is a presidential appointee and he works at the will and pleasure of the president, we can find that in the 2003 WAEC Act”.
Cllr. Karngar made the claim while he was being interviewed by Clarence Jackson on the OK Morning Rush
Rating Justification
To fact-check this claim, we contacted Cllr. Karnga through text message, cellphone call, and email to share with us the “2023 WAEC Act” which states that the Head of WAEC Liberia is a presidential appointee. However, he did not respond to our inquiry up to the production of this report. We will update this report once we hear from Cllr. Karnga.
We then searched and found the 2023 revised convention establishing the West African Examination Council. The 2003 revised convention reaffirmed member states’ belief in the 1982 convention signed in Monrovia which established the Council.
Article 7 states that “each national committee shall be chaired by the chief government nominee of the respective country to the Council. However, the chair of the national committee in member countries is not the same as the head of the WAEC office in member states. This National Committee is the national board representing the regional Council in each member country.
Our research also found the list of member states representation of the regional council. Liberia has two representatives appointed by the government, one elected by the national committee, and one representing universities in Liberia. The two government representatives were all from the Ministry of Education.
For administrative purposes, the head of the national office for WAEC was appointed following a vetting process by the Registrar (Head) of the Council.
We also found news articles confirming that the WAEC Regional office appointed Dr. Rosemond Wilson as head of the Ghana national office and Amos Dangut were also appointed as head of the Nigeria national office.
Conclusion
Based on these facts, we conclude that there is no evidence to back the claim made by Cllr Karngar that the head of WAEC Liberia is a presidential nominee. We have not seen the “2023 WAEC Act” referenced by Cllr. Karngar.
The revised convention of WAEC published in 2003 states that national committees shall be chaired by the chief government nominee. However, the chair of the national committee is not the same as the head of the WAEC country office in Liberia.
Also, we found that appointments by Heads of WAEC Offices in other member states including Ghana and Nigeria were based on a vetting process initiated by the Office of the Registrar of WAEC headquarters in Accra and not appointed by the government or their respective Presidents.
This report is produced with funding from the USAID Media Activity. The funder has No say in the editorial decisions leading to the production of this content