Stand Firm Against Political Pressure

By Lincoln G. Peters

Congo Town, Monrovia, May 21, 2026 – In a clarion call at the ongoing African Organization of English-Speaking Supreme Audit Institutions (AFROSAI-E) conference, former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has urged auditors and delegates to steadfastly guard their independence against all forms of political interference and temptation.

The General Auditing Commission (GAC), led by Auditor General P. Garswa Jackson, Sr., is currently playing host to the distinguished Annual Governing Board Meeting of AFROSAI-E, running from May 18 to 22 in Monrovia.

AFROSAI-E, a regional bloc comprising 26 African nations, was established to bolster the institutional capacity of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) across Anglophone Africa. The body champions auditing standards, independence, and accountability in a bid to strengthen public finance management and uplift citizens’ welfare.

This annual conference fulfills statutory obligations, reviews progress on the 2025–2029 Strategic Plan and promotes accountability. The forum also fosters peer support and capacity building among member SAIs.

Delivering the keynote at the Ministerial Complex on Wednesday, Sirleaf reminded delegates, especially Auditor General Jackson, that their work demands not only professional competence but also personal courage.

She emphasized that audit bodies need robust legal protections and urged both the auditors and African governments, including Liberia, to regularly review enabling legislation and resist every temptation that threatens independence.

” Resist ever temptation to lose your independence in the name of administrative convenience of political sensitivity. However, recognizing that no single institution can care about full rate of accountability in a democratic society, we move to create an ecosystem of institutions that embody the coherence and cooperation of its same parts.

Reflecting on her administration’s governance reform for accountability and transparency, she pointed out that when she assumed the presidency of Liberia in January 2006, she inherited a nation emerging from 14 years of brutal and civil conflict, where public institutions had been hollowed out.

She noted that the subsequent passage of the 2020 Act established the GAC as an operationally independent body, granted tenure protections, defined reporting obligations, and empowered it to audit public accounts across all ministries, agencies, and state-owned enterprises.

“Public trust was at its lowest ebb. The national treasury had been depleted, and a culture of impunity—where public resources were treated as private property by the powerful—had taken root. Then, as now, the challenge was not merely about finance or infrastructure, but fundamentally one of governance,” she stated.