Monrovia – The Liberian Agricultural Products Regulatory Authority (LACRA) is caught up in a crisis, from finance to government to compromise.
Concerns about internal disruptions have emerged at the Liberian Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority (LACRA), with several important issues affecting its operations.
Tensions between senior management and cocoa exporters, financial dismantling, unresolved staff disputes and corruption all indicate the depth of the crisis within the organization.
Additionally, export companies have denounced Lakura’s harassment task force despite having appropriate registration and permits, which raises concerns about the fairness of regulatory practices.
Sources also say there are serious allegations of financial malfunctions, including the unexplained loss of export royalties of $354,510. This adds to the existing financial difficulties inherited from the previous administration.
Despite efforts to implement reform, Rakla remains troubled by internal discrepancies. Allegations of leadership conflict and corruption have destabilized the agency, and the board has yet to take important steps to address these issues.
Lacra employees are dissatisfied with low wages, lack of profits, unresolved complaints, and particularly lack of response from board chair Josephine Francis. Infrastructure renovations are seen as a deeper, superficial attempt to hide unresolved issues.
Workers are urging President Joseph Boachey to intervene and address corruption and other systemic issues. They seek to restore transparency, fair regulatory practices and enforce employee rights.
The 2024 audit was conducted by the General Audit Committee (GAC), but the findings remain unpublished. This lack of transparency further exacerbates mistrust between employees and the public.
However, LACRA Director Christopher Sancolo will discard the reporting of financial misconduct and fraudulent activities of the agricultural agency.
The online report presents the 2024 General Audit Committee (GAC) audit report that suggests that financial mismanagement, particularly export royalties, $354,510, were not recorded between September 2024 and September 2024 and February 2025.
But speaking to a new dawn in his office on Wednesday, Coach Sancolo said reporting on financial MAL practices was a job of cheap propagandists from within the business that said they were loyal and opposed to the ordinance.
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“These are mere propagandists, they’re far from the truth. They’re just people, people who want to do the right thing,” he says.
“To set the record straight, when we took over, we decided to observe the leaks and conduct a review of our internal export records as exporters and some staff had compromised with the exporters.
While some staff have denied the exporter, we have received some reports of irregularities, but there have also been information that six containers of cocoa beans have been smuggled – over 300 tons, each tonne costs $50. Just calculate the amount lost as a loyalty,” explains Sancolo.
“So we couldn’t sit down and see. There were so many compromises that we decided to review our internal export records and our surgical agent. He can’t tell me when we announced our actions.
Regarding the leaked audit report revealing that export royalties $354,510 had left the facility undetermined between September 2024 and February 2025, Lakura’s boss has expressed his openness to the audit, but revealed that there was no audit before taking over in April 2023.
According to Sancolo, he met a bank balance of USD 470, and his administration was able to raise this amount to USD 700,000 as a new bank balance.
