PAYNESVILLE CITY, LIBERIA-The Asset Recovery and Property Retrieval Task Force (AREPT) has indicted seven individuals on charges of theft, economic sabotage, and criminal conspiracy.

Those indicted include former Commerce Minister, Mawine Diggs, Commerce Ministry Comptroller, Jedu Neufville, former Senior Policy Advisor at the Ministry, and Kevin Monga, President of the National Women’s Structure of Liberia.

Others are Elizabeth Sambula, President of the Liberia Marketing Association (LMA), Josephine Greaves, former Secretary General of the National Rural Women’s Structure, and Kermu Borbor, a Cashier at the Commerce Ministry.

They were indicted in connection with the alleged diversion of over one million U.S dollars appropriated to support rural women entrepreneurs.

AREPT’s Chairman, Cllr. Edwin Kla-Martin said,” The Liberian Government had appropriated two million US dollars during the 2023 Fiscal Year for vulnerable small business support programs, of which one-point-eight-two million US dollars was allotted to the Commerce Ministry.

Addressing a news conference on Thursday, April 9, 2023, in Paynesville City, Cllr. Kla-Martin said approximately eighty to eighty-five percent of the funds were misapplied.