The National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE), established in 1989 to regulate higher education institutions in ensuring quality assurance and quality control through accreditation, has now turned into a nest of abuse, waste, fraud, and mismanagement under its Executive Director, Dr. Edward Lama Wonkeryor.
A thorough investigation by Verity News has uncovered a dossier of financial documents, including payment vouchers, requisitions, purchase orders, checks, and receipts of how Dr. Edward Wonkeryor has allegedly turned NCHE into a haven of financial mismanagement, waste, and abuse.
Against the advice of internal auditors and in gross violation of the Public Financial Management Law of Liberia, Dr. Wonkeryor spent US$4,200 to procure furniture for his private home, US$23,000 as DSA, fuel, launch, and transportation on a data collection trip in Liberia, double payment of US$2,165 for vehicle repair, and thousands of USD in per diem. On top of this, he has issued NCHE accreditations to dozens of mushroom colleges and predatory universities.
Auctioning of Accreditation
According to verifiable documents in our possession, Dr. Wonkeryor is not just diverting public resources to waste, but he’s auctioning accreditations without any due diligence and a standardized quality assurance assessment framework to so-called “Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)” that are not even fit to be ‘high schools’ according to an inside source at the NCHE.
According to data on accredited Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in Liberia, there are eighty (79) HEIs as of 2024 with two (2) Higher Education Institutions offering Doctoral Degrees (2.5%), eleven (11) offering Master’s Degrees (14%), thirty-five (35) offering Bachelor’s Degrees (44.3%), and thirty-one (31) offering Associate Degrees (39.2%).
A breakdown of the data shows that there were 38 accredited institutions of higher education when former President George Weah took over in 2018.
Before the end of his regime, 23 more HEIs were accredited taking the total number of accredited colleges and universities to 61. Between January 2024 and August 24, the record shows that 19 more HEIs have been accredited under Dr. Edward Lama Wonkeryor without any regard for standards, best practices, and quality assurance according to our source.
Some educators who spoke with Verity News accused Dr. Wonkeryor of turning the National Commission on Higher Education into a commercial hub of profiteering and self-enrichment.
The prominent educators, who prefer anonymity, further claimed that ‘thousands of half-baked and ill-prepared college graduates are coming out of mushroom and predatory Higher Education Institutions because Dr. Wonkeryor is allegedly selling accreditations to overnight schools, including SCAMS, in return for personal gains and benefits’ according to them.
Furniture for Home
According to financial documents in our possession, including payment vouchers, Dr. Wonkeryor spent US$4,200 of NCHE’s funds on October 11, 2021, to procure furniture for his private home.
The furniture procured according to the document included a living room set, a dining room set, a chair set, a corner cabinet, and a freezer among others.
The payment voucher was signed by the Financial Comptroller and approved by Dr. Wonkeryor himself.
The diversion of public funds to procuring furniture for private homes is a blatant violation of the PFM Law and this speaks to the extent to which the resources of the NCHE are being allegedly misused and wasted amid competition priorities and high demand for quality higher education in the country.
Double Payments for Vehicle Servicing
According to a query form in our possession dated August 17, 2022, the internal auditor at the National Commission on Higher Education, Ms. Kula Sambola, cautioned Dr. Wonkeryor not to spend US$2.165 on the serving of his vehicle because monies had already been spent two separate times in February 2022 (US$1,407) and in June (US$530) to service this same vehicle.
Against the advice of the internal auditor, Dr. Wonkeryor approved a check of US$2,165 to serve his vehicle for the third time in succession according to verifiable documents in our possession.
The alleged precedent of Dr. Wonkeryor to ignore the auditor’s advice exposes the extent of noncompliance with internal financial control mechanisms at the institution.
Data Collection without Report
According to “data collection” documents in our possession, Dr. Wonkeryor again initiated a “data collection process” that allegedly yielded no fruits.
According to an inside source, that process was allegedly intended to eat the entity’s money under the guise of data collection.
A payment voucher with nine (9) persons’ names, including Dr. Wonkeryor, in our possession dated February 9, 2023, clearly shows how US$23,000 was divided into two (60% in USD 13,800 and 40% in LRD 1.4 Million) to cover Daily Sustenance Allowance (DSA), launch, fuel, and transportation for data collection in all registered institutions of higher learning, most of which are stationed in Monrovia.
Photo evidence in our possession also shows that nine (9) persons did not go to collect data.
According to our source, there’s no report on any data collection to date even though US$23,000 was disbursed and spent.
Additionally, Dr. Wonkeryor collected thousands of USD in foreign travel per diem which is far more than the lawful threshold of US$280 on a single trip according to the GOL Travel Ordinance Law.
With the dossier of documents in our possession and other sourced information, this latest discovery calls for greater accountability at the NCHE through a comprehensive audit and LACC investigation.
According to some staffers at the NCHE, Dr. Wonkeryor is posing a serious risk to quality higher education in Liberia allegedly due to his commercial agenda to grant accreditations to schools that are not even qualified to exist as schools.
