By Amos Harris
IPNEWS: Conflicting accounts from the Liberia National Police (LNP), the Ministry of Justice and Dutch Health BV are fueling growing demands for the Government of Liberia to release the full procurement records surrounding vehicles assigned to the country’s security institutions and senior government officials.
The controversy has gained greater significance following President Joseph N. Boakai’s recent warning that public procurement laws and procedures must be strictly followed.
The unresolved questions now raise concerns over whether the government’s own standards of transparency and accountability are being consistently applied within some of the country’s most powerful institutions.
Speaking during his 24th Cabinet meeting on August 27, President Boakai emphasized that procurement safeguards are essential to protecting public resources and ensuring accountability.
The meeting was held under the theme, “Value for Money; Maximizing Fiscal Space through System Efficiency and Government Asset Security.”
While acknowledging that government procurement procedures can sometimes be cumbersome, President Boakai warned officials against bypassing established safeguards.
He said procurement systems are designed to promote accountability, fair competition and equal access to government business while preventing the perception that contracts are awarded based on friendship, influence or political connections.
However, the President’s warning comes as questions surrounding vehicles assigned to senior security and justice officials continue to move beyond social media speculation into a broader institutional and political controversy.
The Liberia National Police has publicly stated that it procured used operational vehicles from Guardian Fleet, a private company based in the United States.
In an August 21 statement, the LNP said the vehicles were acquired to strengthen police mobility, patrol operations and emergency response.
The police also said their institutional records did not support allegations circulating on social media attempting to link the procurement of the vehicles to individuals implicated in Liberia’s ongoing narcotics investigation.
But while rejecting those allegations, the LNP did not publicly release the complete procurement documentation needed for independent verification. The missing records include contracts, purchase prices, procurement approvals, payment vouchers, shipping documents, customs declarations and General Services Agency asset registration records.
That absence of publicly available documentation has now become one of the central issues in the controversy.
Without access to the underlying records, the Liberian public is being asked to rely largely on competing institutional explanations rather than independently verifiable evidence.
Days later, the Ministry of Justice provided a separate explanation concerning the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado currently used by Justice Minister and Attorney General N. Oswald Tweh.
According to the Ministry, it formally wrote Liberia National Police Inspector General Gregory Coleman on November 10, 2025, requesting a suitable vehicle for the Attorney General because the Ministry allegedly did not have a budgetary allotment at the time to purchase a new vehicle.
The Ministry said the LNP subsequently assigned Tweh a white Toyota Land Cruiser Prado carrying the identification number GSA-LNP-03-14.
However, the Justice Ministry identified the source of that vehicle as part of a government-procured fleet allegedly supplied by Dutch Health BV—not Guardian Fleet.
According to the Ministry, the broader procurement involved pickups, jeeps, motorcycles and ambulances, including 10 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado vehicles, under an arrangement reportedly valued at approximately US$1.5 million.
The Ministry has maintained that the vehicle assigned to Minister Tweh is government property purchased with public funds and was neither a personal gift from Inspector General Coleman nor from any individual allegedly connected to narcotics trafficking.
That distinction is significant. No publicly verified evidence presented in connection with the controversy establishes that the Prado assigned to Minister Tweh was purchased with proceeds from narcotics trafficking.
The central issue, therefore, is not whether unverified allegations circulating on social media should automatically be accepted as fact.
The more serious question is whether the government’s procurement and asset records can reconcile the different explanations now emerging from public institutions and the supplier itself.
A Public Procurement and Concessions Commission document indicates that Dutch Health BV had a substantial procurement arrangement involving the Liberia National Police.
The LNP Security Transport Equipment Procurement Plan describes a special loan arrangement under which the company was expected to provide specialized and security vehicles.
The procurement document reportedly places the total proposed arrangement at approximately US$6.1348 million, significantly higher than the approximately US$1.5 million figure cited by the Ministry of Justice in describing the fleet from which Minister Tweh’s vehicle allegedly originated.
The PPCC document also identifies separate procurement lots, including approximately US$460,600 for eight specialized V-8 SUVs and more than US$1.55 million for 27 four-wheel-drive SUVs.
While the existence of the procurement plan supports the conclusion that Dutch Health BV had a formal business arrangement with the LNP, the document alone does not establish which specific vehicles were eventually delivered, how much the government actually paid, which procurement lots were completed, or whether the Prado assigned to Minister Tweh was among the vehicles delivered.
The controversy deepened further when Pieter Wiemers, Managing Director of Dutch Health BV, reportedly provided investigators with a substantially different account of the vehicles his company actually supplied to Liberia.
According to the account attributed to Wiemers, Dutch Health BV delivered only eight vehicles to the Liberia National Police and received total payments of approximately US$439,100.
He reportedly stated that additional vehicles contemplated under the broader procurement arrangement were not delivered because the company did not receive payment or an acceptable financial guarantee for the outstanding amount.
If that account is accurate, it raises serious questions about the government’s explanation of the vehicles.
Where did the remaining vehicles described by the Ministry of Justice come from? Was the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado assigned to the Attorney General among the eight vehicles allegedly delivered by Dutch Health BV?
And if not, under what procurement arrangement was that particular vehicle acquired, financed and delivered to the Government of Liberia?
These are questions that cannot be conclusively answered through press releases, denials and competing public statements alone.
The government has the institutional capacity to establish the facts. The Public Procurement and Concessions Commission can clarify procurement approvals and contracting procedures. The Ministry of Finance and Development Planning can establish payment authorizations and vouchers.
The General Services Agency can identify vehicles registered as government property and disclose their official assignment history.
The Liberia Revenue Authority can verify import declarations and duty waivers, while the Liberia National Police can produce procurement files, vehicle inventories and assignment records.
Shipping documents, vehicle titles and Vehicle Identification Numbers could further establish the precise origin, ownership and delivery history of each vehicle.
The suppliers themselves also hold records that could prove crucial, including invoices, delivery notes and payment confirmations.
Taken together, these documents could determine whether the accounts provided by the LNP, the Ministry of Justice and Dutch Health BV are genuinely contradictory or whether they involve separate procurement arrangements that have simply not been clearly explained to the Liberian public.
The matter has now grown beyond the controversy surrounding a single Toyota Land Cruiser Prado.
Liberia is currently conducting a major investigation into cocaine seizures and alleged transnational narcotics trafficking.
Public confidence in the institutions leading such investigations depends not only on their ability to pursue suspects, but also on their willingness to demonstrate transparency in their own financial and administrative affairs.
President Boakai has publicly declared that procurement safeguards are necessary to protect national resources, promote accountability and prevent the misuse of government contracts.
Applying that same standard to the controversy surrounding security vehicles will require more than competing statements and official denials.
The government must now move beyond assurances and publish the relevant procurement approvals, contracts, payment vouchers, shipping documents, vehicle inventories and GSA registration records.
Until those documents are made publicly available, questions over how the vehicles were acquired, financed and distributed will continue to cast a shadow over institutions already facing intense public scrutiny.
For a government that has placed accountability and transparency at the center of its public message, the security vehicle controversy presents a critical test, whether the rules President Boakai has publicly demanded from others will be applied with equal force to institutions operating closest to the center of government power.
