History of LICPA
The Liberian Institute of Certified Public Accountants (LICPA) is the successor of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Liberia (ICPAL) which was established by an act of the National Legislature in 1933. Some of the early pioneers of the Liberian Institute were: K. Jefferies Adorkor, Jr.; C. Robert Campbell; William N. Ross; J. E. Sawyer; J. W. Barbor and others.
Despite being the oldest professional accountancy body in the region, the ICPAL remained dormant from the date it was established until the 1980s when Head of State Samuel Kanyon Doe, as head of the People’s Redemption Council issued an Executive Order renaming the Institute as the Liberian Institute of Certified Public Accountants (LICPA). The Executive Order was the culmination of efforts to re-start the Institute spearheaded by some renowned individuals including the late Wreh Dargbe, a retired Univerisity of Liberia (UL) Professor of accounting; Mr. Francis B. S. Johnson, a Professor of Accounting at UL and Immediate Past President of the LICPA between October 2012 to February 2015, and is also a Professor of accounting at UL; Mr. John Bestman, a prominent Liberian businessman who served as Minister of Finance (mid 1990s) and also later as Governor of the then National Bank of Liberia, the predecessor institution of what is now the Central Bank of Liberia; Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who also subsequently served as President of the Liberia Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI) and later as Minister of Finance and is now preeminently, the current President of Liberia and the first female Head of State in Africa.
They were later joined by the late Sam Dargbe Monbo, Sr., Proprietor and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the accounting firm MGI Monbo & Company; Mr. John Barbar (a Lebanese national) of Barbar Motors, in Clara Town, Monrovia; Mr. Emmanuel Shaw, a prominent citizen who also later served as Minister of Finance; Mr. Henry Barrett, an American, then serving as a consultant to the Ministry of Finance, who served as the First Executive Secretary of the Institute; Mr. Tugbe Doe, proprietor of the popular Musu’s Spot in Monrovia who also served as Deputy Minister of Finance (in the Interim Government under Mr. Gyde Bryant) as well as the late Henry Sambola, then employed as a technician at the Ministry of Finance, who was the first President of the resuscitated LICPA; and several others. After the cessation of the civil war in Liberia and the election of Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as President of Liberia, the LICPA experienced a dramatic change. The Council Meeting of ABWA as held for the first time in Liberia in 2007 and this lead to the birth of administering professional accounting qualification examination in Liberia. The LICPA’s Act was revised in 2011 and this has enable the institute to be actively involved in the reconstruction effort of Liberia.
