Liberia's president fires finance officials

MONROVIA, Liberia -- Newly installed President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, living up to her reputation as an ''Iron Lady," has dismissed all of Liberia's Finance Ministry employees in a bid to curb the rampant corruption crippling her country.

Facing a herculean task of rebuilding a nation shattered by 14 years of civil war, Africa's first elected female leader said her victory in November's presidential runoff gave her a mandate to clean up Liberia's finances.

''All employees are sacked from their positions until a screening exercise that is expected to commence at the ministry is completed, and those qualified will remain," Johnson-Sirleaf said during a surprise visit to the ministry on Wednesday.

''Those who are part of financial malpractices and scandals must give way for those who are prepared to do the will of the Liberian people," she told employees.

Endemic corruption was a key cause of Liberia's civil war, which killed 250,000 people and devastated Africa's oldest republic, founded by freed American slaves in 1847.

Johnson-Sirleaf, a 67-year-old Harvard-trained economist, pledged at her inauguration last month before assembled African and other world leaders to make the war on corruption a top priority. Newspapers across the continent hailed the move.

She named former World Bank official Antoinette Sayeh as Finance Minster, authorizing her to root out graft and build bridges with international donors, who have made further aid dependent on weeding out corruption.

With a debt of $3 billion, the West African nation is reliant on aid from the United Nations, the World Bank, and Western nations.

Liberia was ransacked during the rule of Charles Taylor, who used government revenues to pay for rampaging militias. Officials went unpaid for months on end, fueling corruption.