Liberian government official moonlights as Minnesota group home director

Ellie Roth, Jennifer Lu, Christopher Peak, Alyson Clary:

In 2024, at a ceremony in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, an emcee praised the business acumen of Sekou Dukuly, the newly installed director of the West African nation’s government-owned port system.

Dukuly had been “delivering multimillion-dollar profit increases everywhere he worked,” the emcee said.

Dukuly didn’t make his money in international shipping, however. He cashed in on Minnesota’s booming group home industry. 

Minnesota companies linked to Dukuly collected at least $36 million in taxpayer funds over the past 10 years, according to Minnesota Open Checkbook, a state website that provides transparency in government spending. Dukuly has had a hand in businesses that have run at least two dozen group homes, almost all in the northwestern suburbs of the Twin Cities. The state issued licenses and paid Medicaid dollars for those businesses to provide care and supervision to Minnesotans, typically those with mental illnesses or physical disabilities.

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