Top: Members of the communities affected by logging concessions protest before the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning in Monrovia. Daily Observer/Tina Mehnpaine
MONROVIA – Communities affected by logging concessions across Liberia have staged a sit-in action in demand of over US$5 million in land rental the government of Liberia owed them, the second year in a role for such protest.
The protesters gathered before the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning with placards. The group consisted of the leaders of logging-affected towns and villages under the banner of the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee (NUCFDC).
By law, 30 percent of land rental fees the government collects from companies should go to communities. The fee is the product of the total size of the concession, US$2.50 for large-scale forest management contracts (FMCs), and US$1.25 for small timber sale contracts (TSCs). However, the payments have not been regular since 2017.
“Our people are affected every day by these companies and the only way to give us some relief is by paying us our percentage. So we demand our benefit, ” said Andrew Zelemen, the national facilitator of the NUCFDC.
Zelemen added that the protest would continue if the government fails to provide the money allotted in the budget was not paid by the end of the year. NUCFDC represents logging communities from Lofa, Gbarpolu, River Cess, Nimba, Grand Gedeh, Sinoe, River Gee, Grand Kru and Maryland. Grand Bassa, Grand Cape Mount and Gbarpolu counties complete the list.
Those debts amounted to US$5.5 million between 2007 and 2019, according to a report by Forest Trends, an American NGO promoting sustainable forest management.
Last year, the government paid US$200,000 after the communities protested. It allotted US$2.7 million in the current National Budget for the payment but barely three months before the end of the fiscal term, it has only paid US$500,000.
Janga Kowo, the Comptroller General of Liberia, said on OK FM Thursday that the government would pay another US$1.5 million.
A recent report published by the National Benefit Sharing Trust Board shows that delayed payments have stalled projects in communities.
“Political commitment is weak despite some positive actions taken by the government in responses to pressure from stakeholders,” the report said.
This story was produced in collaboration with the Daily Observer.
Top: Othello Teah, “the regular caller” who has become an illegal logger. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
COMPOUND NUMBER TWO, Grand Bassa County – A man who calls on nearly all talk shows in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, is involved in an illegal logging business with at least one villager and the proprietor of the port city’s most famous woodshops, an investigation by The DayLight has found.
Othello Teah, the regular caller, produces timber, commonly called “kpokolo,” a form of illegal logging that is ravaging Liberia’s forests and undermining authorities’ quest to increase logging revenues.
This reporter saw 25 pieces of thick, square woods by the roadside in Boyeah’s Town in Compound Number Two ripped by Teah. Joe Jarvis Boyeah, a villager who he hired, told The DayLight the deal was between Teah and an unnamed farmer.
That information was corroborated by other townspeople we interviewed, including Joshua Gbar.
“The town doesn’t have a share in it,” Gbar said, adding that was the first of such operation in that area.
Teah admitted he runs the operation without a permit and first conducted it in 2019. However, he argued that he did not need FDA’s approval to produce the timber, which he wrongly considered planks.
“Any log that is placed in a dimension is pit-sawing. Two by two is a dimension. Two by five is a dimension. I know,” Teah, revered for his strong stance on issues in Grand Bassa’s radioland, said.
Some of the timbers Othello Teah illegally harvested in Boyeah Town, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Chanda Cole, Teah’s partner who is the proprietor of the Cole Joe Wood Work Shop in Buchanan—one of the oldest in the city—backs him. He said the timber was dahoma wood, a durable hardwood used in construction and boatbuilding.
“We don’t do permits from the government to buy and sell wood. We get a thing called business registration from [the Ministry] of Commerce,” Cole wrongly claimed. The ministry does not issue business certificates, the Liberia Business Registry does.
But apart from that, the operation of Teah and Cole violates forestry laws and regulations in several ways.
First, there is a difference between timber, which the pair is producing, and planks, which they falsely claim to be making, according to the Regulation on Establishing a Chain of Custody System. It sets the standard for sourcing, transporting, and exporting wood. It defines “timber is a sawn wood or log,” while planks or lumbers are the “products” of pit-sawn or chain-sawn woods.
Second, chainsaw millers are only permitted to produce planks, which are way lighter and smaller than the timber Teah had produced in Boyeah Town.
Third, chain-sawn woods can only be sourced from a concession area, authorized private forestland, and an approved community forest, not from an ordinary farmer.
And, in fact, chainsaw milling is illegal, as there is no current regulation for it after a previous one was dropped years back. It is being permitted to support construction works in Liberia since logging companies do not supply the local market. A regulation for the subsector has been drafted and is being reviewed by the Board of Directors of the FDA.
Inconsistency
Both Teah and Cole contradicted themselves on why they are harvesting the timber in Boyeah Town.
When we initially phoned Teah, he claimed that the woods were meant for the construction of a bridge in Compound Number Three. That was exactly what Joe Jarvis Boyeah told us. Later in an interview, Teah flipped that he was supplying a company. But when quizzed further, he said he was actually supplying Cole’s woodshop. That was the first time in days of discussions that he mentioned he had a business partner other than the farmer and Boyeah.
Cole continued Teah’s inconsistency. Teah had called him to convince this reporter that their business was not illegal. He, too, first claimed that the woods were meant for a company.
“We use it on the bridge, we use it on the machine to balance on it to work,” Cole said in an interview at his workshop. But he somersaulted as the interview progressed, claiming they were meant for his shop. One of the practices in chainsaw milling is that the wood must be sawn into planks in the forest, not elsewhere.
“Don’t change anything here, it’s pit-sawing,” Cole said. “Anything from two-inch up is timber.”
This investigation comes less than two weeks after The DayLight exposed a similar illegal operation in the Compound Number One area, conducted by a woman named Binta Bility. That report came after leaked videos and pictures of Varney Marshall, an FDA ranger showed he ran well-organized kpokolo operations, believed to be in Gbarpolu County.
Timbers that were illegally harvested in an operation conducted by Othello Teah, a “regular caller” in Grand Bassa. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Zahn Dehydugar contributed to this report.
The story was produced by the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ).
Top: It would the second year in a role that communities have protested land rental fees. The DayLight/Harry Browne
MONROVIA – Communities affected by logging concessions across Liberia are expected to stage a sit-in action in Monrovia on Wednesday for land rental fees the government of Liberia owes them.
It would mark the beginning of a series of protests they plan to hold next month for over US$5 million the Liberian government owes them, according to a statement by the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee (NUCFDC). The group comprises the leadership of communities hosting logging contracts, covering over 1 million hectares of forestland.
NUCFDC said the protest would continue next week at an upcoming climate resilience program to be followed by a petition to President George Weah.
Locals are entitled to 30 percent of land rental fees logging companies pay the government every year. The fees are calculated based on the size of the forest in hectares and US$2.50 and US$1.25 for large-scale and small-scale concessions, respectively. However, the government has not paid the community their full amounts since 2017.
Those debts amounted to US$5.5 million between 2007 and 2019, according to a report by Forest Trends, an American NGO promoting sustainable forest management.
Last year, the government paid US$200,000 after the communities protested and allotted US$2.7 million in the current National Budget for the payments. But with barely three months before the end of the fiscal term, it has paid US$300,000, according to the NUCFDC.
“This is unfortunate and does not represent a true meaning of the government Pro-Poor Agenda for Development and Prosperity,” the statement, issued late Tuesday, read.
It said the government did not prioritize the payment, which contravenes its commitment to support communities to manage their forests and empower them to derive a sustainable livelihood from forest resources.
“This is why we as community members will stage sustained advocacy actions until the government of Liberia pays all the amount appropriated in the 2022 National Budget…,” it added.
It would be the second year in a role for communities to protest over the fees.
Top: Logs abandoned by Masayaha Logging Company in Bokay Town, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a series on a string of illegal activities by Masayaha Logging Company, which operates in Grand Bassa County.
BOKAY TOWN, Grand Bassa County – Between 2020 and last year, Masayaha Logging Company harvested a number of red hardwoods in a string of illegal operations spanning several villages outside its contract area, the Worr Community Forest.
But while Masayaha was stealing the logs, the Lebanese-owned firm company abandoned 595 logs it harvested between 2019 and 2021, further investigation into its operations shows. It cut 1,246 logs but exported only 651, according to FDA’s records of the company’s production and export.
We counted over 200 of the logs on a field next to the Bokay Town market in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. Their markings were clear: “MLC” for Masayaha Logging Company. Some of the woods had decayed and bonded with that environment. Some were in ponds with quacking frogs, others overgrown by grass with human feces on them.
Residents The DayLight interviewed said Masayaha transported some of the logs there two years ago.
“They brought these ones here in 2020,” a seller who does not want to be named over fears of reprisal, said, pointing to a pile of blackened, wet woods.
Under the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products, logs are abandoned if they are left unattended between 15 and 180 working days, depending on their location. In this case, the logs were abandoned latest as of June last year.
Deserted logs are some of the most common violations in the forestry sector. The regulation mandates the FDA to investigate for seven working days after being told of an abandoned log situation. Thereafter, it must seek a court order to auction the woods following months of mandatory public notice.
There is plenty of evidence that the FDA is aware logging companies have abandoned thousands of logs across the country—including Masayaha—but has done nothing in keeping with the regulation.
In August 2020, the agency investigated Masayaha and several other companies operating in Grand Bassa, River Cess and Nimba and found a sea of abandoned logs.
“Logging contract holders are not doing much to minimize [the] incidence of abandoned logs. Logging companies have left [a] huge quantity of assorted round logs unattended or abandoned at various bush landings and log yards over the years…,” FDA investigators said at the time in an internal report seen by The DayLight. “Valuable time species are continuously being harvested by logging companies without first securing sales contracts, only to leave those logs unattended.” A log yard is an open field where companies keep logs before export.
Logs abandoned by Masayaha Logging Company on a field next to the Bokay Town market in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
The report said the government of Liberia was losing revenues required for national development.
Alvin Fiske, a local who heads the community forest leadership, said the company executives told him it had not found a buyer for the logs. “Costumers come and buy some and some remain on the ground,” he said.
In June earlier this year, the Managing Director of the FDA Mike Doryen granted a rare interview with The DayLight in which he unlawfully claimed the agency would have auctioned abandoned logs across the country that month.
There were no records the FDA made binding public service announcements on Masayaha’s abandoned logs or a petition from the agency at the circuit court in Buchanan to seize and auction the woods, some three years since the company ditched the first load of the woods.
In addition to its failure to seize and auction the logs, the FDA has not punished Masayaha over the logs. The regulation was created in 2017 to curb the waste of forest resources after a previous regulation proved inadequate in addressing the problem. It was part of Liberia’s response to the global call for the sustainable use of forests amid climate change.
FDA should have fined the company three times the price set by the agency by the volume of the logs at Bokay Town alone, according to the current regulation.
Our analysis of Masayaha’s production and export records shows that it abandoned 6,814.951 cubic meters of logs between 2019 and last year. Markings on the logs at the Bokay Town market indicate the majority are first-class woods by the FDA’s standard.
Some of the abandoned logs at the Bokay Town market, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
While the company has struggled to export the logs it produced, it has continued to harvest additional logs. The markings on logs at the company’s headquarters in Saul Town, Compound Number One B indicate they were harvested this year and contain some of the first-class species we saw at Bokay Town.
That is a breach of the regulation, which calls on the agency to disapprove of the harvesting or export permits of companies that abandon logs on a large scale.
It is not the only time the FDA has reneged on punishing Masayaha for a violation. During the same period the firm abandoned the woods, it harvested logs way about 100 kilometers outside its concession, a recent investigation by The DayLight revealed.
The company had signed illegal agreements with a number of towns in the Doe Clan of Compound Number One A. Several chiefs and elders who helped seal the illegal deals admitted in a dozen of interviews with us. Villagers said the company cut only ekki logs, red hardwoods used for building railroads and bridges.
Masayaha’s production record between 2020 and 2021 seemingly backs that claim. It exported 360 ekki woods during that period, compared to just 17 in the previous term.
Evidence shows that the FDA was also aware of the violation but did not punish the company. Investigators of the leaked FDA report recommended “appropriate” action against Masayaha for that offense. Also, Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), a Switzerland-based firm that developed Liberia’s log-tracking system or LiberTrace, also reported the illegal operation.
The FDA has not sought a court order to confiscate and auction the illegally harvested logs Masayaha cut outside its contract area. It did not fine the company two times and four times the prevailing international price of the volume of logs it harvested in 2020 and last year, respectively, in line with the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timbers and Timber Products.
The agency did not reply to emailed queries for comments on the issue.
Ali Harkous, Masayaha’s owner and CEO also did not respond to The DayLight’s quetions placed to him via WhatsApp.
The Forestry Development Authority has approved Masayaha’s harvest of logs amid its abandonment of 595 logs. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Zahn Dehydugar contributed to this report.
The story is a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: A tree, locals said, was felled by Masayaha Logging Company outside the Worr Community Forest. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Emmanuel Sherman
Editor’s Note: This is the first of a series on illegal logging activities by Masayaha Logging Company, which works in Grand Bassa County.
TARR TOWN, Grand Bassa County – Mid-last year, Masayaha Logging Company asked chiefs and elders of Doe Clan in Compound Number One to harvest expensive logs in their forest in order to build roads, handpumps and a townhall in that community. But the company wanted the deal kept a secret.
The villagers agreed with the terms, adding a fee of US$5 on each cubic meter of red hardwood used for railroad ties and bridges.
“We told them to connect the road from Tarr Town to Kpana Town because the people there are suffering,” recalled Daniel Tarr, one of the elders who brokered the deal. The next month, Masayaha begin felling some 641 cubic meters of the red ironwood, according to the locals’ record of the harvesting.
“The company wanted some ekki [woods],” added Junior Gueh, a townsman who also works for the company and helped craft the deal.
But the deal was illegal, as the forest adjacent Tarr Town is outside the Worr Community Forest Masayaha legally operates. It is one among a string of illegal operations the Lebanese-own firm has run in that region in the last two years, involving five towns. It has been documented that Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has taken no required actions against the company.
Masayaha has a 15-year agreement to operate the Worr Community Forest. Magna Logging Corporation, owned by Liberian businessman Moley Kamara, originally holds the contract for the forest but appears to have subcontracted it to Masayaha. The forest covers 35,337 hectares in Compound Number One B but the company traveled about 100 kilometers to the Doe Clan in Compound Number One A to harvest first-class logs. It said there were not many of that species trees in the Worr Community Forest, according to several villagers we interviewed.
An operator moves logs illegally harvested by Masayaha Logging Company in Garkpa Charlie Town, Grand Bassa County. Picture credit: Stephen Toomay
Mary Beeweh, an elderly woman in Zolah Town, told The DayLight the company harvested logs in the forest there in 2020. Beeweh said Ali Harkous, Masayaha’s CEO visited the town. Her description of a bald, bearded Lebanese man matches Harkous’ figure.
Masayaha also felled an unspecified number of logs in Lolo Town last year, according to residents. We told them ‘If you fix our two bridges here, we will give you the logs [you] want,” said Solomon Kpolon, an elder of that town. “The first was 17 logs but the second one they took it overnight we did not know about it.” This reporter saw some of the logs the villagers said Masayaha felled in the forest not far from the town.
In Vorlorgor, a village next to Tarr Town, villagers seized the company’s machines after it felled 17 trees, according to John Garbleejay, an administrator of that town. They later allowed illicit activities to go on after the company promised to pave the main route that leads into the community, Garbleejay said.
Harvesting outside a contract area is a grave violation in forestry. A company’s penalties for such an offense include a fine in United States Dollars upon conviction by a court.
There is evidence that the FDA has known of Masayaha’s illegal logging deals from its first known offense in 2020 but ignored them. The agency conducted an inquest in August that year on several logging violations in Grand Bassa, River Cess and Nimba, those of Masayaha. Investigators recommended an “appropriate action” against it but that has yet to happen.
And that, too, was not the first time the FDA heard about Masayaha’s violations and failed to act. Several months earlier in 2020, Reuben Barnie, one of the villagers, informed FDA about the incident. Barnie had spotted a Masayaha truck transporting logs from Kweezah, the home of the descendants of people who were evicted from the land Firestone occupies today. Knowledgeable of the company’s contract area, Barnie raised an alarm.
Records of Masayaha’s illegal logging in Garkpa Charlie Town were taken by Matthew Gaywheon, a villager. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
“We are calling your attention to please come in our district to carry on an investigation so as to stop future embarrassment,” Barnie wrote in a May letter last year. He took to a local radio station and engaged the company. He then followed up with numerous phone calls to Joseph Tally, FDA’s deputy managing director for operations, whose recordings Barnie gave to The DayLight.
“Barnie how you doing?” Tally can be heard in one of the recordings.
“Yes, we still keeping our fingers crossed for the verdict,” Barnie responds, referencing a previous conversation in which Tally promised to take action against the company.
“Keeping your finger crossed for what?”
“For the verdict. The people went to do the investigation.”
“I told you we have already suspended the people activities.”
Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), a Switzerland-based firm that developed Liberia’s log-tracking system or LiberTrace, also reported the illegal operation. The development of the system was crucial to forestry reform, as importing countries such as the European Union and Great Britain demanded legal timbers. It is now turned over the majority of its responsibilities to the FDA’s legality verification department (LVD).
A stump of the trees Masayaha illegally felled in not far from Lolo Town in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Like Barnie, Stephen Toomey, one of the residents of that area, reported the case to the FDA. This reporter witnessed Toomay raise the issue in a Worr Community Forest meeting in October last year. Joseph Kpainay, an FDA ranger assigned in the region, then asked him to file an official complaint with the agency’s regional office in Buchanan. Toomay did it days after the meeting but got no response. Kpainay acknowledged receipt of Toomay’s letter.
“The concerned citizens of the affected communities are therefore calling on your good office to promptly investigate, intervene and promptly provide an appropriate solution…,” Toomay’s letter read.
News of the illegal logging Masayaha carried out last year made it to FDA’s headquarters in Paynesville. In August, the same month as the illegal felling, SGS reported on the incident.
“During the month, some felling out of CFMA Worr concession was seen again !!!,” SGS said in a report. It also criticized the FDA for approving the company’s harvesting plan that year without a required five-year plan, a breach of the Code of Harvesting Practices and Standard Operation Procedure.
“Surely, because no action was taken from the felling out of concession at… Worr reported by SGS a year ago, that illegality is still going over there.”
But amid SGS’ report and Barnie’s advocacy, FDA permitted Masayaha to export logs that could have included the stolen woods. Between 2020 and last year, Masayaha exported 365 logs, 360 of them ekki woods, according to official shipment records. In fact, it approved three of the company’s shipments about the time of the Garkpa Charlie Town illegal logging, according to the SGS report.
In normal forestry practices, the FDA is supposed to trace every log the company harvests back to its stump to make sure the logs were legally sourced before they are transported.
Also amid the mountain of evidence against Masayaha, FDA should have sought court orders to confiscate and auction them. It should have also fined the company two times and four times the prevailing international price of the volume of logs it harvested in Kweezah and Garkpa Charlie Town, respectively, according to the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timbers and Timber Products. The current price set by the FDA ekki woods is US$210. The company could have been slapped with a 12-month prison term if convicted by a court.
Two logs Masayaha illegally harvested in Garkpa Charlie Town in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Barnie called Tally, furious that the logs had made it out of the community and the company had not been fined for the violation. “Those logs are at the Port [of Buchanan] and are taken from where they have no concession. I’ve been calling some eight, nine months ago on the issue in Number One Compound. Now the people are carrying the logs,” Barnie can be heard in the recording, threatening to protest at the port to stop the shipment.
It was unclear how many logs Masayaha harvested in all its illegal operations. Neither SGS nor the FDA provided that information. However, the villagers’ records of last year’s felling seen by The DayLight put that number to 641 cubic meters. The elders had designated Mathew Gaywheon, a townsman, to represent them during the operation. If Masayaha had been convicted for its 2020 illegal harvesting and the one last year, it could have paid over half of the million United States dollars for a second offense.
There were signs of the operation in the area. We saw stumps of the felled trees. The elders of the town said a short piece of log lying adjacent to the palaver hut under which we conducted interviews was a remnant of the operation. A number of logs were still at the site of an open field, where villagers said Masayaha’s workers piled up the woods. Earthmovers’ trails adorned the site, despite a year of downpour.
The area matched the one in the pictures Toomay shared with us of the unlawful operation in Garkpa Charlie Town. One of the pictures shows a Masayaha vehicle parked next to the thatched kitchen where we conducted some of our interviews. Others reveal the company transporting some of the logs with official identification tags, indicating they had been registered into the FDA’s database.
The FDA did not grant The DayLight an interview on the matter. We emailed the agency earlier this month and received a response last week from Tally, who scheduled the interview for Tuesday. However, he did not turn out at the time of the interview he had set. Cllr. Yanquoi Dolo, the head of FDA’s legal department, declined to speak on the matter.
Kamara, the CEO of Magna, also declined to speak on the matter.
Harkous did not respond to queries sent him via WhatsApp for comments on his company’s illegalities.
Some of the elders of Tarr Town signed an illegal agreement with Masayaha Logging Company to illegally harvest logs in their community. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
This Story is a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: A pile of thick, square timbers, commonly called “Kpokolo” illegally harvested by Binta Bility. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series, which exposes an illegal logging operation.
COMPOUND NUMBER ONE, Grand Bassa County – Two hundred and sixty pieces of thick, square timbers lay by a roadside in Zoegar Town, one of 18 sections in the Doe Clan. Twenty-five more are scattered in the forest.
The woods were harvested in two former logging concessions in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa. They are the products of an illegal logging operation being conducted by a businesswoman named Binta Bility, an investigation by The DayLight found.
“The pile of [timber]… is for one Binta Bility,” said Volygar Garblah, the Chief Elder of that region. Garblah said she had asked to harvest red hardwoods in two former concession areas and he and other chiefs worked out a payment scheme with her.
“Sometimes the sticks are from two or three sections in Doe Clan. When she went to Fubahn, the people charged her, from Kpelleh Town way they charged her also, and men were used to haul the timber from there,” Garblah said, adding Zoegar Town and Dumue Town were also involved in the illegal activities.
The operation she runs is commonly called “Kpokolo,” a new form of illegal logging across the country, which targets expensive hardwoods that are smuggled out of the country in containers. The woods are used for railroad tiles and bridges.
Bility denies any wrongdoing. But dozens of interviews with chiefs, elders motorcycle-taxi drivers, and the illicit loggers point to her.
Felling trees without a permit or from an illegal source is a grave offense in forestry. She faces a huge fine and a prison term if convicted by a court.
‘My Daughter’
Bility started working in the Compound Number One area in 2020 with planks but decided to switch to timber last year, according to Garblah. He said he had known Bility since she helped him pay for his medical bill some time ago.
“She is my daughter. She said, ‘Please give me a place to pack my logs, and after that, I will come for us to talk,’” Garblah told The DayLight. After our talk, then, I later talked with the section people.” He said they did not have a written agreement with her.
Binta Bility runs illegal logging operations in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. Picture credit: Facebook/Binta Bility
An orange and green 1996 MAN truck was parked at Gbarblah’s home with an improvised wheelbarrow, commonly called push-push in its trunk. Its license plate reads “C3742.”
“The car is for Binta but she left it with me,” Garblah said.
The forest where Bility operates was known in the logging industry as Timber Sale Contract Area Two and Timber Sale Contract Area Three. They were operated by Renaissance Group Incorporated and Akewa Group of Companies, respectively, before being canceled last year along with eight similar contracts following years of failure and illegitimacy.
Harrison Togbah, who identified himself as one of the forerunners of the illegal operation, said there were 17 workers, including some townsmen. He added that Bility gave the team pictures of the hardwoods to cut and that they had worked for six months.
“That’s the first consignment wasting outside there,” he said in reference to the woods on the road to Zoegar Town. “We made the arrangement that out of 200 pieces [of timber], she will be able to give me US$700.”
Togbah showed our reporters Bility’s mobile phone number he saved as “Boss Lady.” Togbah and Bility had communicated 36 times, according to Togbah’s call history. The number on his phone matched the one our reporters had used to contact her earlier on.
Massa Sawo, Togbah’s supervisor, confirmed she is their boss. Sawo declined to take further questions when quizzed on the illegality of their activities. “Ask Binta herself,” he said and hung up the phone.
‘Just Sample’
The people in Lolo Town showed they were as fond of Bility as those in Zoegar Town. A woman, who did not give her name, called Bility “my ma,” when our reporter showed her the picture Bility uses as her Facebook profile. Other residents, including Solomon Kpolon, an elder of Lolo Town, also identified Bility as the woman in the picture.
We visited the illegal logging site near the Worr River, a good distance from Lolo town. It was an old camp Bility had set up for her chainsaw milling operation, according to the townspeople we interviewed. There were an abandoned, makeshift warehouse still locked and an apartment camp house. Cassava, potato and pineapple thrived among the invading, wet bush. Leftover woods dotted the area. Twenty-six timbers measuring seven feet long and 10 inches wide are next to a felled tree.
“The kpokolo in the bush… are samples. [She asked us to do the sample so that] if someone she can bring the person here to see it,” said Stephen Bull, who said he headed the operation at that site and had known Bility since 2020. He even called out her number offhand.
Bull added that it took up to 15 men to place the woods in the push-push our reporters saw in the back of the truck at Garblah’s house. Thereafter, the vehicle takes the illegal timbers to the central location in Zoegar Town, according to Bull.
We found a phone number written with charcoal on the plank wall of the warehouse at the camp belonging to Kantee Zabeh. Zabeh, who said he was 20 years old, claimed to be Bility’s son in a phone interview. He gave her address as 21st Street, something Togbah had earlier told our reporters.
Timbers that were illegally harvested by Binta Bility in a forest in Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Garblah said the woods were meant to be exported. “Bility told me that the place she usually sells the timber is where the fighting is taking place in Europe, so this is why the woods have not gone yet and [are] still packing over there.”
By law, chainsaw milling is illegal but is permitted because the woods are supplied to the local market. The FDA has a system where fees are collected at various checkpoints, while it formulates a regulation for that kind of logging.
But kpokolo is illegal. Such timbers are exported outside of the official system that tracks woods from harvest to shipment, a crucial principle of Liberia’s forestry reform. Bility is not registered in that system known in the industry as LiberTrace, according to Gertrude Nyaley, the technical manager of FDA’s legality verification department (LVD). The DayLight had made a formal inquiry on the businesswoman’s status.
This investigation comes more than two weeks since leaked videos and pictures revealed similar operations run by an FDA ranger, who has now been suspended. The agency has alarmed over the smuggling of wood in containers, which it says makes it difficult to track down.
Bility denies she runs unlawful activities in Compound Number One. She challenged the fact the villagers revealed she was the mastermind of the illegal harvesting. “Stop disturbing my line but you are free to report whatever you [want] to,” she said in a WhatsApp chat. “I know I’m not doing any illegal logging.
“Good luck, dear,” she added.
“I just can’t stop laughing,” she said in another WhatsApp chat with several laughing emojis.
A man measures the diameter of a tree illegally harvested by loggers hired by Binta Bility in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Bility still carries on with her operations. In our second round of interviews with Garblah, he told The DayLight she called him and asked whether he had spoken with us. A motorcycle-taxi driver, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, also said she dropped off a worker in the area on Sunday.
When told that Bility denies working in that part of the country, Bull gave a wry smile. “For her to deny that she is not working here is not right,” he said.
A person who does not hold a contract but harvests logs carries a fine for three times the value of species of timber at the prevailing price set by the FDA, according to the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timbers and Timber Products. The current price for ekki woods is US$210.
The vehicle being used by Binta Bility to transport illegally harvested logs in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/Mark Newa
CORRECTION: This story deletes the word “legally” in the twelve paragraph for consistency.
Mark Newa, Emmanuel Sherman, Gerald Koinyeneh and an unnamed motorcyclist-taxi driver contributed to this report.
The story is a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: Some of the logs Bargor & Bargor/Greenwood abandoned in Bokomu District, Gbarpolu County in August 2022. The DayLight/Gabriel M. Dixon
By Gabriel M. Dixon
BOKOMU, Gbarpolu County – It was a late Thursday evening in July 2019, excitement circled the air in the town of Nyeamah and neighboring villages. Their long-awaited dream of paved roads would soon become a reality years after welcoming a forest concession.
“It was a great thing for us and we were all happy about it,” said John Flomo, a member of the community’s forest leadership.
Bargor & Bargor Enterprise Inc. had struggled with its operations. Now partnering with Greenwood Resource Company, a Liberian-Ivorian firm, brought back life in that part of the Bokomu District. That was, at least, what residents thought.
But the company abandoned over 700 logs in the bush few months after their arrival, dashing the hope of residents.
“They left them in the bush and they got damaged,” Flomo told The DayLight. “Each time they (logging company) do something and we tell the FDA, they (FDA) can delay it. So, we look at it that the company is not for us, it is for the government; that’s [the] government that brought them.”
This reporter visited the logging site of Bargor & Bargor and saw scores of decayed logs. Some were lying along a neglected, grassy road in an open field villager said served as the company’s log yard. We climbed a steep hill into a forest and arrived at another place with huge piles of logs camouflaged by undergrowth of trees and grass. A look around the site shows that no one has been there in recent times before our visit, at least for a year. It was difficult to even take photos. My tour guard cleared around some of the logs to help me take photos. Some of the decayed logs still held on to their tags, indicating that they had been tracked by the Forestry Development Authority (FDA).
Yusuf Konneh and Louis Diomande, the two owners of Greenwood, did not respond to queries for comment on the matter. Efforts to contact Alfred Bargor, the CEO of Bargor & Bargor, did not materialize. His email address has been disabled and his contact number did not ring.
Bargor & Bargor left in the forest in Bokomu District, Gbarpolu County in 2021. The DayLight/Henry Gboluma
The companies’ executives could face legal actions, as abandoning logs is an offense. The Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timbers and Timber Products considers woods abandoned when they are left unattended between 15 and 180 working days. Penalties include two times the volume of the logs in question by the legal fees for their stumps. Stumpage fees are calculated based on percentages of the international prices of logs which vary from one class to another. The regulation was formulated to minimize the waste of forest resources and compel legal compliance in the harvesting and shipment of logs.
The FDA has taken no legal action despite being knowledgeable of the matter. “Currently, 716 logs harvested are in the bush spoiling,” read a 2021 letter the community wrote to the agency’s Managing Director Mike Doryen, seen by the DayLight.
The law requires the FDA to investigate a complaint or suspicion of abandonment when notified. Afterward, it should have sought a court order to auction the woods after a period of multiple public notices.
Ruth Varney, the forest ranger responsible for the western region, declined to speak on the matter.
In April earlier this year, FDA asked logging companies to “declare all trees fell in their resources area in LiberTrace consistent with the regulation…” Speaking to The DayLight two months later, Doryen said the agency would have started auctioning abandoned logs countrywide in June 2022. LiberTrace is the system through which the FDA tracks trees from harvest to shipment.
“We… will continue in the northern region and then go down south and western part,” Doryen said at the time. “We are dealing with the issues of abandoned logs in a holistic manner. It is not just TSCs but community forests and forest management contract [areas].”
That has yet to happen.
Henry Gboluma contributed to this story. It was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: Rotten logs in the Gola Konneh District, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Varney Kamara
ZIMMIDANDAI – A Liberian-owned company has left an unspecified number of logs in a logging concession area in Grand Cape Mount County, community leaders have said.
In 2009, Bulgar & Vincent Timber Company cut trees in a logging concession in the Porkpa District—known in the logging industry as Timber Sale Contract Area 10 (TSC A-10). However, in 2015, it pulled out of the area, leaving the woods to rot, according to Dao Sheriff, a member of the community’s leadership of the forest in an interview in a town called Zimmidandai.
“Most of the logs B&V harvested here were left in the bush,” said Sheriff. “After the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the company returned and cut several logs in 2015, and left this place in the same 2015.”
Sheriff did not say the exact quantity of woods B&V harvested. The company also had some logs in its log yard in the Po River area, according to a July 2017 handwritten letter to the FDA, seen by The DayLight. We could not independently verify the information, as the road to the forest was inaccessible due to years of abandonment and perennial rainfall.
B&V blames the government for the abandonment of the logs.
“We left logs there because the government failed to fix the road. We did not take them out because of this condition,” said Emmanuel Vincent, the CEO of the company, in a phone interview.” “It is the government that failed to do what it is supposed to do.”
That claim is incorrect. It was actually the company’s responsibility to “recondition and maintain roads adjacent [to] the contract area,” according to the agreement.
In June, the FDA announced the auctioning of abandoned logs across the country, including those in TSC A10. “The exercise will continue in the northern region and then go down south and western part,” said Mike Doryan, FDA’s Managing Director.
While that exercise has yet to be carried out, it does not apply here legally. Having been harvested in 2015, the FDA cannot obtain a court order to auction the woods under the current Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timbers and Timber Products. The regulation in place when the harvesting was done narrowed the definition of abandonment as only trees cut outside concession and lack tracking number. The current regulation was formulated in 2017 after the previous one proved ineffective in curbing the waste of forest resources.
Legal issues aside, there is no evidence that the FDA has done anything about deserted logs nationwide. The DayLight has investigated several incidents of abandoned logs in this region, the Gola Konneh District next door, and elsewhere in Grand Bassa, Lofa and Nimba. Doryen’s claim to auction the woods in June was unlawful as it takes months of legal formalities to do so.
‘They…damaged our forest’
The agreement between B&V mandates the company to pay US$1 per cubic meter of logs it harvested and US$1.25 for land rental fees. It was required to build schools, clinics, handpumps, and latrines for villagers but it did not deliver them. Its only project, a USD$4,018 guesthouse in Zimmidandai, has not been completed, according to a report released on Wednesday by the National Benefit Sharing Trust Board (NBSTB), which secures communities’ benefits and oversees their expenditure.
Vincent admits being indebted to the community but blames the Ebola epidemic and the coronavirus pandemic. “We lost heavily in that area,” Vincent said. “We left most of our heavy machines in there. Besides, the government restrained our operation because of the outbreaks. How could we have sold logs to pay benefits? We were practically closed down.” The FDA did not return queries for comment on Vincent’s claim but health authorities imposed some restrictions to contain both outbreaks.
It was unclear how much the company owes because the government has not remitted all the money logging companies have paid them for communities. TSC A10 received US$460 last year as part of the overdue payment and could receive twice that sum from the US$401,000 the government paid to communities recently.
Zimmidandai in Porkpa District, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding
By the way, that has not changed the gloom aura logging arouses in Zimmidandai. After years of failure, the government of Liberia finally canceled all 11 TSCs across the country, leaving thousands of United States dollars owed them unpaid and projects unconducted.
The FDA promised to work with the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee (NUCFDC) to address fees owed TSCs. Doryen reechoed that in our interview in June. However, the two entities have not done any work since the meeting, according to Andrew Zelemen, the national facilitator of the group.
“They came and damaged our forest and left us with no development,” Sheriff said. “Now, the government has canceled TSCs, and they are gone. All I can say to you is that we are inside it.”
Top: People gather for the dedication of a teachers’ lodge in Salayea, Lofa County that was built from forest resources in 2018. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Tarplah Toh and Emmanuel Sherman
MONROVIA – Towns and villages affected by logging concessions across Liberia have spent US$1.3 million and L$81,781,842.72 million on projects from the money they received from companies since 2015, according to a report launched on Wednesday.
In the last seven years, the communities have conducted a total of 53 projects, including guesthouses, clinics and schools from land rental fees companies paid them, said the report.
Fifteen schools, seven clinics, and 11 guesthouses are among the landmark projects in the report, which also features things like town halls, a rice mill, renovation of a community radio station and distribution of roofing sheets for vulnerable homes.
A clinic in Tiah Town, Nimba, a guesthouse in Zieh Town, Grand Gedeh and the rehabilitation of a road in Polar-Gboe Zammie, also in Grand Gedeh, is the most expensive of the projects. They cost over US$100,000, US$86,000 and US$79,000, respectively.
“Communities are the primary stakeholders in the forest regime, and they must benefit from whatever that is on land,” said Nora Bowier, chairperson of the National Benefit Sharing Trust Board (NBSTB), which oversees the expenditure of land-rental payments communities get from companies. The scheme is a major part of forestry reform meant to give villagers benefits from their forests.
Bowier made the comments at the launch of the report on Wednesday in Sinkor.
But the report pointed out that 17 projects were uncompleted, with one having already collapsed. The Trust Board said it would tackle the problem.
“We have already started taking steps towards addressing some of the unfinished projects,” Bowier said. “We have monitored these projects with action points and have submitted them to the community forest development committees (CFDCs) to work with their stakeholders to talk about the next issue,” Bowier adds. CFDCs are the leadership of communities that host logging concessions. There are 24 of them.
“We are going to look at areas where we can use the law to be able to hold the CFDC accountable.”
Bowier said there would have been more finished projects if the government had paid all the money logging companies paid for communities. Up to late last year, the government owed villagers US$5.5 million, according to Forest Trends, a U.S.-based NGO that advocates for sustainable logging and conservation worldwide.
Communities protested over the debt and later received US$200,000 a few months later. Recently, the government paid another US$401,000. However, it still owes the communities US$2.3 million against the allotment it made to communities in this year’s budget, with barely four months left in the fiscal period.
Generally, the government still owes communities some US$5 million.
“We request that the government pays whatever arrears it owes because some of the projects stalled due to the slow payment. We are asking them to pay on time and be consistent,” Bowier said in a phone interview with The DayLight. “We are actually engaging, constructive engagement.”
Andrew Zelemen of the National Union of Community Forest Development Committees (NUCFDC) said timely payment of forest benefits would empower villagers.
Top: The Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. The DayLight/Harry Browne
By Emmanuel Sherman
MONROVIA – The Government of Liberia has paid communities affected by forest concessions US$401,000 for their portion of land rental fees collected from logging companies. However, it still owes the communities US$2.3 million, with barely four months left in the budget year.
The Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) paid the amount to the National Benefit Sharing Trust Board (NBSTB) in Liberian and United States dollars on Tuesday, according to Nora Bowier.
“We are glad the payment was made,” said Bowier, who heads NBSTB that oversees communities’ expenditure of the payment. By law, communities are entitled to 30 percent of land rental fees companies pay the government. The fee is the product of the total size of the concession and US$2.50 for forest management contracts (FMCs), large-scale concessions and US$1.25 for timber sale contracts (TSCs), smaller ones.
“The process was challenging.” She said the institution had engaged the Ministry of Finance to make sure the balance of the money is paid before the fiscal year ends.
Last year, 23 communities protested at the ministry for more than US$5.5 million the government owed them in land rental. The government initially paid US$200,000 it had promised the villagers to end their protest.
It then allotted US$2,749,000 to this year’s national budget. That amount was reduced to US$500,000 in June. However, only US$401,000 was paid.
“We think that it is something that the government has taken lightly in our view or in my view,” Said Andrew Zelemen, of the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee (NUCFDC), which represents the interest of communities and led the protest said. “It worries us and it is our concern.”
Zelemen there would be a protest if the balance of the money allotted in the budget is not paid by the end of the year.
“If the government does not pay the US$2.3 million from now to December, the communities will not allow logging companies to operate in their forests,” Zelemen said.
Janga Kowo, the Comptroller General of Liberia, did not answer calls placed to him nor responded to text and WhatsApp messages.
The government has collected US$27.7 million from loggers but has only paid US$2.6 million to rural communities since the 2015/2016 fiscal year, according to a report by Forest Trends, a US-based nongovernmental organization that promotes sustainable use of forests and conservation.
That is a violation of the National Forestry Reform Law of 2006, which mandates it to transfer 30 percent of land rental fees logging companies pay to communities for development purposes.
