Vinjah Village is one of the communities affected by an illegal subcontract deal between Bassa Logging and Alma Wood. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Top: Vanjah Village is one of the communities affected by an illegal subcontract deal between Bassa Logging and Alma Wood. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Varney Kamara
Editor’s Note: This is the first of a series on the aftermaths of timber sales contracts (TSCs), which were canceled in March 2021 following years of illegitimacy.
MONROVIA – The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) awarded and approved five contracts—meant for companies with majority Liberian shareholders—to foreign companies, a violation of forestry laws and regulations. Some of the illegal contracts lasted for over a decade before they were recently canceled, an investigation by The DayLight has found.
Between 2008 and 2009, the FDA awarded timber sales contracts (TSCs) to Akewa Group of Companies, Thunder Bird Company and Sun Yeun Company. It also approved a subcontracting deal between Bassa Logging and Alma Wood for patches of forests in Grand Bassa and Grand Cape Mount Counties.
Under the National Forestry Reform Law of Liberia and the Ten Core Regulations, TSCs, which cover 5,000 hectares, are meant for only firms with at least 51 percent Liberian shareholding. However, Akewa is a Nigerian-owned company, Thunder Bird, a Lebanese and Sun Yuen, a Chinese enterprise and Alma Wood Lebanese-Senegalese, according to the companies’ articles of incorporation. In fact, only two percent of all four companies’ shares are held by Liberians.
A Nigerian businesswoman, Abigail Funke Odebunmi, has 60 percent, followed by Chief Kenneth Amazeika and Timothy Odebunmi with 20 percent apiece. It was unclear whether the company met that requirement when it obtained TSC A3 in Grand Bassa in 2008, as Akewa’s article of incorporation does not show its initial shareholders. Nevertheless, the company’s current ownership status indicates Akewa was barred under the “Liberianization” clause of the law. The company initially registered at the Liberian Business Registry on June 29, 2009, proving it did not have a business registration certificate when it obtained TSC A3 a year earlier. That was a violation of the Business Corporation Act of 1976 and the FDA Ten Core Regulations on prequalification. Akewa had been involved in the infamous Private Use Permit (PUP) Scandal, in which some 2.5 million hectares of forests, or 23 percent of the country’s landmass, were illegally awarded to logging companies.
Odebunmi did not respond to our request for an interview on Akewa’s shareholding.
Thunder Bird, which was awarded TSC A08 in Porkpa District, Grand Cape Mount County, is equally owned by Lebanese brothers Tony Ayoub and George Ayoub. The DayLight was not successful in contacting Thunder Bird.
A Chinese businessman, Wei Zhang holds 98 percent of the shares of Sun Yeun, which held TSC A15 and A16 in Gola Konneh Porkpa District, Grand Cape Mount. Liberian businessmen Erik Bauman Vincent and Josephus Banks have one percent each to complete the firm’s shareholding.
C. Mike Doryen, the managing director of the FDA, said the agency would investigate the companies and use its findings for future reference. “If it was an error made, we are guided so that we don’t repeat the same thing,” Doryen told The DayLight in an interview at the FDA’s headquarters in Whein Town, Paynesville. “I will check on it myself and get my research people to check and see exactly what it is.”
After being unlawfully awarded TSC A16, in 2016 Sun Yeun subcontracted the concession to Alma Wood, a company owned by Lebanese businessman El-Zein Hassan and his Senegalese partner Radwan Darwiche. Both men have 250 stocks apiece, which barred them from obtaining the contract but the deal still went on.
Two years later, Alma Wood was also subcontracted by Bassa Logging Company, a 100 percent Liberian-owned business, which operated TSC A11, situated between the Gola Konneh and Porkpa Districts.
Josephus Banks, one of Sun Yeun’s two Liberian shareholders, claimed that the company amended its legal document to meet the shareholding requirement for TSC before acquiring the concession but showed no proof. The firm’s legal document shows that Sun Yeun has not amended its article of incorporation since it was established in 2008.
Bong Village in Gola District, Grand Cape Mount County is one of the communities affected by a timber sale contract that was illegally awarded to Sun Yeun in 2009. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Banks blames the FDA for Sun Yeun’s illegal subcontract with Alma Wood. “If Alma Wood’s prequalification document is fake, then we blame the FDA for that because it is FDA that qualifies companies,” Banks told The DayLight in an interview in Monrovia. He was making a reference to Regulation 104-07, which mandates the FDA to only prequalify companies if they meet the Liberian-shareholding requirement.
FDA claims Alma Wood’s subcontract was legal though the law shows otherwise. “Operational agreement has nothing with concession agreement between the government and Liberians. Once you have your TSC, you can do an operational agreement,” Doryen said.
His claims were refuted by a lawyer knowledgeable about the forestry sector, who spoke to The DayLight and did not want to be named for fear of reprisal. “Of course, once a stated requirement is not meant, that is a breach of the law,” the lawyer said.
Efforts to reach Alma Wood did not materialize, as the company has ceased to operate since 2019. Its co-owner and CEO Hassan reportedly fled Liberia after he was sued over his failure to repay a US$643,000 loan he had taken from the Afriland bank.
Clarence Massaquoi (not the lawmaker), the CEO of Bassa Logging, also did not respond to queries for comments on the matter.
Awarding the five contracts to the four foreign firms undermined the intent of the forestry laws and regulations to empower Liberians. During the Liberian Civil War (1989-2003), foreign logging companies ran the sector, using proceeds to fund warring factions, according to Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), in what became to be known as “conflict timbers” or “logs of war.” Consequently, the United Nations imposed sanctions on Liberian timbers in 2002, overseeing a three-year reform of the wartorn industry. The reform addressed the marginalization of Liberian businesspeople, with exclusive stakes in certain contracts, including TSCs.
“In an effort to re-establish a vibrant domestic forestry sector, the government shall accept bids on forest management contracts covering a land area of between 50,000 and 99,999 hectares only from qualified bidders that demonstrate at least 51 percent ownership by Liberian citizens,” reads the National Forestry Reform Law. “If no qualified Liberian bidders present tenders for the contract or secure the contract during one bidding cycle, the [Forestry Development Authority] may re-bid the contract through a process open only to qualified bidders that demonstrate 51 percent ownership by Liberian citizens.”
The law mandates the FDA to make a report to the National Legislature on the impact of that portion of the law on the country’s economy. However, that report has not been made since 2006. C. Mike Doryen, the managing director of the FDA, said the agency would write the report later this year.
‘Inconsistent with the laws’
The five illegally awarded TSCs undermined the economic empowerment pillar of the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development. President George Weah promised in his Inaugural Address not to make Liberians “spectators in their own economy. My government will prioritize the interests of Liberian-owned businesses and offer programs to help them become more competitive and offer services that international investors seek as partners,” President Weah said at the time.
All five unlawful TSCs awarded to the three companies and six others overstayed their legal timeframe, our investigation also found. By law, TSCs run for three years and can be extended by two years, totaling a five-year maximum period.
Having been issued between 2008 and 2009, they should have all expired by 2014. Finally, in March last year, the board of directors of the FDA discontinued all 11 TSCs, saying that its decision in 2017 to allow the contracts to continue was “inconsistent with the laws governing forest management.”
This story is a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalistsof Liberia.
Cyanide, a chemical used to wash gold but dangerous to human health, spilled from the facility at the company’s New Liberty Gold Mine in Kinjor and emptied into the rivers villagers used for cooking, fishing and washing, the EPA said.
“The analysis results showed higher than [the] permissible level of free cyanide (with source from the BMMC tailing storage facility),” a statement from the agency said on Friday. “The presence of excess cyanide led to the contamination of the water sources and that the situation has severely disrupted and injured the livelihood of the communities that depend on those water resources...”
But the EPA said that there could be other conditions that led to the death of the fish and that it would conduct further investigation.
Late last month, villagers in Jikando, Gorma and Madena in Gola Konneh District, discovered dead fish and a dog floating in the Weaju, Varwor, Mafa River and the Lake Piso, sending social media into a frenzy.
Authorities have stopped locals from using the rivers, forcing them to walk distances in search of safe drinking water. Bea Mountain has been distributing water to affected villagers.
“We welcome the report by the EPA but what we want now is for the people to take us from here because we are not safe,” Mustapha Pabai, town chief of Jikando, said after the report was released.
BMMC, denies any wrongdoing, saying EPA’s findings were “inconclusive and filled with analytical gaps.”
“We are confident and particularly reaffirm our position of being in no breach of any required scientific standards. We note that the EPA has found no evidence of damage to or any spill or irregular discharge from the [tailing storage facility],” it said in a statement.
The EPA said in a counterstatement on Monday that it stood by its preliminary investigation, saying its findings were “based on scientific analysis and data collected by well-trained technicians and scientists in the field.”
Bea Mountain faces a US$50,000 fine or a 20-year prison term in line with the Environmental Protection and Management Law of Liberia.
It is the second time that Bea Mountain has caused a spillage of cyanide in rivers in that region. In 2016, spillage from the company’s waste facility polluted water sources in the area. The company claimed at the time the incident did not affect people but villagers said it caused them rashes.
Also, in February last year, over 10,000 villagers in that region, including Jikando, filed a complaint against German and French banks DEG and Proparco, respectively, for their involvement in the New Liberty Gold Mine. The aggrieved villagers accuse the company of several things, including land-grab and water pollution. The outcome of that case is pending.
Top: Varney Kamara (not related to this reporter) youth leader of Jikando points to the spot on the Varwor River, where he spotted dead fish. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
By Varney Kamara
JIKANDO, Grand Cape Mount County – During the early morning hours of Monday last week, Mustapha Pabai, the town chief of Jikando, received a call from a neighbor that rivers in the area may have been poisoned. Pabai learned that dead fishes were floating in the Varwor River, where he and other villagers fish and fetch water.
After going there himself, there were dead fish everywhere on the waterfront. There was also the corpse of a hunting dog that had eaten some of the dead fish. Stunned by what he had seen, Pabai called local journalists and told them the news. Within no time, pictures of the dead animals began making rounds on social media.
The story of the apparent pollution has since drawn the attention of people from all walks of life, with authorities warning the villagers not to use rivers in the region. But it also brought hardship to already poor villagers, who live on hand-to-mouth fishing and use the rivers for drinking, washing and cooking. (Jikando is a Vai phrase for “up the river.”)
“We cannot do anything with the river here. [The Environmental Protection Agency] has stopped us from touching and crossing the river. They even stopped us from drinking from the only handpump here,” says Mustapha Pabai, town chief of Jikando. “As we speak, there is no fishing activity here. People are not cooking or washing with the river.”
Locals blame the pollution on a Bea Mountain Mining Company waste facility. The company has the facility right outside its New Liberty Gold Mine and has a connection to the Weaju River which forms a common boundary with the Varwor River in Jikando. It then empties into the Mafa River in Gormah, from where Pabai received that call about the pollution.
“I blame Bea Mountain for what happening because they are the only company close to us,” says Jeema Pabai, the wife of the town chief and leader of the women of Jikando.
“Our whole life has been carried backward because of this thing,” says James Kamara, an elder.
The controversial waste plant of the New Liberty Gold Mine is run by the Bea Mountain Mining Company (BMMC) outside Kinjor, Gola Konneh District, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
Bea Mountain denies any wrongdoing, saying in a statement a day after news of the pollution broke out, “that no abnormal conditions have taken place in its plant.
“There is also no discharge from the plant. All protocols in keeping with EPA guidelines and best practice are intact.” The statement added that the company was investigating the incident. The company has been distributing water in affected villages.
If the suspicion of villagers proves true, it would be the second time Bea Mountain operations would have led to pollution in that region. In this same month in 2016, spillage from the company’s waste facility polluted water sources in the area. The company at the time claimed at the time the incident did not affect people but villagers said it caused them rashes.
Also, in February last year, over 10,000 villagers in that region, including Jikando, filed a complaint against German and French banks DEG and Proparco, respectively, for their involvement in the New Liberty Gold Mine. The aggrieved villagers accuse the company of several things, including land-grab and water pollution. The outcome of this case is pending.
EPA said in a statement last week it was investigating the “gravity of the pollution.” Pictures posted to the agency’s Facebook page show its investigators inspecting the company’s waste plant, collecting water samples and photographing dead fish.
Pabai said he had to convince around a dozen villagers not to leave the town, asking them to wait for the findings of the EPA’s investigation.
Funding for this story was provided by the Green Livelihood Alliance (GLA 2.0) through the Community Rights and Corporate Governance Program of the Sustainable Development Institute. The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over the story’s content.
Abu Keita, a broker in Compound Number Three, Grand Bassa County, buys a kilogram of pangolin scales for at least US$2 and sells to traffickers for up to US$20. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Top: Abu Keita, a broker in Compound Number Three, Grand Bassa County, buys a kilogram of pangolin scales for at least US$2 and sells them to traffickers for up to US$20. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
BOPOLU, Gbarpolu County – Liberia is one of the countries of origin for the trafficking of pangolin scales worldwide amid a global ban on illicit wildlife trade (IWT).
Commonly called “ants bears” in Liberia, pangolins face extinction, with an estimated 300 individuals illegally extracted from rainforests every day worldwide, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
In an investigation covering nine counties, The DayLight has uncovered members of the syndicate that smuggles pangolin scales out of the country. It reveals everything about the crime: sources, trafficking routes, pricing and the organization of the cabal.
There are four layers of the syndicate, according to its members we interviewed and other sources.
The first is the collectors: hunters, farmers and villagers who are capable of picking up a live pangolin, killing and dipping it into boiled water to remove the skin. Pangolins are weird animals. Their only defense against predators is to roll up like a ball, their scales pointed outward, making them vulnerable to people. Scientists call them scaly anteaters because they eat ants, putting out their 10-inch, sticky tongue to lure insets. That is how it got the name “ants bear.”
“Ants bears don’t have a special road to travel on,” said John Sumo, a hunter in Sappimah, a town on the outskirts of Bopolu, the capital of Gbarpolu County. He had a live pangolin and scales of a dead one he was ready to trade. “They go into my traps sometimes. Sometimes, you see it walking on a stick. Sometimes you see it walking on the ground. Sometimes, I catch two or three in a week.”
The second comprises middlepersons, mainly villagers who store huge quantities of scales in their homes. Motorcyclists, taxi drivers, bushmeat sellers and motorists also form part of this tier.
The third is brokers, who in most instances do not live the area they work. Other brokers are shopkeepers, restauranteurs and people whose main job is to buy and sell pangolin scales
Traffickers—mostly Chinese, Guineans (Mandingoes), and Nigerians—conclude the fourth layer of the syndicate. But collectors, middlepersons and brokers change places regularly as possible, and it is also commonplace to find traffickers themselves, collectors.
Traffickers set the prices, while brokers adopt them, The DayLight found. Those prices are used for trading between brokers and traffickers for the most part, with the majority of the people we interviewed putting it between US$2 and US$20 for a kilogram of scales or the equivalent in Liberian dollars.
The majority of the trafficked pangolin scales originate from Gbarpolu, Nimba, Lofa, River Cess, Grand Bassa, Grand Cape Mount and Bomi. Montserrado, Nimba and Lofa host warehouses where the scales are stored before they are predominantly smuggled across Liberia’s borders with Guinea, according to members of the syndicate The DayLight interviewed.
Brokers, and in some cases traffickers, move the scales across various checkpoints countrywide, often unchecked.
‘Like gold’
A leading broker in the region between Grand Cape Mount and Gbarpolu is a woman named Sylvia Dehmai. The small-figure mother of three turned her back to a career in masonry back in 2018 and has established herself as one of the most notorious pangolin scales pushers. She is widely known as “Original,” first a reference to her breaking barriers in masonry and now her label on the black market. “I saw people doing the business and I was interested in it and that’s how I started it,” Dehmai told The DayLight in an interview in Virginia after we tried to locate her for months. “I saw it was profitable at that time and I joined it.”
Dehmai’s scouring for pangolin scales takes her from her Gold Camp home in the Lofa Bride area to communities adjacent to the Gola National Park in Kongba District, Gbarpolu County on a motorcycle or on foot. She buys from local hunters and farmers, she said. Sometimes, she contracts villagers for a commission on scales they gather.
Once Dehmai gathers the volume of pangolin she can pay for or the quantity available, she heads back to Gold Camp on a motorcycle. Depending on the size of the consignment, Dehmai often hires a driver, she said. She then takes the scales to Guinean or Mandingo traffickers in the Monrovia suburb of Somalia Drive, who pay her between US$10 and US$15 for a kilogram. “I will not lie, I am very interested in the business,” she said with a smile. “It is like a gold business. No credit in it. Cash, cash.” Attempts to track down the traffickers Dehmai mentioned and others our sources mentioned were unsuccessful.
Richard Nelson, an illegal wildlife trader in Bopolu, displays a pile of pangolin scales. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Dehmai is aware that her trade is illegal. Liberia’s wildlife law prohibits hunting and trading pangolins for their meat or scales, with violators facing a fine between US$250 and US$5,000 or a four to a six-month prison term. But she still manages to pass through checkpoints, claiming she bribes rangers of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) and other security personnel. On one occasion, she recalled she was allowed to go with pangolin scales after connecting a wounded police officer to a native healer in her community.
“It is hard but yet and still I want to do the business,” she said. They catch me oh, they don’t catch me oh, I will still survive.”
Evidence backs Dehmai’s story. Liberia is the fourth-largest hub for pangolin sourcing in Africa after Nigeria, Cameroon and Guinea in that order, according to a 2017 report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which published data from 2010 to 2015. With four of the eight pangolin species globally and home to over 40 percent of the Upper Guinea forest, West Africa’s largest remaining rainforest, the country is a target for global traffickers. A recent large seizure of pangolins in Cote d’Ivoire involves Liberia as a source country, said a 2020 report by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crimes (UNODC). As widespread as the crime in Liberia, not a single person has been prosecuted in nearly five years of the ban on pangolin poaching and no seizures have been recorded. The IUCN urges countries involved in the sourcing and trafficking of pangolins to make awareness against that international crime and, among other things, enforce their laws to eradicate it.
Dehmai is aware pangolins face extinction but believes that their scales can heal certain sicknesses. As a child in Ganta, Nimba County, she recalled her grandmother treating people with herbs made of pangolin scales. “I believe it is for medicine because when my grandmother was living, she used to use the black ants bears’ scale to make medicine for [people with hepatitis],” she said.
That same belief drives the demand for wildlife in Asia and Africa. Pangolin scales may have been used in China for thousands of years to treat a variety of diseases. In Nigeria, they are used to cure physical and psychological conditions. The belief has not been medically proven, though. Pangolin scales contain keratin, the same material in humans’ fingernails, hairs and animals’ horns, which are not used to cure any disease. China removed pangolin scales from its list of traditional medicine in 2020 in a bid to help protect the animal’s rapidly declining population. All four Asian species of pangolin are critically endangered, according to the IUCN.
While Dehmai’s operations are restricted to the Kongba District towards the Sierra Leone border, Gbarpolu is the base of another broker named Richard Nelson. The owner of a cooked-bowl shop or a rough-and-ready restaurant and a used-clothes dealer in Bopolu, the capital, Nelson is the only member of the syndicate The DayLight interviewed who buys both pangolin meat and scales. “It is a good business because I am benefiting from the meat and the scales,” Nelson told The DayLight.
Nelson’s ideal location makes him an important figure in pangolin-scales sourcing in Gbarpolu. The cooked bowl shop acts as a storehouse and the used clothes are an additional veil of his illicit dealings. His customers come from everywhere—from Gbarquoita and Sappimah nearby to Belle Fasama and Belle Kpalamu far away. They are not just villagers and other brokers but also anyone—“nurses and midwives who come to attend workshops here in Bopolu.” He said he buys a kilogram of scales for at least US$2.
Upon purchase, Nelson takes the scales to Monrovia via Suehn Mecca and sells them up to US$36 per kilogram. He makes a stop at the Duala market, where he trades with a bushmeat trader commonly called Ma Bendu. Efforts to track her down did not materialize.
A white-belied pangolin such as this one captured by John Sumo, a hunter in Gbarpolu County, has been declared vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
But Nelson’s main partners are Abdullah Kamara and another he only identified as Ansu, two Mandingo men or Guineans at the Red Light market. He said the men told him they smuggle the scales across the Guinean border from the Quardu-Gboni District in Lofa County. Guinea is a source country for large-quantity shipments of pangolin body parts, according to the 2017 report by the IUCN. It features permanently on the route from Thailand to the United States, where pangolin scales are processed into fine leather to produce designer shoes, belts and bags.
Apart from Nelson, The DayLight recorded other brokers of the criminal network in Gbarpolu but was not successful in meeting them. A man, aliased, Sidiki Fula operates in Belle Kpalamu and combs towns and villages towards Belle Yalla. Another broker nicknamed Marie Zebleh frequents the gold-mining community of Henry Town. Momo Freeman treads the same path as Marie Zebleh. And Moses Korboi bases in Zopo Hill.
‘The man with the ants bear scales’
The most prolific of all the members of the syndicate our investigation revealed is one broker townspeople called Gbalakala, for “the man with the ants bear scales” in Kpelle language. A resident of Doe Community outside Monrovia, he runs his own network of dozens of collectors, middlepersons and other brokers, including Nelson. Most of the members of the syndicate in Gbarpolu we tracked down said they had traded with him at least once. “As for me, only Gbalakala I can sell ants bear scales to,” one hunter in Gbarquoita, who did not want to be named fearing arrest, told me in 2019.
Born Mator Jiaway, the 36-year-old father of four started dealing in pangolin scales in 2015. He had graduated from the Seventh-day Adventist High School at ELWA Junction in 2010 and had had spells as a motorcycle taxi driver and a petroleum street peddler. He said he saw pangolin scales as a way out of poverty in one of the poorest countries in the world. “The country is hard, so we have to find a way to get our daily bread,” Jiaway said in a 2019 interview with me at his home. “If I don’t do this, my family will go to bed hungry,” he added, pointing to his wife and two of his children who were sitting by their makeshift home.
Riding a motorcycle, Jiaway scours nearly every village and town in Bomi and Gbarpolu for pangolin scales. Market days, a time set aside weekly for trading in rural communities, are his favorite. His alias is his secret code. Once he screams, “Gbalakala,” interested persons would come with parcels of scales. This reporter witnessed that in a town called Big Jebbeh in Bomi County.
Jiaway crosses checkpoints with ease as he moves through villages. I saw him pay bribes to guards at a checkpoint in Bopolu. He and motorcycle taxi drivers handed one of the guards L$100 each to let them pass, or as the guards put it, “to drop the gate.” They did the same at the checkpoint in a place called Sawmill on the Suehn-Mecca route, next to an FDA rangers’ station. Neither his load nor that of any of the other motorbike taxi drivers was searched. “When you reach any checkpoint, just give them their money, and you will pass,” Jiaway had told me in the interview. “I don’t worry about them.”
Jiaway said he has two destinations for his “goods:” one in Duala and the other at his house. If the package is large, he stores it at the place in Duala until he gets a car to take it to his home warehouse. If carriable on his motorcycle, he takes it straight home and alerts his trafficking partners to come and get it.
The traffickers are Mandingo men whose first names he gave as Abu and Adamai, a Sierra Leonean, aliased “China” and Chinese nationals. Calls to the numbers he provided for the Mandingo traffickers did not go through and Jiaway blocked my number not long after that.
Ruth Varney, the regional forester of the FDA, denies forest rangers were taking bribes from pangolin-scales smugglers. She blames pangolin trafficking in Liberia on insufficient rangers to combat the crime. “We need like two rangers at every checkpoint,” said Varney whose oversight covers Grand Cape Mount, Gbarpolu and Bomi. “Those traffickers use the bushes to transport pangolin scales and other wildlife materials.”
‘The virus stopped them’
Pangolin scales in Gbongay, a town in Zorzor District, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
The coronavirus pandemic slowed the pace of pangolin-scales trafficking in Liberia but not the hunting, our investigation also found. We saw many hunters with stockpiles of scales still awaiting buyers. The disease, which broke out in Wuhan, China in December 2019, and has killed 6.15 million people across the globe from 491 million cases, saw countries impose travel restrictions and quarantine measures. Based on seizure data, pangolin sourcing shifted from Asia to Africa starting in 2013, with China the chief destination, according to the UNODC report. In fact, from 2007 to 2018, over 50 percent of all live pangolins, dead ones and scales seized worldwide were destined for China, it said. Furthermore, scientists traced the root of the virus in Malaysian pangolins, imposing fear among traffickers already finding it difficult to move across borders, experts say.
A motorcycle taxi unionist with knowledge of wildlife trade in Liberia’s western region, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said, “The pangolin scales business [has] ceased,” adding his brokers and smugglers who were active in the Mano River and Bo Waterside border areas were doing other businesses.
Nelson in Bopolu said he has not seen Jiaway for over a year and that he was no longer in contact with the traffickers at the Red Light market. Jiaway’s phone rang for the first time in three years when I called him in March but he did not pick up the call and did not reply to my text messages for comments on COVID-19.
Dehmai said bugs had eaten some of the scales she had been keeping since her last transaction in 2019. She was trying to contact a bushmeat seller at the Waterside Market in Monrovia. The bushmeat seller—who only gave her surname, Betty, fearing arrest—corroborated the accounts we heard. “I used to sell it for people but nobody’s buying it again,” Betty said.
Marie Flomo, a woman in Gbongay, a town in Salayea District, Lofa County showed us a pile of pangolin scales she had been keeping for months. A broker named only Solo from Zorzor had given her L$2,000 to collect the scales for a L$500 commission.
Abu Keita, a broker in Compound Number Three, Grand Bassa County displayed four kilograms of pangolin scales he had kept in his shop for two years. “People used to come from Monrovia and Ganta to buy from me but the virus stopped them,” Keita said, adding the four-kilogram scales would have fetched him US$40 if not for the virus. “People say [the traffickers] do not travel [anymore].” He said he was piling-up scales, hoping traffickers from Monrovia and Ganta would come soon.
But there are a few active members of the syndicate weathering the storm of the pandemic. One of them is Alex Barbu, the owner of His Grace Pharmacy in the Compound Three market, not far from Keita’s shop. A middleman, he uses his drugstore to purchase for a Nigerian trafficker he did not name but said lives in Duala. Nigerians are the most notorious for trafficking pangolins and their body parts. Dutch publication Elsevier reported that 190,407 kilograms of pangolin parts seized between 2010 and last year came from Nigeria.
Due to the pandemic, Barbu said his purchases were restricted to black scales, a description that matches the Temminck’s pangolin and the black-bellied pangolin, two species found only in Africa, which the IUCN has declared vulnerable. He added he had asked sellers to continue to pile up the brown and yellowish scales until the business “reopens.” Those descriptions also fit the giant-ground pangolin and the white-bellied pangolin, the two other African species also declared vulnerable.
He told The DayLight the Nigerian trafficker had “pre-financed me before the pandemic and I am operating with another guy in Ganta.” Once he has 20 kilograms of scales, the unnamed trafficker comes and picks up the package, Barbu said.
Midway in our interview, a motorcycle taxi driver we interviewed in Gbi/Doru District, Nimba County walked in. The motorcycle taxi driver was selling scales he had bought L$200 from Timothy Cooper, a hunter in a village called Teah Town. Barbu paid the motorcycle taxi driver L$500 for his scales, telling The DayLight: “Before the pandemic, I used to buy such quantity LD1,200 or LD1,400.”
Alex Barbu, a drugstore owner in Compound Number Three, Grand Bassa County, is also a broker in the illegal trade of pangolin scales. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Top: Some of the seeds are on display at the fair. Photo credit: Community Empowerment for Change (CEC)
By John Dennis Weah, Jr.
COMPOUND NUMBER THREE, Grand Bassa County – Scores of farmers across Wee Statutory District in Grand Bassa County have displayed hundreds of seeds and their knowledge to preserve them at an agricultural fair organized by NGOs to raise awareness about local food production.
The farmers demonstrated new methods they use to preserve seeds, where they sunbake, instead of smoldering them. Some of the preserved seeds they displayed at the fair were cucumbers, peppers, garden eggs, eggplants and corns. Others were okra, water greens, groundnuts, tomatoes, pumpkins and watermelons.
The event was held at the administrative headquarters in Wayzohn City, Compound Number Three last week under the theme: “Promoting Local Seeds Preservation for Sustainable Agro Economy.” It was supported by Concern Worldwide Liberia and the European Union.
“The lack of quality productive seeds in rural communities across Liberia undermines the production of food and denies rural dwellers, especially children and mothers, the needed nutrition support to survive,” said Blojay Doe, the program officer of Community Empowerment for Change (CEC), one of two local NGOs that organized the event.
“The district seed fair sought to raise awareness on the need for local seeds preservation approach and showcase local interventions by some community members engaged in seed preservation,” Doe added.
Liberia has the weather and soil to grow different kinds of vegetable crops on a large scale for the local market. But farmers have been plagued by a number of challenges for generations, including access to seeds, tools and skillsets.
The farmers have asked for more support.
“We are benefiting a lot to get more seeds in our storage to plant during the next season nowadays, and it has helped us to even put some on the market to sell for others in need of planting,” said Alfred Joe, one of the farmers.
Lealia Andrews, the deputy minister for technical services of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that she took note of the farmers’ requests and would act on them.
“You talked a lot about Concern Worldwide Liberia giving you more practical training that you have shown here to us that I am happy about,” Andrews said, adding that the ministry would support them through training, projects, seedings and fertilizers.
“Next time I want it to be practical by going on the people’s farms stepping on the soil to see how they do it and see how we support them. So, I forward to the next agriculture fair to be held on the farm itself and not in the building. I am going to wear my Wellington boots to be on the ground myself.”
“We are really impressed with what the farmers displayed here, especially women about seeds preservation in the community,” said Saidu Mansaray of Concern Worldwide. “This will encourage us to give you more of our support in the process.”
Top: The International Consultant Capital has abandoned thousands of logs in the Gbi-Doru District. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
GBI-DORU DISTRICT, Nimba County – Sylvester Garsaynee might have been elected chairman of a group that represents the interest of locals in a logging concession in one of Liberia’s most forested regions. However, he has been welcomed by an estimated 5,000 abandoned logs and outstanding payments and projects, which burdened his predecessor in the last three years.
Between 2018 and 2019, the International Consultant Capital (ICC) felled the logs in the Gbi-Doru Administrative District and the Gbier & Gblor Chiefdom. But it abandoned the logs in the forest ever since amid a row with the community over a bridge, with the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) taking no actions mandated by forestry laws and regulations to avoid waste of the woods.
ICC had signed a social agreement with villagers in 2016 as part of its 25-year concession with the Liberian government in 2009, known across the logging industry as Forest Management Contract K or FMC-K Nimba. It covers 127,842 hectares in the northeastern county and extends 40,887 hectares in River Cess and 98,181 hectares in Grand Gedeh. The contract lasts for 25 years but affected towns and villagers must elect new members to their community forest management committee every five years and review their agreement with the company. That is how Garsaynee entered the fray.
“The first thing we are going to do is to make sure the logs are transported from the bush,” Garsaynee told The DayLight in a mobile phone interview from Glahn’s Town, the headquarters of the community forest leadership.
“After that, we will work with the company to make sure it pays the cubic meter fees, the scholarship fees and other fees it owes us,” he added. In forestry, cubic meter fees are the product of the total diameters of all the harvested logs and a particular rate set in an agreement, US$2.25 in this case.
The past leadership of the community had demanded the German company repaired the facility after a log bridge the company built collapsed. The metal passage over Gwen Creek connects the only other road in the area. But when efforts by the pair to sign a memorandum of understanding over the bridge failed, the community asked the FDA to auction the logs and share the proceeds with the community.
“We are of the conviction that those resources are meant to enhance the livelihood of the communities and to generate taxes for the national government,” Jerry Gbaye Sr., whom Garsaynee would replace, wrote in a letter to FDA Managing Director Mike Doryen in November last year. That request was not granted.
Though the logs are abandoned, it is much harder for them to be auctioned, according to FDA’s Regulation 116-17. Depending on their location, logs are abandoned if they are left unattended between 15 and 180 working days, the law requires. But the FDA can only auction it if no one claims them following months of the legal notice and a court warrant, which our investigation showed has not been done in this case.
The FDA investigated the situation itself in August 2020 as part of an “assessment of abandoned logs in concession areas in region three” (Grand Bassa River Cess and Nimba). It found that ICC had abandoned 3,066 pieces or 18,272.158 cubic meters of logs and that some of the unattended logs had been “sold to a local sawmill/mini-mart operator.
“Logging contract holders are not doing much to minimize the incidence of abandoned logs,” the report said at the time. “Much needed revenue that government requires for national development has been lost due to the unprecedented abandonment of the assorted round logs by logging companies.”
The DayLight could not independently verify the number of abandoned logs. The FDA denied us access to the company’s production record, despite forestry laws and regulations guaranteeing public access to such information. Gbaye and other community leaders we interviewed put the number to over 7,000 but did not show any proof.
Also, the FDA imposed no fines on ICC for abandoning the logs, a violation of Regulation 116-17. The regulation calls for grave penalties for an act that “intentionally or negligently causes any logs, timber or timber products to become abandoned.” Penalties include a payment three times the prices of the total volume of species of abandoned logs at the world market price and forfeiture of either a company’s harvesting or export certificate. Created in October 2017, the statute’s purpose is to minimize the waste of forest resources and compel legal compliance in the harvesting and shipment of logs, timbers and timber projects.
‘We are waiting’
In March, the community and company met to resolve their dispute, according to minutes of a mediatory meeting, conducted by the Liberia Timber Association, the FDA and the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee.
Chris Bailey, ICC’s representative at the resolution meeting in Glahn’s Town, accused the community of demanding the company to pay US$1 million before using the bridge, according to the minutes.
Gbaye denies that accusation, saying the amount was an estimated cost of the project, not a fee for the community.
Garsaynee said the company agreed to repair the bridge and conducted a feasibility study on the facility shortly after he replaced Gbaye. “We are waiting on them,” he said. “Everything is now in their hands.”
The DayLight has reached out to Cesare Colombo, ICC’s CEO, for comments. ICC is owned by the estate of the late Liberian businessman Mulbah Willie and the Liberia Wood Industry, a subsidiary of the Liberian Investment Association Limited and Nimarks International Corporation, the articles of incorporation of the companies show.
A log is seen with a chain of custody identification number in Forest Management Contract Area K – Nimba County the International Consultant Capital (ICC) operates. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Apart from the abandoned logs, ICC has failed to live up to a social agreement it signed with the community. It has not paved a major road linking Glahn’s Town to Dorgbor Town, Gbi-Doru’s headquarters. It has yet to provide four overdue handpumps as per the deal. It has ceased to pay an annual US$6,500 for scholarships since 2018 and has not held mandatory, quarterly meetings with locals since 2019, our investigation showed.
Beginning 2020, the community had written Colombo, FDA, and other stakeholders in the forestry sector on the overdue payments and projects, letters The DayLight saw indicate. In a letter to Doryen on April 16 last year, the community said ICC’s failure to meet up with its obligations “has posed a severe embarrassment to communities’ projects, [ongoing] construction and… projects that should have been already in process.” Overdue payment is a violation of forestry laws and regulations. It is a pre-qualification requirement for licenses, shipment permits, and a ground for the cancellation of contracts.
Bailey blames the company’s failure on illicit chainsaw millers and farming activities in the contracted forest, according to minutes of the mediatory meeting. He falsely claims that the Glahn’s-Town-Dorgbor-Town road is not in their agreement. “The road will commence from Glahn’s Town to Dorgbor Town in the second phase of the social contract…,” the agreement says.
There were signs things are not going as planned following the March meeting of the community and the company. The parties agreed in their Glahn’s Town meeting that they would have met in Monrovia by now to continue their settlement but that has yet to happen.
The FDA did not reply to our queries for comments. We wrote Doryen a letter to that effect in January this year but did not get a reply. That was after we had emailed the top managers of the agency on the matter in December last year. Weedor Gray, the technical manager of the community forestry department, also did not respond to queries regarding the outstanding meeting between the community and the company.
Funding for this story was provided by the Civil Society Independent Forest Monitors (CS-IFM). The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over its content.
Top. John Flomo, the chief officer of the Korninga ‘A’ community forest management body, is accused of mismanaging US$76,000.
By Henry B. Gboluma, Jr.
KORNINGA CHIEFDOM, Gbarpolu – The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has suspended the entire leadership of a community forest in Gbarpolu County for alleged mismanagement of funds.
Earlier this year, three members of the Korninga ‘A’ Community Forest were jailed for allegedly misusing $US76, 000 intended for social benefits but were later freed after the court placed a hold on the case to allow the FDA to handle the issue.
“Having listened to the chiefdom, and based on first-hand information gathered by our field office concerning alleged misuse of money paid to the community by the company, we hereby indefinitely suspend the entire CFMB,” said Weedor Gray, the technical manager for the department of community forestry at a recent meeting.
“This includes the [ members of the community assembly] and the Executive Committee members,” she added. Comprising representatives of affected towns and villages, the community assembly is the highest decision-maker in community forestry, while the executive committee takes action on behalf of the group.
The three men accused of corruption are Johnson Flomo, Austin Kamara and Dennis Flomo, They are the chief officer of the community forest management body (CFMB), and chairman and co-chair of the executive committee, respectively. The CFMB manages the community forest’s funds and projects.
They are accused of diverting the fund for their own use, thereby depriving the community of its benefit, a violation of the New Panel Code of Liberia, according to court documents. Covieyallah Investment Enterprise, which has had an agreement with the community since April 2019 for logging rights in its 48,296-hectare forest, had paid the money for the construction of schools, roads, and clinics in affected areas in the Bopolu District.
The men deny the accusation, saying they spent the money on motorcycles, training, a traditional ceremony, a Christmas party, fees for a lawyer and transportation to and from Monrovia.
Gray indicated that the suspended team would be prosecuted if an audit of the community forest’s fund found them guilty of corruption, adding that the move was a message to the rest of the CFMBs in the country.
George Sumo, the Paramount Chief of the Korninga Chiefdom, will now set up an interim team that will conduct the affairs of the community forest for six months, Gray said. She, however, said the community forests’ bank account will remain frozen until the interim leadership takes over.
“Through this team, we will work with partners and the seven affected communities to vet and establish a new CFMB to manage the Korninga ‘A’ Community Forest to benefit you, the community people,” Gray said.
The Community Rights Law of 2009 with Respect to Forest Lands, which empowers communities to manage their own forests, mandates only the executive committee of a community forest to take charge in cases of mismanagement of community funds but Sumo will occupy the position in the meantime, as the executive committee is implicated in the scandal. “So that is the reason we wrote a letter of no-confidence [in the entire leadership]
“So that is the reason we wrote a letter of no-confidence [in the entire leadership] to FDA for the all of them to be replaced and punished over it,” Sumo said.
Top: Indonesia exported US$26.3 million in palm oil and products made from the commodity to Liberia in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Varney Kamara
MONROVIA – Indonesia has banned palm oil exports, a move that will hurt Liberia, which imports the commodity and some of its products from that Asian country. The ban comes amidst the Russian-Ukrainian War, which has cut off supplies of wheat and other agricultural products from the two warring countries to Liberia and other places around the world.
Indonesia imposed the ban on Friday following a series of demonstrations over soaring food prices in the southeastern Asian nation due to the conflict in Ukraine. President Joko Widodo said the ban was to ensure there was food at home for its 278,704,795 people.
“I will monitor and evaluate the implementation of this policy so availability of cooking oil in the domestic market becomes abundant and affordable,” said Widodo as per the Reuters news agency. “This move is rather unfortunate and totally unexpected.”
The ban means that Liberia has to look elsewhere, as the West African country has been a major importer of palm oil and palm oil products from Indonesia. Data from 2020, the latest available, shows that the Asian state exported US$26.3 million to Liberia, including US$19.1 million in palm oil, US$2.59 million in soap, and US$1.04 million in margarine. In the last 25 years, Indonesian export to Liberia has increased from US$1.38 million in 1995 to US$26.3 million in 2020, representing an increment of 12.5 percent, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) visualizes data on global exports.
The ban is also going to have an indirect impact on Liberia.
Indonesia accounts for more than half of global palm oil supplies, producing 44,500 metric tons of crude palm oil last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That means supplies cuts for big companies such as Nestle SA which exports household products worldwide, including to Liberia.
In 2020, Russia and Ukraine exported a combined US$15.7 million to Liberia, according to Trading Economics, which provides global trade data and forecasts. But those supplies have ceased to come, as the two former Soviet states battle. Ukraine’s export has been halted as the war is on its soil, while Russia has been slapped with a barrage of international sanctions over its unprovoked war against its neighbor.
The world bank estimates that countries that import rice, corn and wheat will be hurt by global supplies spikes as a result of austerity measures in the U.S., structural slowdown in China and the war in Ukraine.
Top: Fog forms over a montane forest in Zorzor, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Gabriel M. Dixon
Today, the world celebrates Earth Day. Every year, people from more than160 countries across the world come together at different events to observe the day. This year’s celebration is being held under the theme: “Invest in our Planet” in recognition of the threats the earth faces, and to raise awareness against their causes. The day is also celebrated to call the attention of world leaders to the danger humanity is faced with and why we must stop the damage to our planet.
In 1969, US Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin, organized a demonstration to raise awareness about environmental issues in the United States of America. His action rallied individuals and organizations across the United States in support of his idea and led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency by the U.S. government. In 1970 the first Earth Day celebration was held commemorating the efforts of Senator Nelson. The historical event brought together 20 million participants. By 1990, Earth Day was an event celebrated by more than 140 countries around the globe.
The Earth, according to scientists, is about 4.5 billion years old. With a land surface area of 57.5 million square miles, the Earth is the only planet that supports life in the Milky Galaxy. There are now more than 7.6 billion people whose lives are being supported by our planet. But the earth is also home to other forms of life including plants, animals, and insects. Along with humans, the planet hosts 8.7 million different species that make up its biodiversity.
But the planet is under serious threat and its survival depends on what its inhabitants must do to save it. Evidence provided by scientists shows that the greatest threat to the planet is “global warming, ”which is a rapid increase in the average surface temperature of the Earth. This warming and cooling lead to different climatic conditions around the world, such as average rainfall, and temperature which happens over a long period of time. Throughout its history, the earth has warmed and cooled itself. But the last 20 years have contributed more to the warming of the earth than any other period in human history. This is because of the many different pressures being driven by human activities such as industrialization, the use of fossil fuels, and deforestation. Scientists agree that deforestation, which is the clearing of land for agriculture, mining, industrial, construction, and other purposes, along with forest degradation now constitutes 10 percent of climate change worldwide.
In Liberia, forests are being knocked down at an alarming rate. In the last 20 years, the country has lost 4.8kha (kilo hectares) of its forest cover to deforestation, though it prides itself on having the biggest remaining rainforest in the Upper Guinea region. Despite the government passing laws that protect and safeguard forest and land use, the management of natural resources to prevent unsustainable practices and environmental crimes, illegal logging and bad practices by agriculture companies are hindering the realization of commitments it made to the rest of the world. Government corruption and lack of openness are fueling ugly practices that are pushing up climate change impact on rural communities and negatively affecting the livelihoods of poor farmers and fishermen across the country home to much of the world’s diverse array of plants and animals and provide essential natural resources from timber
As we celebrate World Earth Day, we call on the government of Liberia to double its efforts to combat climate change. The government has to ensure that the right policy actions are taken and robust enforcement mechanisms are adhered to by duty bearers in line with its commitments to the world. In this way, the government will be “investing in our planet.”
A stream in Bondi Mandingo Chiefdom in Bopolu District, Lofa County. The DayLight/Harry Browne
Top: Different sections of the Invincible Sports Park. Picture credit: Knewsonline
By Gabriel M. Dixon
Monrovia – It illuminates the open landscape of the runway of the James Spriggs Payne Airfield. It is coated in sparkling green with courts for basketball, tennis, and volleyball, a small playground and a parking lot. It even contains a museum that pays homage to the glittering football career of President George Mannah Weah. The Invincible Sports Park is a marvel of recreational beauty.
But an investigation conducted by The DayLight shows the park breaches international aviation standards. It is right within the runway end safety area (RESA), which is the area beyond the end of a runway that is meant to reduce damage to aircraft when picking off or landing. The area enhances the safety of airplanes and it provides greater accessibility for firefighting and rescue equipment during airport incidents.
“An object situated on a runway strip which may endanger aeroplanes should be regarded as an obstacle and should, as far as practicable, be removed,” according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN body that sets global standards for the aviation industry. In aviation, the runway strip is the combination of a runway and the runway end safety area.
“No fixed object, other than visual aids required for air navigation or those required for aircraft safety purposes and which must be sited on the runway strip,” the ICAO recommendation continues.
Though the safety area of the airport does not meet ICAO’s recommended standard of 240 meters, it met the mandatory minimum standard requirement of 90 meters. However, that dimension has now been reduced.
The spot at which the Invincible Sports Park now sits is infamous for aviation accidents, further raising concerns about its safety. In August 1994, a Douglas DC-9 belonging to ADC airlines carrying 82 passengers and 9 crew members, crashed exactly at the spot while landing. Four other plane crashes are associated with the airport: another ADC airliner in 1995, one in 1996 and two others earlier on in 1978 and 1989.
President Weah is firm that his decision to construct the glamorous park in the safety area of the airfield despite the location’s tragic history. He told the opening ceremony of the park last week the project had claimed his attention to repairing the airport.
He said: “I have therefore directed the Liberia Civil Aviation Authority (LCAA) and the management of the airport to draw up plans and to develop a feasibility study for the upgrading of this facility, including the extension of the runway in the direction of the swamp, in order to enable international jet traffic to operate from Spriggs, and the construction of a new access road for both passengers and cargo.”
Weah might have justified the controversial location of the park. However, he opened another Pandora’s box regarding safety and the environment. Expending the runway strip into the mangrove swamp would violate Liberia’s Environmental Protection and Management Law. The law prohibits people from building in wetlands. Furthermore, the swampland the President spoke of is part of the Mesurado Wetlands, which is a protected area under the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty that protects such environments worldwide. Wetlands serve many purposes, including a buffer against storms, a nursing ground for aquatic species and a hideout for endangered species. The Liberian government will have to show the project would not have a negative impact when that time comes in accordance with the law.
At the start of the park project last year, President Weah had said that the park had “no interference with the airport. The plane will come, the plane will pass, [and] the plane will land,” Weah said in a viral video posted to Facebook in December last year.
Weah even argued against the commercial status of James Spriggs Payne Airport in that post. “Even the airport they talked about, [planes] come here every five years. It (the James Spriggs Payne Airport) is not a commercial airport. So, here we are, it has nothing to do with the airport,” he said.
Contrary to the President’s claims, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) regard the airport as suitable for commercial flights and the only other paved runway in Liberia, second only to the Roberts International Airport. Spriggs Payne Airport handled limited international flights despite safety concerns during the war. Scheduled commercial flights resumed in 2008. The airport underwent a major renovation in 2012 and began commercial flights under former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Elysian Airlines and ASKY Airlines provided services from Monrovia to Banjul, Accra, Freetown, Lagos, and other West African cities. But these small carriers have since stopped flying to Liberia due to airport safety concerns. Mission Airlines Fellowship (MAF) currently uses the James Spriggs Payne Airport for domestic flights.
People scavenge the wreckage of the crashed ADC Airlines in 1994, exactly where the Invincible Sports Park now sits. Photo credit: Getty Images/ Patrick Robert-Corbis
The park is the latest twist in a long tale of how successive governments have handled safety standards at the James Spriggs Payne Airport since its establishment in 1950. Situated in the densely populated district of Sinkor, three miles from central Monrovia, it has had its own share of the ineptitude of the Liberian political landscape.
In the late-1970s, President William R. Tolbert, Jr opted to improve the facility. The government at the time erected a metal fence and barred unauthorized access in a bid to keep it compliant with international best practices. It conducted a feasibility study and planned relocation of adjacent communities, including Wroto Town, Lakpazee, Tweh-Johnsonville and Key Hole. But that plan never happened, as he was overthrown about this same time in 1980 by future President Samuel K. Doe.
It was during the regime of President Doe that football became a feature of the airfield. The metal fence erected by his predecessor was vandalized and looted. It became a practice ground for the Invincible Eleven Football Club (IE), with whom, Weah began to ply his trade to international superstardom. Not just football, the airfield was misused, as it became a major footpath that connected the Sinkor communities of Airfield and Old Road. It was sued for open defecation and a dumpsite.
Peacekeepers of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) did not help the situation. The airport became a military target for Charles Taylor’s rebel forces. In 1992, the airport was hit multiple times by rockets that destroyed dozens of aircraft and damaged its runway and terminal station.
Those abuses continued during the regime of President Charles Taylor, who closed down the airport in June 2002, on grounds that it was close to his Congo Town residence.
In 2012, the administration of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf erected a concrete fence around the airport and basic rehabilitation works were completed to bring it to international standards. A signboard at the current location of the Invincible Sports Park brandished the inscriptions: “No Flying Kites” and “No Playing Football.”
A graphic showing important details about the James Spriggs Payne Airfield. The DayLight/Gabriel M. Dixon
