Home 2023

Deputy Foreign Minister Runs An Illegal Logging Company

April 16, 2023

Top: A drone shot of logs in a log yard just outside Greenville, Sinoe County. The DayLight/Derick Snyder

By Eric Opa Doue and James Harding Giahyue

Deputy Foreign Minister for Administration Thelma Comfort Duncan Sawyer controls Tetra Enterprise, a logging company operating in a community forest in River Cess County. That is according to documents The DayLight obtained, and her lawyer

That violates the Liberian laws, including the Constitution, the Code of Conduct for Public Officials and the National Forestry Reform Law

Sawyer could well be the owner of the Tetra. Her lawyer claims her family established Tetra as a “fallback position.” The company is legally owned by a woman named Annabel Morris. However, Tetra has a bearer share that is held by an unregistered individual

Liberia’s Business Association Law prohibits bearer shares, which means the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has illegally approved Tetra’s operations

The company in question owes communities affected by its operation, failed to live up to its agreement with villagers and has abandoned a huge volume of logs

GOZOHN, River Cess – In October 2020, President George Weah appointed Thelma Comfort Duncan Sawyer, the manager/proprietor of Tetra Enterprise Inc., a logging company, as the Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister for Administration. Eight months later in June 2021, the Liberian Senate confirmed her.

But even after assuming office, Sawyer has continued to run Tetra Enterprise’s operations in the Garwin Community Forest of River Cess County’s Morweh District, communications between Sawyer and the community forest’s leadership show. The letters discussed managerial issues: a new agreement, delayed payments, abandoned logs, and failed projects Tetra had promised in their March 2017 agreement for the 36,637-hectare forest.

“On behalf of the community and my family, we [wholeheartedly] welcome you back to Liberia,” read one letter Rev. Benison Sackor, the head of the Garwin Community Forest’s leadership, wrote to Sawyer on November 16 last year.

“Things have been so tied in your absence. We are pleased that you are here,” it added. Frank Nimmo, the chairman of Tetra’s board of directors, replied to Sackor’s letter on Sawyer’s behalf eight days after.

In an interview with The DayLight, Sackor said he addressed every communication for Tetra directly to Sawyer, who “instructs” it what to do. His comments were corroborated by other members of Garwin’s leadership, including Rev. Harry Gueh, the head of its executive committee, the highest decision-making body. William Yeasay, the public relation officer of Tetra, confirmed Sawyer took major decisions for the company.

Running a company while holding a government position contravenes a number of Liberian laws. The National Forest Reform Law debars members of the cabinet from conducting commercial forestry activities. Violators of the law face a fine between US$10,000 and US$25,000, up to three times the sum they received from their companies or a prison term of up to 12 months. Sawyer’s relationship with Tetra is a conflict of interest, a breach of the Liberian Constitution and the Code of Conduct for Public Officials. Penalties for this breach include a suspension or a dismissal.

“[A conflict of interest] hurts a country or any organization because the person having a such conflict of interest is likely not to be objective, but to put [their] personal connection or interest above the collective,” said one lawyer, who asked not to be named.

Former Interim President of Liberia Dr. Amos Sawyer and his wife Thelma Comfort Duncan Sawyer, Deputy Foreign Minister for Administration, created Tetra Enterprise Inc. to bring in extra income for the family, according to Stephen Kai, Thelma Sawyer’s lawyer. Thelma Sawyer runs Tetra Enterprises, which operates in the Garwin Community Forest in River Cess County, according to documents obtained by The DayLight. Picture credit: The Liberian Embassy in the United States.

Sawyer, who has a faculty lounge named after her at a college at the University of Liberia honoring Dr. Amos Sawyer, her late husband, has a history of alleged dishonesty with Garwin. Sawyer had lost a bid to acquire the forest in 2016 Xylopia Incorporated, a company with her registered shares. A 2016 media report and a 2018 Global Witness report alleged she bribed and coerced villagers to sign a deal at the time. The media report by Mongabay alleged Xylopia paid villagers US$150, alcohol and rice for the villagers’ signatures.

In forestry, villagers own adjacent forests and have a right to co-manage them with the Forestry Development Authority (FDA). Illegally, Sawyer’s Xylopia had signed a memorandum of understanding with Garwin even before it legalized that right. The parties agreed that “It is clearly understood that no third party will come between the people of Garwin and Xylopia… It is also understood that Xylopia is the only company that will work with the people of Garwin.” The FDA terminated the deal following a protest. Global Witness used the incident to highlight how businesspeople were undermining community forestry, which was created to benefit locals.

Eventually, Tetra, co-owned by a Liberian woman named Annabel Morris, won the bid for the forest, with harvestable trees covering 96 percent of it. The Global Witness report also alleged Tetra, backed by county authorities, bribed villagers to seal the deal.

‘Fallback Position’

It was unclear how Sawyer ended up at Tetra but there are indications the widow of the fallen Chairman of the Governance Commission co-owns it. The Global Witness report cited unnamed villagers who claimed Tetra was the same as Xylopia. The DayLight obtained two January letters from the Office of the Acting Paramount Chief of Garwin Chiefdom that provide some clues. One of the letters addressed Sawyer and the other Senator Wellington Geevon Smith.

“We write to formally complain to you about the behavior of Tetra, a Logging Company which you introduced to our community as your corporation…,” the letter that addressed Sawyer read. The other one to Smith also restates Thelma Sawyer had allegedly brought the company “to harvest Garwin Community Forest.” Smith did not pick up our call.

Stephen Kai, Thelma Sawyer’s lawyer, claimed that the Sawyer family had created the company as a familial contingency project. “The old man (Dr. Amos Sawyer) decided to establish something as [a] fallback position whenever he [reached] the age of retirement,” Kai said. “[Thelma Sawyer] was doing nothing, so her husband decided, ‘Look you have to do something to see how we can generate extra incomes.’”

The Office of the Paramount Chief of Garwin Chiefdom recognizes Deputy Foreign Minister Thelma Duncan Sawyer as the owner of Tetra Enterprise Inc, co-owned by an unregistered person. Stephen Kai, her lawyer, backs villagers’ claim she co-owns the company, adding her family had established it as a “fallback position.” The company’s only known co-owner is a woman named Annabel Morris, who served as its general manager in 2018.

A page of a handwritten complaint chiefs and elders filed with Monweh Magisterial Court in River Cess County to halt Tetra’s logging operations in the Garwin Community Forest.

Tetra’s Secret Shareholder

Tetra’s shadowy ownership apparently supports Kai’s claims. Morris holds 51 percent of the company’s shares, 19 percent are reserved and 30 percent are bearer shares, according to the company’s article of incorporation. Bearer shares are shares whose holders are not registered or named. Firms pay dividends to the holders of the bearer shares based on an arrangement between the company and the bearer shares holder.

Kai may have simplified Tetra’s complex, shady ownership but he contradicts other facts about the firm. Thelma Sawyer already had Xylopia when Tetra was established, suggesting the Sawyers may have created the latter firm to get Garwin, not generally for extra income as Kai puts it.

But Tetra’s bearer shares make it ineligible for forestry activities in the country, anyways. The Business Association Law as amended in 2020 prohibits bearer shares in Liberia. It compelled firms in the country to convert such shares into registered shares as of December 31, 2020. The change in the law was part of a global effort to abolish bearer shares, which can lead to terrorist financing and tax evasion. It reinforces the reform agenda of Liberian forestry, which debars certain individuals from commercial logging, including human rights violators, embezzlers and fraudsters. It also renders the FDA’s approval of the company’s operations in the last two years and today illegal.

Kai did not comment on the bearer share issue. He, however, said Sawyer had stepped aside and the “day-to-day activities of the company are now being handled by her sister-in-law Esther Sawyer, sister to the late Dr. Amos Sawyer.” He added Nimmo, another relative, had been appointed as the chairman of the company’s board of directors to avoid a conflict of interest.

“We advised her as lawyers and she in fact said to us, ‘Look, any communication or any contact, you deal with… Esther.’ And so that we are aware of. But [did she communicate] that to all the stakeholders? No, I can’t say that,” Kai added. Efforts to get comments from Esther Sawyer and Morris—Tetra’s general manager in 2018, according to FDA records—were unsuccessful.

The involvement of Esther Sawyer and Nimmo with Tetra still remains a violation of the forestry law. Individuals who companies-linked officials have control over are barred from commercial logging activities, too. The law requires government officials to transfer their shares or roles in a company to a blind trust or someone outside their control, not relatives. A blind trust is a firm that manages’ people’s businesses to avoid conflicts of interest.

The FDA again broke the law and the Regulation on Bidders Qualification to authorize Tetra’s operations with the Sawyers’ relatives. The regulation requires to disapprove of logging contracts connected with government officials—or their relatives.

Thelma Sawyer or her relatives aside, the FDA would have broken the regulation if Thelma Sawyer is actually one of Tetra’s owners. Though bearer shares were legal in Liberia in 2017 when Tetra was created, the regulation mandates the FDA to get a full list of companies shareholders. Then the agency can tell whether or not the companies’ owners are on its debarment list.

In 2021, the FDA approved Tetra’s harvesting plan amid conflicts between a map of the plan and another plan for its entire five-year operations in Garwin, according to a report by SGS, a Swiss firm that co-manages Liberia’s log-tracking system. Interestingly, Tetra harvested 4,264 that year it would abandon based on FDA records. The FDA did not respond to emailed questions for comments on this story.

Unfulfilled Promises and Abandoned Logs

Tetra’s bearer shares and links to Thelma Sawyer do not conclude the company’s illegalities.

Tetra has abandoned a large volume of logs. Between 2018 and 2021, Tetra harvested 46,729 cubic meters of logs and only exported just 18,690 cubic meters, according to the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI). Thus, it abandoned 28,039.6 cubic meters of logs, based on The DayLight’s analysis of the LEITI records. It owed US$70,574.93 as of March 31, last year relating to its operations, minutes of a high-profile meeting of forestry actors at the time show.

Tetra has begun work in Garwin in the absence of a new agreement. That is against the Community Rights Law of 2009 with Respect to Forest Lands that created community forestry. The law calls for companies to review their agreements with communities every five years before felling any other trees.

Tetra has not lived up to its agreement with Garwin. As per the agreement, Tetra should have constructed 18 handpumps in Garwin’s 15 towns and villages within its five years of operations. It only constructed two, according to locals. It also failed to build a school in the area, supply drugs to community clinics and build bridges.

Chiefs and elders have lodged a complaint with the Moweh Magisterial Court. “Six years have gone and the company failed to implement the provisions of the contract,” the April 7 complaint read. “We write to seek your intervention to stop all logging activities by the company until the contract is reviewed.”

The Story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

People Flee As Elephants Destroy Homes and Farms Searching For Food

April 10, 2023

Top: Elephants have roamed towns and villages in Grand Cape Mount County in the last five years. The DayLight/Harry Browne

By James Harding Giahyue

Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a series on the human-elephant conflict in Liberia.

GBANJALA, Grand Cape Mount County – Daniel Sando and his family live in a roadside house on the route to Lofa Bridge. The other people who lived here moved to other communities after elephants overran their farms for several years.

“People have been migrating that is why you see the town poor like this. If I can assume, more than 50 people have left the town,” says Sando, a resident of Gbanjala in the Gola Konneh District. He used to be a farmer but years of loss of his crops turned him into a charcoal maker.

“[The people who have left] have been advising us to leave but we don’t want for government to see that people [are] migrating,” Sando tells The DayLight at his charcoal worksite.

Evidence of the elephants rampaging lay bare in Gbanjala. There are trampled potato gardens, uprooted orange and mango trees with stripped barks, and even the ruins of a mud-brick hut.

The same thing is playing out in Norman Village, a few miles away. Families have pulled out of the community, including one earlier this year, according to residents.

Varney Gopee, an elder of Manna Clan in the Gola Konneh District, whom people call “town owner,” arrives. Gopee takes my motorcycle-taxi driver and me to his farms—actually, the ruins of his farms.

Drone shot of Gbanjala in Gola Konneh District, Grand Cape Mount County, a frontier of the human-elephant conflict in Liberia. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

In no time, we get to damaged farms that are divided by an old road leading to Bo Waterside. Gopee guides us on a tour of the one on our right, the one with more “devastation.” Loads of elephant dung decorate foliage of uprooted plantain and banana bushes and pineapple plants. The towering mammals had raided Gopee’s farms just days earlier.

“The people who fled the village did so because of the same devastation,” Gopee says. He holds up an elephant dung he picked up minutes earlier beneath a few remaining plantain trees. He says the family had relocated to a place called Morgan Farm.

“They said they cannot live here without farming because that is their livelihood,” Gopee adds.

Varney Gropee, an elder of Manna Clan in Grand Cape Mount’s Gola Konneh District, holds up an elephant dung in the remnants of his farm in Norman Village. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Gbanjala and Norman villages might be two of the most recent settings elephant ravaging of villages. However, Grand Cape Mount County has been a frontline for years of what conservationists call the human-elephant conflict. Media reports suggest the earliest incident of the crisis may have occurred in 2005, and the situation intensified in the last five years.

There are no official casualty figures so far. However, several persons and elephants have been killed, a great number of crops eaten or crushed, and homes damaged. Varguay and Gbanjala are on the front. Benduma, Mafala, Managodua, Kpelle village and Bassa village feature high on the list. Conservationists say there are between 350 and 450 elephants in the region.

‘They came too soon’

Varguay, also in Gola Konneh, is likely the hardest-hit community. The herd of elephants has eaten mango trees and munched on the barks of other trees. The farms around the town and backyard gardens feature regularly on their menu. The annual destruction of their crops has compelled farmers to become miners. Some of its residents now work as casual laborers elsewhere. Others have sworn to never return, according to Manna Jallah, the town chief of Varguay. He says a family had seen a herd of the tusked, unwelcomed visitors a few days ago in their garden.

A villager displays a cassava shrub elephant uprooted in November 2019 in Varguay, Grand Cape Mount County, probably the hardest-hit community in Liberia’s human-elephant conflict. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

______________________________________________________

More on Elephants:

Elephants Raid Farms Around Proposed Park

Villagers Excited After Seeing Two Elephants in Grand Gedeh

Test Shows Device with Honeybee Sound Drives Away Elephants

_______________________________________________________

“Some people are going to the other town called Gohn,” Jallah says. “They [left] the whole Varguay and they’re living there. About 20 people have moved.”

It turns out, Mafala and Benduma are rivaling Varguay for the unfortunate profile of the battlefields this year. Though elephants have visited these communities before, residents have seen them regularly this year.

“When they came they passed through the river and entered the farm,” says Aaron Quaye, a 40-year-old farmer in Benduma in the Porkpa District. The Mafa River separates his plantain farm from Mafala. The elephants have visited Quaye’s farms three times a year, crushing pepper and garden eggs in pursuit of plantain and banana trees. The herd leveled the crops to the ground on its third visit there.

“I am worrying this year,” he adds.

Mary Johnson, 59, Quaye’s neighbor, suffered the same fate. A herd of elephants ravaged her farm in Mafala three days ago, and a friend spotted them again this morning. “And they get a certain system in them when they eat your food…, they will dig some and park it for you just like a human being,” Johnson says.

But Johnson’s farm is not the worst hit in Mafala. It is Oretha Garhanah’s. When Garhanah saw a pile of cassava two days ago, she feared someone had stolen her crops. She cried out loud, calling the attention of adjacent farmers. It was after another farmer spotted an elephant dung that she realized it was the giant-sized mammals. They had paved a road through the farm, trampling her crops.

“This year [they came soon],” Garhanah tells me at her farm next to Johnson’s. “In previous years, it came during harvesting time or rainy season time.”

Garhanah is just one of many farmers in that area whose farms the herd damaged. Elephant dungs decorate the remnants of the farms. There are more crushed crops than standing ones on the farm belonging to a woman named Adama Kromah. The same goes for Junior Brownell, Momo Smallwood and Arthur Sackie. The elephants left behind their footprints in a swamp nearby Sackie’s farm.

Aaron Quaye, a farmer in Benduma, Grand Cape Mount, stands on his farm a week before a herd of elephants cleared it in search of food. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Farms’ ruins and locals’ accounts match the behavior of elephants, which eat up to 375 pounds of food daily. An adult elephant can drink up to 55 gallons of water in less than five minutes, according to Sea World Parks, a U.S.-based park company established in 1959. Elephants are also fond of mud, which they use for protection against the raging sunlight and parasites such as bugs and ticks.

Dung, Despair and Death

Years of elephant disturbances have led to anger among villagers. In a meeting in early 2022, a preacher put elephant dung on the table for government officials to smell. Rev. Francis Pratt was angry that the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) had allegedly failed to protect them from the elephants.

Oretha Garhanah points to elephant dung on her farm in Mafala in Gola Konneh District, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

“The feces were right on the ground I took it and I said, ‘See—this the odor—how stink it is?’” Pratt recalls. “‘You can see we’re bearing this and then every day you say you’re coming.’”

There is currently no official policy to address compensation for villagers who have lost properties in the conflict. Abednego Gbarway, the head of the FDA’s wildlife department, did not respond to emailed questions. Saah David, the national coordinator of REDD+, says the FDA is working with actors in the sector to mitigate the human-elephant conflict in the country. REDD+ means reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation among other things.

The Pratts’ misfortunes typify the casualties of Varguay in this crisis. After leaving farming in 2018, Rev. Pratt started backyard gardens but the elephant pursued them. His mother, Yassa Zaza now lives in Monrovia, conceding to years of loss of her crops. His daughter, Famatta Pratt, and her husband, James Mulbah, also experience regular raids on their gardens. Like her father, Famatta Pratt has been outraged.

“I will kill the elephant so that they can put me in jail, and feed my children,” an angry Famatta Pratt told me in 2020. “That is the only way they will come to our rescue.”

That feeling resonates with many farmers here, among them George Fayiah, a 28-year-old farmer in Mafala. He lost a large farm with rice, pumpkin, corn and cassava overnight. “If no way for [the FDA] to help us, then we will find means to get rid of [the elephants],” Fayiah says.

Such threats could be more than rants, as people have been killing elephants in Liberia for decades. In 2018, an elephant killed a man named Simeon Henry near Varguay. The clinic next to the Pratts’ residence announced him dead upon arrival. The following year, an elephant reportedly wounded by a poacher killed an elderly man in Gbarma, Gbarpolu County. In October 2021, two men allegedly killed a pair of tuskers in Lofa, according to the Liberia News Agency (LINA). LINA also reported two years earlier that police arrested a hunter for “killing” four around the Sapo National Park in Sinoe. Liberia has banned the killing of elephants in a move to protect the animals. Offenders face up to US$10,000 or a maximum four-year prison term.

Hunting elephants alongside logging, mining and agricultural activities that encroach on elephants’ territory are root causes of the conflict, according to conservationists. They have contributed to the reduction of the elephant population in Liberia, other parts of Africa, and Asia. As the result, African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are now critically endangered.

“There are too many human activities in the forest,” says Dr. Tina Vogt of the Elephant Research and Conservation (ELRECO). The German NGO based in Liberia works in the region, which hosts a bevy of mining licenses and logging contracts and a horde of artisanal loggers. It has trained 296 farmers

“We need to give the animals a rest and the space,” Vogt adds.

Goat, Horn and Honeybees

Locals say they have tried several methods to drive the elephants away but have not succeeded. Farmers have burned old tires and peppers, clanged pots, beaten drums, blown horns and bleated like goats.

People here believe bleating like a goat can scare away the elephants. Local legend has it that a goat defeated an elephant in an eating tournament way back, with the latter fearing the former ever since. The elephant, the story goes, finished up a huge pile of food in no time. The goat, on the other hand, kept chewing effortlessly up to the next morning and was declared the winner. However, as interesting as the story is, it appears, the elephants of Grand Cape Mount place their survival above any folklore.

Elephant raids are taking a toll on livelihood in towns and villages, farmers say. The United Nations estimates that 70 percent of Liberians depend on agriculture. Amid climate change, the elephants’ raids make it much harder for rural communities to survive.

“Elephants have spoiled all these things,” says Mammy Liberty of Bassa Village, who lost an eight-acre rice farm earlier this year. “I have three children; they dropped from school because I have no support.”

An old artisanal mine along the Mafa River in Porkpa District, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Vogt says farmers may need to understand the problem better. In 2021, ELRECO started a program in northern and western Liberia and has now trained nearly 300 farmers in human-elephant-conflict mitigation methods. She says the methods have proven to work, and if they do not work, it is mostly because the methods are not applied correctly and persistently. She added farmers need to apply the elephant-repelling methods better, adapt to living with the animals as they do with other animals, and change their way of farming.

“They need to apply these methods seriously,” Vogt, whose NGO works with farmers in Gbanjala, tells me in a WhatsApp interview. “The animals are precious, it’s a problem both for humans and the animals.”

A piece of good news for the farmers, ELRECO has found the sound of honeybees repels elephants. A YouTube video shows an eating elephant leaving a location in Gbanjala after hearing a buzz from a device. Elephants may be giants but they are afraid of insects, Vogt says.

“We hope to come out with some very affordable sets of this audio device then we can release out on bigger scale to the farmers that they can deploy them on their farms,” she says. “It’s a very small tool and it’s easy to use also.”

Funding for this story was provided by Wild Philanthropy with the support of the Elephant Protection Initiative Foundation (EPI). The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over the story’s content.

Logging Company In Sinoe Abandons Likely 7,000 Logs

April 7, 2023

Top: A drone shot of Mandra`s log yard where hundreds of abandoned logs lay bare in Greenville, Sinoe County. The DayLight/ Derrick Snyder

By Mark B. Newa

GREENVILLE, Sinoe County – Mandra Forestry Liberia, Limited, an Asian company, abandoned an estimated 7,000 logs it harvested between 2019 and 2021, according to The DayLight’s analysis of official records.

During the period, Mandra produced 6,944 logs but exported none, our analysis of records of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) shows. Mandra harvested the logs in the Sewacajua Community Forest in Sinoe County, where it has operated since 2017.

During the 2019-2020 harvesting season, when the global timber market dipped due to the coronavirus pandemic and the U.S.-China trade war, Mandra harvested over 4,500 logs.

This journalist saw huge heaps of logs at Mandra’s log yard in Greenville in January. A good number of the wood brandishing “Sewacajua,” spread across the quiet field had already decayed. Earthmovers and timber jacks were at different positions.

Under Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products, logs should be declared abandoned when they remain at a location between 15 (three weeks) and 180 working days (about six months). By this definition, Mandra abandoned all the logs in question latest June last year.

Our calculation did not include trees Mandra cut in 2018, some parts of 2019 and last year. The Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI) was unclear on Mandra’s production and export figures covering the period. Moreover, the FDA does not publish these records and did not grant The DayLight’s request for the information, a violation of several provisions of forestry legal frameworks. Subsequently, we obtained the information for this story from elsewhere.

Mandra’s abandoned logs are likely to be higher than 6,944. The company co-operates in two large-scale logging concessions in River Cess and Nimba Counties. The LEITI did not separate Mandra’s Sewacajua figures from the two other concessions. A 2020 investigation report by the FDA found that Mandra and its partner EJ &J Investment Corporation abandoned 65 first-class logs in River Cess.

Mandra Plantations Liberia Limited of the Virgin Islands owns Mandra’s largest shares (99.7 percent), according to its article of incorporation. Sio Kai Sing, a Malaysian, holds 0.1 percent of the shares; Tea Sin Sing, also a Malaysian, has 0.1 percent; and Tang Kwok Ben, a Hong Konger, holds the remaining 0.1 percent. It signed a 15-year agreement with the Secawajua Community Forest, covering 31,986 hectares in Sinoe’s Seekon, Pyne, Wedjah and Juarzon Districts.

A collage of logs Mandra abandoned at its log yard in Greenville, Sinoe County. The DayLight/ James Harding Giahyue

Mandra`s campsite in Secawajua, Sinoe County in 2018. The DayLight/ James Harding Giahyue

Abandoned Logs Regulation

Augustine Johnson, a Liberian who serves as Mandra`s general manager, wrongly claimed that the logs in Greenville were not abandoned because they had a long lifespan and that he had already paid taxes for them.

“Before you talk about abandonment. I am expecting a ship to come to Greenville by the second week in next month to get the logs out,” Johnson told The DayLight in a phone interview.

“Apart from logs that are to be shipped, I can take logs for my own domestic use, I can take logs to saw into pieces and even bring it to Monrovia to…build my campsite. The ones that rot are used for domestic purposes,” Johnson added.

A former FDA geographic information system (GIS) technician, Johnson’s comments are not backed by facts. Payment of taxes is a requirement to obtain a log-export permit. However, taxes have nothing to do with the abandonment of logs. Rather, abandonment largely depends on the time logs stay at a particular location, according to the regulation. For instance, the woods in Mandra’s log yard in Greenville should have only stayed there for 180 days, the same as the ones Johnson said were at the Port of Greenville. Also, the FDA would have to reenter the logs in question into the FDA log-tracking system called LiberTrace.

Johnson is adamant about his wrong understanding or lack of awareness of the regulation. “The logs been there for over 30 working days doesn`t matter, or been there for I80 days it doesn`t matter. They are all Ekki logs with a huge lifespan,” Johnson said and hung up the phone. He had insisted on educating this reporter, not the other way around.

The FDA did not answer questions The DayLight sent to the agency for comment on this story. This journalist sent the email on March 30 to Managing Director Mike Doryen, copying Joseph Tally, his deputy for operations.

The regulation mandates the FDA to investigate the alleged abandonment of the logs in seven days after notification. Thereafter, it must declare the logs abandoned, petition a court to auction the wood and fine the company involved. If the company claims, it must pay administrative fees and redeem them. The FDA established the regulation in 2017 after provisions of another regulation proved not enough to prevent the waste of forest resources.

But despite years of notifications, including one from within the agency, the FDA has failed to take any legal, public actions. Last year, it said it would begin the process to auction abandoned logs during the dry season but has not done that. The situation has led to a loss of revenue for the Liberian government—and the media.

A 2020 FDA investigation found companies were abandoning logs because they were harvesting logs without first finding buyers. It also blamed irregular monitoring, lack of logistics for field officers and poor road networks for the problem.

“Logging contract holders are not doing much to minimize the incidence of abandoned logs,” the report said. “Much needed revenue… has been lost due to the unprecedented abandonment of the assorted round logs…”

The story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

Test Shows Device with Honeybees Sound Drives Away Elephants

April 5, 2023

Top: Men install BuzzBoxes at a farm. Picture credit: Elephant Research and Conservation

By Mark B. Newa

MONROVIA – For years, villagers mainly in northwestern and southeastern Liberia have lost their crops to invading elephant herds. This makes it difficult for farmers to feed their families and meet other needs.

Now, conservationists working in Liberia have found that a device armed with the sound of honeybees can repel elephants. The scientists from the Elephant Research and Conservation (ELRECO) tested the audio device in Gbanjala, a town in Gola-Konneh District, Grand Cape Mount County.

Video footage posted on YouTube shows an elephant stopping to eat when it hears the buzz of insects placed in the mounted device. In a few seconds, the animal folded its trunk, hurriedly took a few steps backward and raced away.

“It is the first time we test this device now in West Africa, seeing that it really works to have this evidence that it really works,” Dr. Tina Vogt, ELRECO’s technical director, told The DayLight in an interview.

“At the moment we [are] extending the testing phase so we work together with some Liberian entrepreneurs to improve a bit on the censor, the mechanism, the release mechanism,” Vogt added.

ELRECO, a German nonprofit based in Liberia, is currently testing the device in Liberia. It is collaborating with Save the Elephants (STE) to deploy the BuzzBox. It costs around $100, the New York Times reported. STE is a UK-registered charity based in Nairobi, Kenya.

New Contract for Rogue Company’s Owner

April 4, 2023

Top: A collage showing Iroko harvesting activities in October 2022. Picture credit: Iroko Timber and Logging Corporation

By Emmanuel Sherman

KARQUEKPO, Sinoe County – The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has approved a contract for Iroko Timber and Logging Corporation, a new Nigerian-owned company, to operate the Central Dugbe River Community Forest. The company began logging in the fourth quarter of last year, according to its website and Facebook page.

But there is a problem with Iroko’s Dugbe River deal and operations in the 13,193-hectare forest. Timothy Odebunmi, Iroko’s majority shareholder, is not eligible to conduct logging activities in Liberia over the dishonesty of another company he co-owns.

That firm, Akewa Group of Companies, falsified the tax clearance of a mining company called Tiger Quarry to bid for the Gola Konneh Community Forest in Grand Cape Mount County in 2019. At the time, Akewa paid US$1,000 as a fine for the forgery, a violation of the Revenue Code. Odebunmi holds 50 percent of Iroko’s shares and 20 percent of Akewa’s, according to the articles of incorporation of both firms at the Liberia Business Registry. Iroko’s other shareholders are Samson Odebunmi (45 percent) and Akinsiku Arinkan (5 percent). Abigail Funke Odebunmi (60 percent) and Kenneth Amazeika (20 percent) complete the list of Akewa’s shareholders.

Odebunmi’s co-ownership of Akewa, Iroko, which he co-founded in 2021, should have disqualified the Iroko’s bid for Central Dugbe River. The Regulation on Bidders Qualifications bars individuals whose companies have been convicted or penalized for theft, embezzlement, bribery, tax evasion, false swearing, or forgery. With Akewa having paid a fine for forgery, Odebunmi should not have gotten another logging contract until 2024, according to the regulation.

Akewa with Odebunmi as a shareholder has violated a horde of provisions of forestry laws and regulations. One of the oldest active logging companies, Akewa long line of violations includes its involvement in forestry’s worst post-conflict scandal, in which the FDA criminally awarded 2.5 million hectares of forests to it and other companies. It has a track record of prolonged indebtedness to communities. Currently, it is in an out-of-court settlement with the Beyan Poye Community Forest regarding benefits.

Iroko’s Woes Amid FDA’s Failure

Iroko’s agreement with Central Dugbe River adds to the FDA’s records of failure to enforce forestry legal frameworks. Before then, the FDA had failed to disqualify Akewa over fake tax clearance, which also constitutes perjury under the regulation. It remains Akewa’s only active logging operation, with the Beyan Poye legal issues and the cancelation of a logging contract the company illegally held in Grand Bassa County.

“We prevented Akewa from doing further business until they could provide [their] tax clearance,” said Managing Director Mike Doryen in an interview with The DayLight in June last year. “They rectified it and they paid a fine and that’s how we resumed business with them.” The Bidders Qualification Regulation requires the FDA to disqualify companies that commit forgery and perjury. It did not respond to emailed inquiries for comments.

A screenshot of Iroko’s website page showing logs the company harvested in October 2022 and only transported to another location in February

Assessing the qualification of companies is an important provision of forest management in Liberia. It mandates the FDA to investigate the character of companies and individuals, their financial capacities, and their record of legal compliance.

Iroko’s ineligibility has started to show in its operation. It has abandoned an unspecified number of logs it harvested in October last year. Photographs and a video posted to the company’s website and Facebook page show some of the logs in the forest. Akin George, a representative of the company, confirmed the harvesting in a mobile interview in March.

Logs do not remain where they were harvested for more than one month and two weeks upon harvest, according to the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products. The logs in question have remained in the forest far beyond that statutory period.

George said the company was taking the logs from where they were harvested to another location in the forest. Bartee Togba, the head of the Central Dugbe River’s leadership, said the same. Togba said Iroko began to transfer the logs in late February, some four months after it felled the trees. The forest is a portion of 39,000 hectares and includes a proposed protected area between Grand Kru and Sinoe.

The Dugbe River Community Forest map. Credit: Forestry Development Authority (FDA)

Iroko’s logs add to thousands of abandoned logs across the country, with the FDA taking no known public actions. The abandoned logs regulation mandates the agency to investigate, seize the logs and petition a court to auction them. Penalties for the offense include fines and forfeiture of the contract.

The total volume of the logs, in question, is essential for Iroko to pay the community’s benefits. Last year April, the community signed a 15-year commercial use contract with Iroko Timber Logging Corporation. It promised to build two elementary schools, handpumps, guesthouses and a clinic.

Efforts to establish contact with Timothy Odebunmi did not materialize. There is no trace of his phone number, email address or WhatsApp. In January, George promised to get Timothy Odebunmi to speak to the issue but failed to do so.

George evaded several attempts for an interview on the situation on behalf of the company. The DayLight reached out to George through phone calls and Facebook messages and WhatsApp text messages but to no avail.

The story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

Logging Company Paid US$1,000 Fine For Forgery in 2019, Document Reveals

March 30, 2023

Top: A drone shot of Kpelle Village, one of the communities affected by Akewa’s operations in the Gola Konneh Community Forest. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By Emmanuel Sherman

MONROVIA – In 2019, Akewa Group of companies, a Nigerian firm operating in Margibi and Grand Bassa County at the time, forged another company’s document to acquire a new logging contract. The Liberia Revenue Authority investigated and found Akewa guilty of forgery. However, it remained unclear what punishment it took against the company.

Now, it has emerged Akewa paid a US$1,000 fine for falsifying a tax clearance of Tiger Quarry, a mining firm, according to the receipt of the payment. The DayLight had requested the document in a follow-up to an investigation report it published last year.

“The LRA professional ethics division (PED) conducted a full-scale investigation into the matter. The PED… recommended that Akewa Group of Companies pays the legitimate fine of US$1,000 in consonance with the Liberia Revenue Law,” said Kaihenneh Sengbeh, LRA’s head of communications. Akewa made the payment on April 16, roughly one month after the scandal. The receipt categorizes the payment under “fraudulent clearance” penalty.

Akewa had presented the fake document to acquire the Gola Konneh Community Forest, a 49,179-hectare of forestland in the Gola Konneh District of Grand Cape Mount County.

Akewa Group of Companies paid a US$1,000 fine for forging a tax clearance belonging to another company.

The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) approved Akewa’s bid, breaking Liberian laws, including the Regulation on Bidder Qualifications. It bars a company or its affiliate who has been convicted or penalized in the last five years over forgery, bribery and other morality-related offenses.

FDA Managing Director Mike Doryen wrongly justified the agency’s decision in an interview with The DayLight mid-last year. “We prevented Akewa from doing further business until they could provide [their] tax clearance. They rectified it and they paid a fine and that’s how we resumed business with them,” Doryen said at the time.

Liberian laws require harsh punishments for forgery. Under the National Forestry Reform Law, a person faces a 12-month prison term for the offense or a US$10,000 fine, or both. That person faces up to five years in prison under the Penal Code for lying under oath.

Akewa is one of the forestry’s most delinquent companies. In 2012, Akewa participated in the Private Use Permit (PUP) Scandal. The FDA awarded an estimated 2.5 million hectares of forestlands to fraudulent logging companies in forestry’s biggest postwar scandal. It had received a contract meant for only Liberians three years earlier.

Akewa is currently in a settlement with Beyan Poye Community Forest of Margibi County for the cancellation of its contract with locals. Three Nigerians co-owned the company: Abigail Funke Odebunmi (60 percent) Kenneth Amazeika (20 percent) and Timothy Odebunmi (20 percent).

This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ).

Lawmaker Campaigning Against Miners ‘Unaware’ Of His Company’s Illegal Mine

March 29, 2023

Top: A drone shot of a zircon sand mine in Greenville, Sinoe. The DayLight/Derick Snyder

By James Harding Giahyue and Gerald C. Koinyeneh

MONROVIA; GREENVILLE – In late January, Representative Tibelrosa Tarponweh of Margibi County District Number One accused Liberia Mineral Export Inc. of violating a suspension of its mining operations in Marshall, Margibi County.

“This is causing [a] serious environmental hazard for our people,” Tarponweh told members of the House of Representatives at the time, requesting the body summoned the Minister of Mines and Energy Gesler Murray. “What we want is our people must be protected, irrespective of our individual financial interests. This company is operating illegally.” The House’s joint committee on mines, energy and environment, and judiciary is investigating the matter.

But an investigation by The DayLight found Tarponweh, too, co-owns a mining company with a Chinese national in Sinoe County. The lawmaker holds 15 percent shares in Jatoken Mining Inc., according to the company’s article of incorporation at the Liberia Business Registry. Tarponweh is also the firm’s registered agent, an individual who serves as a point of contact. Jianjun Huang, a Chinese national, holds the remaining 85 percent of the company’s shares.

Named after Tarponweh’s hometown in River Gee, Jatoken runs a semi-industrial-scare or a class B mine in the Sanquian District, records of the Ministry of Mines and Energy show. It also holds a gold dealership license and has held other licenses after Tarponweh became a lawmaker in 2017.

Interestingly, Jotoken mines zircon sand, the same mineral the Liberia Mineral Export is extracting in Margibi, which drew Tarponweh’s criticism. Moreover, Jatoken’s mine falls within Liberia Mineral Export’s 151-square-kilometer gold exploration license area, stretching from Butaw all the way to Sanquain along Bafful Bay. Both firms are two of at least four mining zircon sand, a black mineral used in the ceramics and electronics industries. STT Heavy Mineral Resources Ltd and Tetra Mineral Resources Limited complete the quadruple, based on the ministry’s online, public records.

Tarponweh’s ownership of the active company violates Liberian laws. The Minerals and Mining Law of 2000 bars lawmakers from holding shares in companies actively mining. The Liberian Constitution and the Code of Conduct for Public Officials also prohibit such a conflict of interest.

Tarponweh and Jianjun established Jatoken in May 2014, about the same time Tarponweh famously advocated for the rights of communities adjacent to a facility where Ebola victims were being cremated. That helped spur his ascendency to the House of Representatives, defeating 20 other candidates in a tight Margibi District Number Two race in 2017.

In an interview, Tarponweh claimed he did not know Jatoken was still operating after his election to the National Legislature.

“Your enquiry has opened up another investigation: I have just established that Mr. Jianjun Huang, who has 85 percent shares has been operating the company without my knowledge,” Tarponweh told The DayLight.

A collage of pictures showing Jatoken bagging zircon sand at the Port of Buchanan, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/Johnson Buchanan

The ministry said Jatoken filed a new article of incorporation that removed Tarponweh as its shareholder just after he became a lawmaker. The document and the tax payment records show Tarponweh was replaced by Abdullah Mohammed on July 3, 2019.

“They brought a board resolution amending the shares distribution and their article of incorporation. They brought that with their business registration certificate,” said Assistant Minister for Mines Emmanuel Swen in a phone interview.

“With that, Tarponweh shares were transferred to another person. That shareholder resolution that they brought, Tarponweh name is on it with his signature affixed,” Swen added.

Tarponweh denies he signed any paper, accusing Jianjun of forging his signature. “My lawyer has taken charge of the situation. The action of Jianjun Huang is criminal. My name has been used to generate thousands of dollars,” Tarponweh said.

Swen said the Ministry of Mines would investigate if the Margibi legislator lodged a complaint. “If Tarponweh is not the one who signed, there is still a room,” Swen told The DayLight when asked about Tarponweh’s accusation. “He must [inform the ministry] that… his signature was forged. Then the ministry can act.”

‘Loopholes’

Jatoken did not register the change to its legal documents at the Liberia Business Registry, based on the Business Association Act. The law requires firms to enroll their legal documents within the registry and get a business registration certificate. It helps the government combat everything from conflict of interest and money laundering to tax evasion and terrorist financing.

Apart from the 2019 illegal amendment, Jatoken amended its article of incorporation once more on September 29, 2021, according to its tax payment record. Again, it did not file that change with the business registry. The Ministries of Mines and Foreign Affairs did not grant The DayLight’s request for a copy of that document.

Swen conceded that the ministry could have averted the Jotoken scandal had they checked with the Liberia Business Registry before honoring changes to Jatoken’s legal documents. The mining law requires the Ministry of Mines and Energy to verify the validity of firms’ documents before granting them mining rights.

“We have not been contacting the Liberia Business Registry to further investigate these documents,” Swen added. “We learn from some things that happened. You know the governance process is such that as you encounter one thing, you put into place measures to close the loopholes.”

“Anointing” is one of the boats that transport Jatoken’s zircon sand from Sinoe to the Port of Buchanan. The DayLight/Johnson Buchanan

Signature forged or not, the ministry awarded Jatoken a class B license on September 18, 2018, according to official records. That was nine months into Tarponweh’s legislative term and one year seven months before Jatoken unlawfully made changes to its shareholding. The mining law requires government officials with shares in companies to surrender their stakes or place them in a blind trust before assuming office. A blind trust controls public shares to avoid conflicts of interest.

Moreover, in his interview with The DayLight, Tarponweh claimed Jatoken was not mining zircon sand before he became a lawmaker. That claim is not backed by facts. Jatoken obtained a zircon sand prospecting license in 2015, the ministry’s official records show. The ministry awarded it a class B mining license for the mineral the following year and later archived it.

But Tarponweh’s shares are not Jatoken’s only eligibility issues. Foreign nationals must reside in Liberia and obtain resident and work permits in order to hold majority shares in a class B company, according to the mining law. Jianjun, Jatoken’s majority shareholder, has never obtained a resident or a work permit, the company’s tax payment records show. None of Jatoken’s foreign workers or representatives has obtained a work permit in nearly 10 years of the company’s existence. By law, the ministry should check companies’ owners, staff’s work and resident statuses, and financial history among other things, before awarding class B licenses.

It was unclear how much volume of zircon sand Jatoken has produced. However, between 2020 and 2022 the company paid just US$48,000 in mining-related fees, Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) records show.

Our reporter who visited Jatoken’s mine in January saw a trail of equipment, including earthmovers and wheelbarrows. Sandbars and holes and mounds of zircon sand adorned the area. Workers bagged the mineral and transported it to Buchanan, Grand Bassa via boats. Some of the boats that transport the mineral are “Anointing,” “God Knows” and “Iron State.”

Photographs taken at the Port of Buchanan show men uploading 25-kilogram bags with zircon sand. One port source said workers pack 50 bags of the mineral in a single container. Another source said workers transport scores of containers with the mineral to the Freeport of Monrovia weekly.

Jatoken did not return questions for comments on this story. We contacted three of the company’s representatives between February 26 and early this week. Earlier this month, a female representative promised to comment once she returned to Monrovia from Sinoe. She stopped responding to calls and WhatsApp messages ever since.

[Mark Newa and Johnson Buchanan contributed to this story]

Funding for the story was provided by the Green Livelihood Alliance (GLA 2.0) through the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI). The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over the story’s content.

The Turkish Illegal Loggers And Their Government Partner

March 28, 2023

Top: A truck offloads Askon Liberian General Trading Inc.’s planks on Gompa Wood Field in Ganta on November 11, 2022. The DayLight/Gabriel M. Dixon

By Mark B. Newa

Askon Liberia General Trading Inc., a Turkish-owned forestry company, runs at least one illegal logging operation between Ganta and Sanniquellie in Nimba County. It smuggles timber out of Liberia in containers, making use of online business platforms and social media

Assistant Minister for Trade Peter Somah aided the company in smuggling expensive wood to India that cost over US$19,000, according to an illegal export permit The DayLight obtained. The money did not go into the Liberian government coffers, according to official records

Askon also trades planks on the local market in Ganta, a business meant solely for Liberians

Local Authorities shut down Askon’s operation in November 2022 over community benefits

The rangers of the Forestry Development Authority not far from Askon’s worksite claimed they were not aware of its operations

ZULUYEE, Nimba – Last November, local authorities ordered a Turkish company to halt its logging operations in a forest between Ganta and Sanniquellie.

The Office of the Superintendent in Sanniquellie said Askon Liberia General Trading Incorporated did not have a logging contract and did not pay benefits to communities adjacent to the Garr-Mongbain Community Forest. Askon had come to Zuluyee in 2020, harvesting valuable redwood. The decision of county authorities followed some two years of residents’ anger over the company’s operations and suspicion it was illegally harvesting.

“The company did not come to us here,” said Faliku Kromah, a liaison and political affairs officer in the Superintendent’s office. “They passed the other way and went to do their thing in the forest.”

The local authorities were right. Askon does not have a legitimate contract to log in Liberia. It runs an illegal logging cabal that involves four Turkish nationals and several Liberians, including an official of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. That is according to Askon’s legal documents, official tax payment records, an illegal export permit and pictures from social media.

In addition to breaking forestry laws and regulations, Askon violated immigration and labor statutes, depriving Liberia of much-needed revenue, the tax records show.

‘See you soon… Turkey’

Askon began with a series of visits by a Liberian named Sylvester Suah to Turkey between November 2015 and December 2016, based on Suah’s Facebook page. Suah, a native of Nimba, held several meetings with his hosts and returned to Liberia. “See you soon, Istanbul, Turkey. Monrovia Liberia here we come…,” a December 1, 2015 post reads. “This is our own way of saying goodbye to each other my friend and business partner.”

By November 2017, Askon was established. It is owned by three Turks of the same family—Hasan Uzan (80 percent), Yeter Uzan (10 percent), and Faith Uzan (five percent)— according to the company’s article of incorporation. The remaining five percent of its shares are outstanding. The document was amended on September 14, 2020, but has not been enrolled at the Liberian Business Registry, a breach of the Business Association Act.

In a WhatsApp message to The DayLight late last year, Suah appeared to justify Askon’s illegal dealings. “I brought those people to Liberia for us to do bigger business but our country people in authority have their own way of delaying people’s progress,” Suah said while in Ghana to get a visa for another visit to Turkey. “That’s [why] you see it is starting that local way… to see how we will be treated before we can… expand.”

Sylvester Suah takes a selfie with four Turkish men in Istanbul, Turkey on November 24, 2015. That was Suah’s first trip that was instrumental to the establishment of Askon Liberia General Trading Inc., a company conducting illegal logging activities in Nimba. Photo credit: Facebook/Sylvester Suah

Askon’s operations in Nimba go back to 2019 when it signed an agreement with the Gba Community Forest in the Sanniquellie area. Askon agreed to pay US$35 per cubic meter of the logs it harvested on a 45-acre plot of land in that area, according to the agreement. It was unclear what happened thereafter, as there are no official records of it, except for a USAID report.

Today, Askon operates in Zuluyee, in the Yarpea and Garr-Mongbain forest region between Ganta and Sanniquellie. At its campsite, our reporter saw chainsaws, mobile sawmills, a 30-horsepower diesel tractor, several trucks and a bulldozer. Its workforce is between 10 and 50 workers, according to Lesprom, a Russia-based wood-trading platform on which the company trades. The region and the rest of Nimba account for 315,000 hectares of tree cover loss between 2001 and 2021. Only Bong County lost more (363,000 hectares), according to Global Forest Watch, which monitors forests across the world.

“The company is using a mobile saw that clears a large portion of bush and trees in seconds,” one chainsaw operator said, asking not to be named.

“The company is cutting trees all over here. All the trees will soon finish from here,” a community leader added under the same condition.

Five other people buttressed the operator and community leader. Photographs our reporter took show planks and thick, sawn timbers, commonly called “Kpokolo” at Askon’s campsite. Also called block wood, the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) recently banned kpokolo, as it became synonymous with illegal exports.

Pictures Hasan Uzan posted to his WhatsApp profile suggest kpokolo activities. One picture showcases squared timbers made from expensive wood stacked in containers and on wooden platforms. Another picture shows men uploading timber into a container truck. And one shows a variety of tree species with different colors. The profile reads: “Tropical timber center Askon sawmill, Monrovia, Liberia.”

Askon has exported different species of processed timber that are shipped to Asia and Europe, according to Global Wood Trade Network, a leading marketplace for timber and wood products. Askon’s LinkedIn account also identifies it as an export and import company, and it trades on other online marketplaces.

Illegal Permit

A permit The DayLight obtained shows Askon exported two 20-foot containers of ekki wood in October 2020 at US$9,900 each. Ekki wood or Azobe is a durable redwood used in shipbuilding and outdoor construction. It sold for US$293 a cubic meter on the international market that year, according to the International Timber Trade Organization. Askon sold the consignment to Green Wood, a firm in India, according to the document. Efforts to get comments from the company were unsuccessful.

There are other legality woes. Hasan Uzan is a resident of the Police Academy in Paynesville, according to Askon’s legal documents. However, Askon’s tax payment records show that he and Umit Gungor, a fellow Turkish national, have never obtained a resident or work permit. (Gungor came to Liberia on January 25, last year) That is a violation of the Aliens and Nationality Law and the Decent Work Act. Work and resident permits are prerequisites to conducting commercial logging in Liberia.

Assistant Minister for Trade at the Ministry of Commerce Peter Somah, signed the illegal document. Somah awarded the permit outside of Liberia’s timber-tracking system called LiberTrace. National Forestry Reform Law and Regulation on the Establishment of a Chain of Custody System bars trading timber outside LiberTrace. A pillar of Liberia’s forestry reform, the system tracks timbers from their sources to their final destinations, verifying legal requirements. It is a foothold of the country’s international timber trade, following decades of civil wars and mismanagement.

“No person shall import, transport, process, or export unless the timber is accurately enrolled in the chain of custody,” the law provides.

“Holders of forest resource licenses comply with all legal requirements facilitating the accurate assessment and remittance of forest charges and keeping illegal logs of the domestic and illegal markets,” according to the regulation.

Furthermore, the US$19,800 Askon paid for the two containers did not go to the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) as required by law, according to Askon’s tax payment record.

The Somah-issued Askon permit is unlawful, as it lacks features legal permits contain. It has no tracking barcodes and is not signed by the FDA’s legality verification department (LVD) and SGS, a Swiss firm that created the system. And it is not rubberstamped by the Managing Director of the FDA Mike Doryen.

In an interview with The DayLight, Somah sidestepped questions about the illegality of the permit, providing a lecture on trade instead. Then he displayed a file of papers he said were permits he had approved. Similarly, efforts to have him address a set of emailed follow-up questions four months later proved unsuccessful.

A screenshot of a container of sawn timber or kpokolo from the WhatsApp profile of Hasan Uzan, an illegal Turkish logger.

Assistant Minister of Commerce Peter Somah awarded an illegal export permit to Askon Liberia General Trading

Illicit activities have rocked the forestry sector in the last three years or so. A recent Associated Press investigation found that Liberian officials appeared to collude with illegal loggers to export timber. Citing diplomatic documents, the report said Liberia may have a “parallel system” to the legal channel for timber exports. In January, a court indicted a former police chief, a customs officer, and three rangers over an illegal export deal. The policeman had been dismissed before the indictment.

FDA rangers—George Gaye, a ranger assigned at the Ganta checkpoint, and Bah Kromah assigned at the Guinea border—said they were not aware of Askon’s operations.

“The lack of mobility is hindering my operation as I am not able to patrol or visit nearby forest communities,” Bah Kromah told The DayLight in September last year. However, Askon’s operation site is just a 15-minute drive from Ganta and is an open secret in that region.

‘I need my money’

The villagers, too, said they were initially not aware of Askon’s harvesting their trees. “When we heard about this, we quickly called them to bring their equipment back to town,” recalled James Tokpah, an elder in Garr-Mongbain.

Thereafter, the villagers demanded Askon sign an agreement with them, according to several townspeople The DayLight interviewed. In the end, the illegal loggers promised to pay the community US$1,500 for every 1,000 pieces of timber, which Askon did not pay. That sparked anger, leaving local authorities to shut down its operations late last year.

By November, Askon’s world was crumbling down. In addition to the villagers, it owed its workers and petroleum dealers, according to Hasan Uzan. One of the workers said, “I need my money to pay my school fees and rent.”

Suah declined to make further comments on the story, despite accepting an interview months earlier. He lunged into The DayLight for protecting the interest of the international community, and not companies. “When I am ready, I will write my own story,” he said at his home in Ganta.

A mobile sawmilling machine producing illegal block wood in the forest. The DayLight/Gerald Koiyenneh

Askon’s campsite and some of its sawn timber or kpokolo. The DayLight/ Gerald Koiyenneh

Hasan Uzan, Askon’s majority shareholder, denied exporting timbers with the permit when The DayLight tracked him down in Zuluyee. He refused to make further comments, referring our reporter to Suah, who he claimed was Askon’s owner.

On November 11, last year, The DayLight witnessed a truck Askon owns or hired offload planks for sale on the Gompa Wood Field in Ganta. One of the dealers, who preferred anonymity, said that the company frequently sold planks there. That breaks the Chainsaw Milling Regulation, which prohibits foreign nationals from selling planks in Liberia.

[Gerald C. Koinyeneh contributed to this story.]

The story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

Bassa Clan Begins Final Stage to Get Land Deed

March 27, 2023

Top: A drone shot of Compound Number Two in Marblee Clan, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By Esau Farr

COMPOUND NUMBER TWO, Grand Bassa County – Between 2019 and last year, Marblee Clan completed most of the steps in legalizing its customary land ownership, failing to harmonize boundaries with its neighbors.

Now, it has an opportunity to solve that problem and receive a deed following the launch of a new project over the weekend. The “Keeping the Promise” project targets Marblee and 38 other communities across eight counties. Parley Liberia, a Bong County-based NGO, Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), and the Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI) will assist the communities. The International Land and Forest Tenure Facility provided US$3.56 million for the three-year project.

“We want you to get your land deed,” Dr. Raymond Samndong, Tenure Facility’s lead campaigner for Liberia, told a short ceremony in Compound Number Two, Grand Bassa County. “If you don’t have land, you don’t have an identity.”

“Communities need their deeds and that is the focus of this project,” said Gregory Kitt of Parley Liberia, the NGO directing the project.

Marblee Clan stopped at the boundary harmonization stage over disputes with Karblee and Gogowein, its western and eastern neighbors, respectively. Its dispute with Karblee Clan is over an area covering 2, 057 hectares of land, while the disputed land with Gogowein spans 264 hectares.

Under the Land Rights Act, communities must cut their boundaries with their neighbors. After that, the law requires the Liberia Land Authority (LLA) to conduct an official survey to grant their deeds.

Alexander Cole, FCI’s land rights campaigner, told The DayLight the NGO was talking to the Liberia Land Authority to assist in resolving Marblee’s land disputes. Cole said they would train members of the clan’s governance body known as the community land development and management committee (CLDMC).

Bendu Darsure, a women representative of the community stated that “The coming of the project into our community has made some of us know our rights to properties, especially land.”

Permit Shows FDA Boss Approved Illegal Timber Exports

March 25, 2023

Top: The Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) Mike Doryen blamed villagers for illegal logging. However, Doryen awarded an unlawful permit, according to a document The DayLight has obtained. The DayLight/Mark B. Newa

By James Harding Giahyue

MONROVIA – commenting at an international forest and climate conference in January, the Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) Mike Doryen blamed loggers and villagers for certain illegal forestry activities.

“These communities are undermining our efforts to deal with violations,” Doryen told delegates at the event.

“People go in the communities and take money from other people to harvest and transport timber to town, harvesting double board-foot outside what is required by law. It is illegal logging,” Doryen added. He meant compact, squared woods, smuggled in containers, which has rocked the logging industry to its core. The industry calls it “kpokolo.”

Ironically, an export permit the FDA awarded to a company years back, obtained by The DayLight, suggests Doryen himself is an architect of the illegal trade.

Doryen and Edward Kamara, the FDA’s manager for forest product marketing and revenue forecast, issued the permit to Trans World Holdings Inc. outside the legal channel to export timber.

“This is to confirm that Trans World Holding Inc. has met the Forestry Development Authority annual timber and timber products buying and exporting registration requirements as a non-contract holder in accordance with sustainable marketing strategy and the enterprise development,” read the document, signed only by the two men, in April 2021.

The permit shows a stark variance from the ones created by the FDA chain of custody system called LiberTrace. For instance, the document was valid for a year, unlike legal permits that are issued on a shipment-by-shipment basis. It contains at least one human error, something the legal permits are free of. It is the same as a permit Doryen awarded to an Ivorian-owned firm named Porgal, exposed in an investigation last year. The LiberTrace system is Liberia’s sole safeguard for the trading of legal timber on the international market.

The Trans World permit Doryen approved goes against the National Forestry Reform Law and Regulation on the Establishment of a Chain of Custody System. The law says, “No person shall import, transport, process, or export unless the timber is accurately enrolled in the chain of custody.” That ensures “Holders of forest resource licenses comply with all legal requirements facilitating the accurate assessment and remittance of forest charges and keeping illegal logs of the domestic and illegal markets,” according to the regulation.

Trans World paid US$1,000 for the permit, based on the receipt of the payment, obtained by The DayLight. There was no record the company paid the fee to the Liberia Revenue Authority, the government’s agency that collects taxes. Also, the Liberia Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (LEITI) did not capture the payment as the law requires. Instead, it made the payment in an FDA account at the Liberia Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI), controlled by Doryen.

The permit authorized Trans World to purchase only legally sourced timbers. However, FDA checkpoints, under Doryen’s direct control have issued receipts for tolls businesses pay to transport kpokolo. There is no record rangers verified the sources of those woods before issuing receipts, Known as waybills in forestry.

The FDA Managing Director Mike Doryen awarded this permit to Trans World Holding Inc. to export timber outside the agency’s legal system. The money the company paid went to an account at a commercial bank controlled by Doryen.

Trans World Holdings Inc. obtained its permit to buy and export timber before paying for the document. The payment was not made to the Liberia Revenue Authority as mandated by law.

Waybills

Ziama Kpoto, one of Trans World’s owners, claimed he received several waybills to transport wood from different parts of the country. Kpoto presented two waybills, including one from a kpokolo trader in Nimba. The other shows rangers received L$90,820 for 100 pieces of kpokolo of a first-class species called Iroko, and 130 planks. The kpokolo timbers measured six inches high, 10 inches wide and nine feet long. The transaction occurred on February 27, 2020, in Saclepea, Nimba County, according to that waybill. However, Kpoto did not show any waybills related to the permit he received from Doryen.

Like a dozen waybills The DayLight has obtained, the Saclepea document is unlawful. By the chain of custody regulation, companies make waybill payments within LiberTrace system, not by rangers. Legally, the FDA should issue them in books of ten waybills, with US$150 per book. They must have an identification number, show the route of the transport, and contain the final destination of the timbers. Also, they must have the total volume, not just the sum of individual timbers as it is with kpokolo waybills.

A kpokolo operation site in Gbaryama, Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

‘We’re not illegal loggers’

Kpokolo operations have rocked the forestry sector, especially in the last three years, with Nimba, Gbarpolu and Grand Cape Mount County hubs. Kpokolo operators The DayLight interviewed put their number between 60,000 and 80,000 countrywide, including everything from tree finders to transporters.

Kpoto was adamant kpokolo loggers operate outside of the law, saying their permits and waybills legitimize the trade. He claimed Doryen and Kamara misled them.

“[Kamara] is not telling us the right thing. We have [met him]… to tell us what to do,” Kpoto said in an interview with The DayLight. “You gave us a document. When we go to work and come you say the chain of custody. What should we do?

“Up to now, he has not given the idea. He only collects money from us. So, you can’t call us illegal loggers,” Kpoto added. His comments echoed ones he had made on posts on The DayLight’s Facebook. He presented some documents related to kpokolo productions in communities in Gbarpolu, one dating back to 2018. He said Trans World did not export any timber under the permit, a claim The DayLight could not independently verify.

A pile of Kpokolo in Kolahun, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Kamara dismissed Kpoto’s “misconceptions.”

“Mr. Kpoto was never registered and issued an annual permit/certificate to harvest logs or buy logs from chainsaw milling operations for export,” said Kamara, who announced a ban on kpokolo Wednesday, February 15.

Kamara claimed the FDA had issued “tens of these documents” to businesses across the country. He did not state how the FDA intended to prevent illegal timber trade having issued the permits outside of LiberTrace. And he also did not say why the FDA did not make payments for the permits and waybills to the LRA, or published them.

“We appreciate you all and we understand the anxiousness as [you] endeavor to satisfy [your] funding sources by running away with any story without understanding the rationale,” Kamara said, though he was responding to interview questions.

Doryen did not respond to a set of emailed questions. But the FDA has repeatedly accused The DayLight of “paid journalism deployed by our detractors to paint the FDA ugly in the eyes of the public.” On World Forest Day last week, Doryen accused partners of “double-standard games” for supporting “black hands” in the media.

This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

1...567...9 Page 6 of 9

Yearly Archives: 2023

Podcasts

ABOUT US

FOLLOW US