Top: The Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in Gbarnga, Bong County. The DayLight/Wilmot Konah
By Rebazar D. Forte
GBARNGA, Bong County – The Forestry Development Authority aborted its process to obtain a court order to seize thousands of timber abandoned by smugglers at the Central Agriculture Research Institute (CARI).
Multiple sources told The DayLight that the FDA would petition the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in Gbarnga last Monday for the warrant, the first step in confiscating the wood.
Before then, Deputy Managing Director Gertrude Nyaley had appeared to have corroborated that information when she gave a hint on the Forest Hour radio show on Okay FM.
When Cllr. Yanquoi Dolo, the FDA’s lawyer, arrived at the court on Monday, July 8, at 10:20 am, it looked like the process had begun. The FDA’s Lawyer entered the courthouse and exited it about 15 minutes later, according to our reporter.
Dolo declined an interview with The DayLight, hopped into a white vehicle, and left the courtyard.
Daniel Porlenkollie, the court’s clerk, confirmed that the FDA had not sought a warrant from the court.
The atmosphere at CARI was similar to that of the court. A police vehicle tried to enter the area where the illegally harvested planks were but did not. The vehicle left the area after honking for minutes, an indication of an abruptly aborted plan.
Dr. James Dolo, CARI’s officer in charge, said he was unaware of any plan by the FDA to seize the wood.
“The only team that came here was the Crime [Service] Division, based in Gbarnga,” he told The DayLight. They came to make a follow up on the Chinese guys who operated here in the fence, a group from the Economic Crimes Division,” Dr. James Dolo added. The division did not immediately respond to queries.
It would have been the first time the FDA had enforced the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timber and Timber Products since it was formulated in 2017.
Under the regulation, the regulator must seek a court warrant to auction the planks. However, to do so, it must obtain court warrants to seize and confiscate the timber. If the planks are unsold at the auction, they must be given to the community or civil society.
The smugglers face a fine of thrice the value of the planks, a six-month prison term, or both fine and imprisonment upon a conviction.
The DayLight investigation discovered the network’s ringleaders were two Chinese Chaolong Zhong and Guoping Zhang, a Turkish Mehmet Onder Erem, and a Liberian named Terrence Collins.
The traffickers ran a company called CTL Industries in the China Aid compound of CARI for over two years. They purchased timber from Lofa, Nimba and vendors in Suakoko, Bong County, and processed and smuggled the wood via containers, the investigation found.
Pictures and documents obtained by The DayLight show CTL trafficked timber in containers with the help of about 33 workers.
However, they halted their operations just before last year’s elections, abandoning an unspecified number of planks and equipment.
Records of LiberTrace, Liberia’s timber-tracking computer system, show no activities for CTL Industries, further proof of the illegality of its activities.
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
