Top: Picture of thriving cocoa beneath tree skeletons located in B’hai Jozon, Grand Gedeh County. DayLight/Samuel T. Jabba
B’HAI JOZON, Grand Gedeh County – Local leaders in B’hai District, Grand Gedeh County, alleged they gave Superintendent Alex Grant about 4 million CFA (US$7.111) to get a deed for their ancestral land.
Last March, a delegation from B’hai met Grant at his Zwedru office and gave him the money, according to Jammie Kinyea, spokesperson of B’hai Jozon Management Council. Kinyea said they wanted the Superintendent to leverage his position to assist them in obtaining the deed.
“We were very happy when Grant took over. We thought his ascendency would help to complete the survey of our land to get our deed quickly,” Jammie Kinyea, spokesman of the B’hai Jozon Land Management Council, said in an interview with The DayLight in Toe Town, Grand Gedeh.
“Grant assured us that he would try his best for us to get our deed from the Liberia Land Authority. We tried without success. This is my disappointment,” Kinyeah added.
Grant admits to receiving the money, but claims he received only about half of that amount. He said the money was paid through instalments—the first payment was made two months after the meeting, and the second six months later. Like in Kinyea’s case, The DayLight could not independently verify Grant’s claim, as he provided no evidence.
Grant said the money was intended to survey the land and resolve a conflict over it, and not for a deed. The dispute arose between two Burkinabees who were competing to plant cocoa on the land, Grant said.
“I personally suggested to them that to resolve this issue, we need to survey to know who owns what and who doesn’t. This was my way of trying to end the dispute,” Grant said. “That’s how they gave the money for the survey, and the surveyor went in there and did the survey.”
Grant went on to obtain a deed for the land. However, the deed was not in B’hai Jozon’s name as Kinyea and the townspeople had bargained for. Instead, the deed to the farmland was issued to the Grand Gedeh County local government. It was part of a 30-year lease agreement with Boubou Sebu, a Burkinabé businessman.
Barely a week after securing the deed, the Land Authority revoked it over irregularities.
Likewise, county authorities terminated their lease agreement following media reports that exposed violations and inconsistencies. A community acquires a customary deed through a legal process under the Land Rights Act. There is no evidence that B’hai has completed any of those steps.
Townsfolk in B’hai said they only learned that the lease agreement was intended for their land after it was cancelled.
Grant said the community undermined his efforts to acquire a deed apart from the one that was revoked. He said a draft of the document had been produced, but not been authorized by the Land Authority. Grant did not present a copy of the alleged draft deed, even though he promised to make it available to The DayLight.
Kinyea shrugged off Grant’s comments.
“If he says so, then that’s fine,” Kinyea said. “But all I want to say is that we are happy that the 500 acres that were taken away from us through the lease agreement have been returned.”
DayLight reporters observed thousands of hectares of abandoned cocoa farms on the disputed land. Most of the harvested cocoa is transported to Toe Town. In contrast, others are being shipped across the border town of Barcubley, La Côte d’Ivoire, according to Sonconpocodgou Yologo, spokesman of the Burkinabe workers in Pierre’s Village-1.
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