Top: Some of the 431 logs Iroko Timber and Logging Company harvested and took about a year and six months to export. The DayLight/Derick Snyder
By Esau J. Farr
MONROVIA – The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) permitted the export of 2,549 cubic meters of abandoned logs, failing to punish the company involved, and losing substantial revenue.
Iroko Logging and Timber Company exported two consignments of logs on May 7 and July 18 last year, based on official documents. The combined 431 logs were shipped to Chittagong, Bangladesh via the cargo ship MV Nimeh.
But that was more than one-and-a-half years after the logs were harvested in the Central River Dugbe Community Forest in Sinoe County.
Iroko had harvested the logs in October 2022, per the Nigerian-owned company’s website and Facebook page. It only transported the 431 logs from the Jaedae District woodland to an open field near Greenville in February and March last year, residents and other sources said.
That violates the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products. The 2017 regulation requires all logs to be transported, processed, or exported between three weeks and six months after harvesting.
If a log stays in a particular location outside the regulatory timeframe, the FDA is obligated to investigate, auction the logs, or fine the company that harvested them. The fine includes a tenth, a twentieth and a fortieth of twice the total value of the abandoned logs, depending on the species classes.
Because the FDA did not do that with Iroko, the government lost US$103,387, according to The DayLight’s analysis, based on the export permits and the regulation.
To arrive at the fine, the newspaper grouped each species of the logs and doubled their volumes. Next, it multiplied the total volumes by their corresponding, FDA-approved prices and added those products. Then it added all of the first-class species, based on the FDA’s categorization, and found 10 percent of that sum.
The newspaper did the same with the second-class ones, finding five percent of the sum this term. Finally, it added the percentage values of the two classes to establish what should have been Iroko’s fine and the government’s revenue.
The loss of US$103,387 comes when the forestry sector faces a downturn in revenue generation. From July 2021 to December 2022, the sector generated US$7.65 million, the least in the extractive sector despite Liberia holding the largest patches of West Africa’s remaining rainforests.
That figure could be more, though. Iroko left several logs in the Central River Dugbe Community Forest, according to residents.
A screenshot from Iroko Timber and Logging Company’s Facebook page showing the logs were harvested on October 14, 2022, more than one-and-a-half years before they exported.
Bartee Togba, the chief officer of the community forest, corroborated the residents’ account. Togba said villagers had counted over 60 logs in the woodland on the border with Grand Kru. “There were more logs,” he said, and there would be an additional counting.
Following the second of two DayLight investigations last year, the FDA promised to investigate Iroko over the logs’ abandonment but did not. The regulator did not respond to queries for comment.
From July to August last year, Iroko paid the Liberian government US$173,432, covering export, land rental and other fees. The evidence, however, shows that the company owed the government US$16,263 in land rental fees.
That August, Iroko asked the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) to pay the balance due in September and October. The LRA agreed.
“If we default on this agreement, our tax debt may be referred to the Ministry of Justice to sue for the unpaid tax and or court’s authorization to seize and sell our property,” the agreement’s terms and conditions read.
But the money has not been paid, according to Iroko’s tax payment record, seen by The DayLight. Despite months of notice, Iroko and the LRA did not respond to inquiries for comments.
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: African Wood and Lumber Company abandoned hundreds of logs in Compound Number Two, Grand Bassa, with people burning some. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Emmanuel Sherman
MONROVIA – In the rainy season of 2020, the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) investigated the scale of abandoned logs in Grand Bassa, River Cess, and Nimba Counties.
Investigators were stunned by what they discovered: several companies had left thousands of logs in the bush, on open fields, at sawmills, and other locations for long periods.
“Valuable species are continuously being harvested by logging companies without first securing sales contracts,” the investigators said in a report, “only to leave those logs unattended.”
A signboard at a log yard used by Coveiyalah on the Bomi highway supported the investigator’s findings. It read: “Timber sale.” Investigators recommended that the FDA curtail the situation. The signboard came down not long after.
Four years after the report—spanning two administrations—the FDA has yet to take any concrete action despite officially vowing on various occasions, to tackle the problem. Abandoned logs are symbols of the meltdown of the forestry sector, with companies deserting contracts, leaving debts and logs in their wake.
Abu Musa Kamara, campaigner at the National Union of Community Forestry Development Committee, calls on the FDA to verify companies’ capacity before approving contracts. He urges constant monitoring and enforce forestry’s legal laws and regulations.
A 2020 FDA investigation established that companies were felling trees before securing sale contracts as seen in this 2022 picture. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
“If these things happen, there will be no abandoned logs in concession areas,” Kamara tells The DayLight in an email.
The regulation replaced a previous one that had proven ineffective seven years ago and undermined the regulator’s mandate to avoid waste of forest resources. Under the current regulation, the FDA must investigate and petition a court to auction abandoned logs.
‘Learning curve’
In 2022, the FDA ordered all companies to declare their production in LiberTrace, Liberia’s log-tracking system. It was a bid to tackle the situation albeit two years after the investigators’ report.
Later that year, then-Managing Director Mike Doryen said in a DayLight interview the regulator would begin auctioning logs that month. “We… will continue in the northern region and then go down south and [the] western part,” Doryen said.
In the end, nothing happened, as more evidence emerged of companies leaving logs. The Italian-registered African Wood and Lumber left logs on a field in Grand Bassa, with some burned. The Lebanese-owned Masayaha abandoned some 600 nearby. At least 500 Sing Africa logs rotted outside of Buchanan alongside hundreds of logs other companies dashed. Elsewhere, a DayLight investigation uncovered about 5,000 logs abandoned by the International Consultant Capital in the Gbi-Doru District, Nimba County.
Doryen’s timeframe was legally impossible, and his comments were dishonest—or at least ignorant. Per the regulation, auctioning timber takes months. Moreover, there is no record that the FDA filed a required petition at any circuit court countrywide to seize abandoned logs.
Doryen would tell the Associated Press a year later that the FDA had approved exports of abandoned logs outside of the legal process as “part of the learning curve.”
A DayLight investigation established Iroko abandoned hundreds of logs it harvested latest October 2022. They were recently exported without any due process, according to community leaders. The DayLight/Derick Snyder
In early 2023, the FDA announced it had suspended several companies’ harvesting certificates in Sinoe. The list included Malaysian-listed Mandra, which had abandoned about 7,000 logs, likely the largest The DayLight recorded.
“This decision is prompted by the failure of these companies to honor the mandate from the FDA to enrol all logs harvested in LiberTrace,” read an FDA statement. “Companies in both categories, suspended certificates and otherwise, may be subject to further [penalties]…”
Again, no public records that show the FDA punished the companies.
Unlawful
The FDA’s biggest-known abandoned logs lie occurred during last year’s presidential elections. On October 31, it published a notice on suspicion of abandoned logs on its website and ELBC.
A week later, the FDA petitioned the Zorzor, Magisterial Court in Lofa County to begin the process. “We hereby request Your Honor and this honorable court for a search and seizure warrant,” read the petition.
A screenshot of FDA’s Deputy Managing Director Gertrude Nyaley exposing her involvement in an unlawful abandoned logs petition during last year’s presidential elections. Facebook/Gertrude Wade Korvayan Nyaley
But that petition was unlawful and may have exposed the FDA’s dishonesty. The abandoned logs regulation requires the FDA to file a seizure application at a circuit court, not a magisterial court.
Also, the time interval between the announcement and the petition was short. Per the regulation, the petition should have been filed over a month after several notices.
Deputy Managing Director Gertrude Nyaley was one of two attorneys who signed the petition. She was the technical manager of the FDA’s legality verification department (LVD) then.
She did not respond to two questions in 19 days about her direct involvement in the unlawful process.
International Consultant Capital abandoned 5,000 logs in Gbi-Doru District, Nimba County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
No progress
Things remain the same under Doryen’s successor Rudolph Merab. Like Doryen, Merab has not lived up to his commitment to confront the abandoned logs problem.
This April, two months after his induction as FDA’s boss, he happened upon mounts of sundried logs in the southeast. Merab vowed to tackle the problem head-on Spoon FM reported.
A July DayLight investigation—a follow-up to an initial one published over a year ago—found the Nigerian company Iroko Timber a Logging Company abandoned some 700 logs in Sinoe. FDA’s commercial department promised to investigate the company but did not.
The logs were recently exported, roughly two years since they were harvested, according to Bartee Togba, the chief officer of the Central River Dugbe Community Forest the company operates.
A recent review of forestry concessions by the US-based NGO Forest Trends recommends that the FDA documents the scale of abandoned logs and sets up a database. That, too, has not happened.
Many logs transported to log yards across Liberia remain there until they rot. The DayLight/Eric Opa Doue
Merab did not return The DayLight’s queries and follow-ups, reversing a trend he had set. However, Merab told the Associated Press last April that he intended to scrap regulations that were “cumbersome” and “repressive.”
Amid the FDA’s dishonesty and failure, the Commercial Court authorized the sales of abandoned logs to pay off companies’ debts.
Perhaps the first publicized one is the case between Alma Wood and AfriLand Bank, which occurred before Merab. Co-owned by Lebanese businessman El Zein Hassan, Alma Wood defaulted on a US$63,000 loan from Afriland Bank. The court ordered the bank to auction Alma Wood’s properties, including 5,000 cubic meters of logs harvested in Grand Cape Mount County between 2018 and 2020.
Other cases involve Sing Africa, Alpha Logging and Wood Processing Company, and Guaranty Trust Bank (Liberia) Limited. Sing Africa borrowed US$ 3 million from GT Bank on June 14, 2021. When it failed to pay the loan, the court authorized the bank to auction the company’s assets valued over US$7 million, including logs it abandoned in Lofa and Gbarpolu.
The Court had earlier permitted the bank to auction 15,000 cubic meters of logs belonging to Sing Africa and Alpha.
Forestry experts say the banks’ auctions will reduce the government’s revenue and communities, benefits, and expose the system failure. Normally, auction fees should go to the government and the communities where the logs were felled. In this case, the banks take a big portion of the money.
“If the FDA had enforced the abandoned logs regulation, the banks would be left with only other fixed assets,” says an expert who does not want to be named.
Jonathan Yiah the lead forestry campaigner at the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), an NGO instrumental in formulating forestry’s legal framework, agrees.
“The bank shouldn’t be a priority at the expense of the community and the government,” Yiah says, “though sometimes it is the government’s negligence that we are having this conversation.”
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: Burned and decayed logs that were abandoned by African Wood and Lumber Company in Compound Number Two, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Mark Newa
MONROVIA – The Liberian media may have lost up to an estimated US$63,250 over the failure of the Forestry Development Agency (FDA) to auction logs, timber and timber products abandoned by concession companies, according to an investigation by The DayLight.
Nearly every logging company in the country has abandoned logs—Masayaha, International Consultant Capital and Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited, just to name a few. They can be found in large and small-scale concessions, plantations and community forests across the country. Some are being used for firewood, charcoal, planks and defecation. Others have even been used as an insurance bonds in a lawsuit.
“Logging companies have left [a] huge quantity of assorted round logs unattended or abandoned at various bush landings and log yards over the years…,” an August 2020 FDA report, covering River Cess, Grand Bassa and Nimba, said. A bush landing is where logs are piled after felling, while they are stored in log yards to be transported for export.
“Valuable time species are continuously being harvested by logging companies without first securing sales contracts, only to leave those logs unattended,” the FDA investigators said at the time.
The Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products prescribes penalties for the offense, ranging from fines to forfeiture of forest licenses. But the FDA has not punished any companies or individuals amid plenty of evidence.
Under the regulation, logs are considered abandoned when they are unattended between 15 and 180 working days, depending on their location. It was created in 2017 to replace a previous one, which narrowed the definition of abandonment to logs outside contract areas and without tracking numbers. It was the country’s response to the demands of the global timber market for legal and sustainable logs.
The current regulation mandates the FDA to make a number of radio announcements and publications in newspapers—from a notice of abandonment to a public auction and to the declaration of the winner of the auction. So far, not a single one has been done in the five years of the regulation.
To arrive at the estimated total loss, The DayLight used US$100 for the average cost of a quarter-page newspaper publication and US$5 for a radio announcement, based on our analysis of advertisement rates. We multiplied those costs by the 22 newspaper publications and 66 radio announcements required by the regulation. And then we added the two products. That gave us US$2,530 the income for the media on a single auctioning process. Then we multiplied that by 25 incidents of abandoned logs, judging from the cases we have flagged, those reported by the FDA itself and others, to get the US$63,250.
But there is a possibility that some of these cases would not have made it to public auctioning, as some of the logs had decayed and some could have been redeemed and there could have been no bidder. In the case of redemption, the media would have generated just US$2,500 from all 25 processes. And if no company bided for the woods in all the cases, the media would have generated US$45,750.
The amount could help cash-strapped media institutions meet challenges that have undermined the fourth estate’s role as watchdogs, and promote things like free speech and giving voice to victims of human rights abuses.
How the media benefits
Some of the logs Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited abandoned at its sawmill in Zorzor, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
When the FDA is notified of suspicion of abandoned logs, the regulation requires it to investigate for seven working days and inform the company or the community leadership of the forest. Logs left in the forest are considered abandoned after 15 working days, and 180 for the ones in log yards.
If a company or community claims the logs, then the FDA must publish administrative fees it incurred during its investigation—including transportation, storage, and the cost of the publication, for example.
But if no one claims the logs, the agency is required to publish a notification of abandonment in a newspaper for five days and announce the same on local and national radio stations for 14 days.
Once it finds out that the logs are abandoned, it must announce its findings on national and local radio stations for another 14 days.
If a claimant does not come forward or prove they own the logs, the FDA must publish a notice of abandonment in a newspaper for five days.
Thereafter, the FDA is mandated to seek a court order to auction the logs. When that petition is granted, it is required to publish an auction notice in a newspaper at least once for five days. It must run that same announcement for the same period on national and local radio stations.
The last round of mandatory publication is the announcement of the result of the auction for seven days in a newspaper.
Top: Some of the logs Sun Yeun/Alma Wood illegally harvested and abandoned in a log yard in MaFalla, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Varney Kamara
Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series on abandoned logs, which highlights the failure of the forestry sector to prevent the waste of much-needed forest resources across the country.
BONG VILLAGE, Grand Cape Mount – An unlawful deal for a company to purchase a consignment of logs illegally felled and abandoned in a forest in Grand Cape Mount County has stalled after authorities found out the woods are collateral in a lawsuit.
In 2018, Alma Wood Corporation (Liberia) Limited felled the logs as part of a logging concession the forestry sector calls Timber Sales Contract Area 16 or TSC A16 in the Gola Konneh District. The company’s owners reportedly fled the country, leaving the logs there until the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) canceled the contract last year.
Sun Yeun, the original holder of the contract, and the community forest development committee (CFDC) of that area, tried to sell the logs to East End Logging Company, owned by former Minister of Justice Benedict Sannoh, earlier this year. But the FDA disapproved the deal because Alma Wood had used the logs as a surety to obtain a US$643,000 loan from Afriland Bank.
The bank had sued Alma Wood after the period of the loan elapsed. El Zein Hassan, the company’s CEO had been arrested but was released on bail, with Sky Insurance Company filing his bond. Hassan would later flee the country and the court ruled that the insurer seize the logs, according to several individuals familiar with the case. (Our own efforts to obtain the court’s file on the case did not materialize. We will update the story with details from the document once we obtain it).
Afriland Bank and Sky Insurance declined to speak on the matter.
The forest where the logs were harvested has been marred by irregularities from the very beginning. Covering 5,000 hectares, TSCs are meant for companies that have at least 51 percent Liberian shareholdings. They were meant to empower Liberians following 14 years of civil war during which time local businesspeople were marginalized by foreign firms that supplied warring factions with arms. But TSC A16 was awarded to Sun Yeun, 98 percent of whose shares are held by a Chinese businessman named Wei Zhang, according to the company’s legal documents.
Also, the subcontract deal between Sun Yeun and Alma Wood was illegal as the latter company’s equity stakes are equally shared between Hassan, a Lebanese and a Radwan Wardwiche, a Senegalese tycoon, according to Alma Wood’s legal documents.
The contract also overstayed its legal timeframe of at most five years, remaining active for more than a decade having been issued in 2009. The board of directors of the FDA had illegally extended the contract alongside 10 others in 2017 but recalled that move in March last year.
Some of the logs Sun Yeun harvested and abandoned in its log yard in Mafala, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Josephus Banks, Sun Yeun’s CEO and one of two of the company’s Liberian shareholders claims that the company is not majority Chinese-owned but has failed to show any proof. He also argued in an interview with The DayLight, that its subcontract deal with Alma Wood was not illegal.
The logs in question are abandoned as per law. Depending on their location, logs are abandoned if they are “unattended” between 15 and 180 working days, according to Regulation 116-17 on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products. In this case, the logs are abandoned because they have remained in the forest for over 60 working days.
Banks blames the abandonment of the logs on the FDA.
“FDA contributed to those logs being there today. When Alma Wood’s contract expired, I wrote the FDA informing it about logs being on the lining. FDA delayed and I wanted to sell at the time,” said Banks. Locals also said they informed the FDA about the logs in 2019, with Ruth Varney, its official responsible for the western region, confirming that to The DayLight in a mobile phone interview.
In April earlier this year, the FDA gave all logging companies operating in the country a month grace period to declare the trees they have felled, even though FDA should have companies’ production and export records.
“We should be headed for auction this month (June) [in the eastern region] and then the exercise will continue in the northern region and then go down south and western part,” said Mike Doryen, FDA’s Managing Director, in an interview with The DayLight.
“The court is going to make a determination, and that is what we will follow,” Doryen added in reference to the Alma Wood case.
It would have been another violation had the FDA approved East End’s purchase of the abandoned logs. The regulation on abandoned logs requires the FDA to transport the logs to a safe location and reenter them into the government tracking system known in forestry as the chain of custody (CoC). An auction only can take place after a court warrant if no one claims the woods following months of a mandatory, legal notice. If Sun Yeun wants to redeem the logs, it would have to do that within 14 working days of the FDA’s seizure, provide proof of ownership and pay an administrative fee for each of the logs. Those requirements have yet to be met.
But the case between Alma Wood and Sky Insurance in Monrovia has dashed the hopes of locals, who had wanted the logs sold to get overdue benefits now that TSCs are no more. Sun Yeun owes the villagers here and a nearby concession (TSC A15) a combined US$190,900 for land-related fees, official records show. It also owes affected communities US$3,000 for scholarships and failed to build 10 latrines and one handpump, according to Jaycee Farr, the general secretary of the community forest development committee, which manages villagers’ logging-generated benefits.
“We are happy that people came here to buy the logs. If the logs are sold, the communities will be able to get something as their benefits,” Farr said. “If the government is saying TSCs are canceled, and then companies are owing communities, how will the communities benefit from whatever things they own, or whatever things that have been taken away from them?”
Banks, Sun Yeun’s CEO, refutes Farr’s comments as a “blatant lie.
“Of all the TSCs that were operating in this country, I was the most potent TSC holder. We (Sun Yeun) brought in more than US$5 million worth of equipment, brand new, not used,” he said, even though records of the company show otherwise. The US$190,874.50 his company owes the two communities is the second-highest debt for land rental fees —next to Bulgar and Vincent Timber Company—among former TSC holders, official documents show.
At an annual meeting of the Liberian government, the European Union and civil society in March, the FDA promised to work with the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee (NUCFDC) to address TSCs’ arrears, according to records of the event.
Doryen said the FDA was committed to that plan. “Yes, we didn’t do that (addressing benefits and other issues) but we will do it now,” Doryen added.
Funding for this story was provided by the Liberia Media Center (LMC). The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over its content.
Top: Some of the logs LiberTrace red-flagged for having multiple issues but the FDA still allowed to be shipped. The DayLight/Derick Snyder
By Esau J. Farr
MONROVIA – The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) permitted a company to export round logs mid-last year. However, the regulator ignored its computerized system—known as LiberTrace—red-flagged over 60 percent of the timber.
Out of the total 431 logs, Iroko Timber and Logging Corporation submitted for two shipments, LiberTrace identified 267 as problematic.
LiberTrace, which tracks logs from their sources to final destinations, found the logs’ details were inconsistent with the system’s information. Most of the logs had not been recorded during a pre-export inspection.
For instance, some logs had their butt-end diameters different from what Iroko declared. Others had volumes different from the ones submitted, while other logs had discrepancies with the lengths the Nigerian-owned company declared.
But the LiberTrace analysis and the export specs detailing each log shipped establish that the FDA allowed the tainted logs to go.
The combined 431 logs with a 2,549-cubic-meter volume, were loaded at the Port of Greenville, Sinoe County and departed on April 27 and July 2, 2024, on the Panamanian cargo ship MV Nimeh, destined for Bangladesh.
‘Nothing to add’
Based on the FDA’s standard operating procedures (SOPs) the regulator should have investigated the red flags and sought correction. If not, the SOPs provide the export to be disapproved. “Wood products that are not compliant with the legality definition shall not be authorized for export,” according to SOPs for export.
A screenshot from some of LiberTrace’s analysis of one of two Iroko exports last year the FDA unlawfully approved
The SOPs allow for the FDA to override LiberTrace’s alarms. However, in such a case, the FDA is required to record the justification for overriding the red flags for auditing. Screenshots of LiberTrace’s history of the logs prove there were no justifications for the FDA’s decision to approve the exports.
Those standards contribute to LiberTrace ensuring tax-complaint companies’ logs are legal, not just traceable. LiberTrace plays a critical role in the forestry sector, particularly in combating illegal logging and enhancing transparency in the timber trade. SGS, a Swiss verification company, built the system and the FDA co-manages it.
Confronted with the red flags, Theodore Nna, SGS’ project manager, did not respond to queries. Nna did the same last year in a similar incident. He had sarcastically offered The DayLight a tutorial in interpreting LiberTrace’s data and analysis.
The FDA Managing Director Rudolph Merab declined to speak on the matter. “I believe my team handled this Iroko issue last year…,” Merab said in a WhatsApp chat. “I have nothing new to add!”
A screenshot of LiberTrace’s history of one of Iroko’s exports shows that the FDA did not justify why it overrode errors with several logs for auditing purposes.
Last year, the FDA dismissed reports as a “misinterpretation” of data. It argued that the errors and warnings LiberTrace sounded were routine “minor occurrences.”
Similarly, Iroko did not return emailed questions. The company had initially responded to the DayLight’s inquiries but ceased after the newspaper exposed a series of its wrongdoings.
This investigation adds to the logs’ taint and Iroko’s notoriety. A previous investigation found the logs spent over a year in the Central River Dugbe Community Forest in Sinoe County’s Jaedae District. One unearthed Iroko owed local people a good sum. Another revealed an Iroko shareholder was unqualified for logging over a co-ownership of a company punished for fraud.
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: Masayaha’s bridge in Gbargbo, River Cess County breaks the FDA’s standards for a log bridge. The Ministry of Public Works disapproved of the construction. Picture credit: An anonymous villager
By Aaron Wesley Geezay
GARGBO VILLAGE, River Cess – Masayaha, a Lebanese-owned company, known for its repeated logging offenses, has harvested about 500 logs in River Cess County, outside of its area of operations.
In November 2021, Masayaha had a 15-year logging contract with the 43,792-hectare Bloquiah Community Forest in Gboe/Ploe Administrative District, Grand Gedeh County.
One year later, Masayaha entered a verbal logging deal with Gbargbo, a River Cess’ Norbor Clan village about 80 kilometers away from its contract area. Under the deal, villagers would allow the company to harvest the logs and build a temporary bridge over the Cestos River, which would later be transformed into a partial concrete structure.
The log bridge was good news for both parties.
Masayaha needed it to transport logs from Grand Gedeh to Grand Bassa since heavy vehicles were disallowed to use the Timbo River Bridge between Sinoe and River Cess.
The villagers saw the bridge as an opportunity to connect the Norbor Clan in the Yarnee District to the Kploh Chiefdom in the Central River Cess Administrative District.
“They asked us to allow them to cut 250 pieces of logs to fix the bridge,” Samuel Gbargbo, a resident of Gbargbo Village, told The DayLight. “And because we have been suffering for the road we agreed.”
Masayaha abandoned several logs on this field and other areas in Gbargbo Village it illegally harvested last year. The DayLight/Aaron Geezay
‘The people… fooled us’
Per the agreement, Masayaha paid the community US$1,500 and began harvesting. However, the logs were insufficient to complete the bridge so the parties signed another verbal agreement. This time, Masayaha only paid US$700, with the remaining US$800 yet to be paid, our investigation found.
And there were other problems. There was no concrete component of the bridge as Masayaha had promised. The bridge had been completed over a year ago, yet the company had failed to construct any concrete pillars. Besides, it abandoned several logs that they felled in Gbargbo’s forest.
This and the debt issue angered the villagers, who threatened to protest.
“The people came and fooled us and made us work for nothing,” said Melvin Wolloh, town chief of Norbor Clan.
Ali Harkous, Masayaha’s CEO and owner, said the Forestry Development Authority permitted it. “We applied to FDA to permit us to get the logs from around the area and they approved and we also approached community and they agreed,” Harkous said. He refused to share a copy with The DayLight or allow this reporter to see it.
A stump of a tree in Gbargbo Village, River Cess County Masayaha illegally harvested last year. The DayLight/Aaron Geezay
Harkous would not speak to the villagers’ claim but budged after persistent inquiry. “Frankly, tell them they should not worry, we are going to give [them] their money.
“We invested all we have and credited from some financial institutions. We are really into [a] financial problem,” Harkous said.
Harkous was right. The FDA permitted Masayaha to harvest logs for the bridge. However, his company grossly violated the permit’s terms.
The document and other papers, the FDA provided, did not permit Masayaha to harvest logs in River Cess, but rather Sinoe County. Two letters written by then-Senator Milton Teahjay of Sinoe County and Bloquiah Community Forest, seen by The DayLight, mentioned the Tarjuwon District.
Also, the permit ordered Masayaha to work with the FDA staff in that area to identify targeted trees and calculate the volume logs for the project. That, too, did not happen.
FDA’s record of the Masayaha felling in Gbargbo Village shows that the company felled 200 trees, not 500 the villagers said.
Then of the 200 logs, 62 were untagged, according to the FDA record. Similarly, the logs on the bridge, on an open field on the riverbank and in the bushes were untagged. Even the tree stumps this reporter photographed were missing obligatory tags.
The DayLight photographed several untagged logs abandoned by Masayaha in Gbargbo Village, River Cess. The DayLight/Aaron Geezay
The dates on the harvesting record and the communications are inconsistent, further proof of a dishonest operation. It shows rangers identified targeted trees on November 29, 2022—William V.S. Tubman’s birthday—for the harvesting. However, Masayaha’s request and the FDA’s response were written in December and January, respectively. This reveals that rangers had already counted, and tagged some of the trees before the FDA approved the harvesting.
Roadside logging
It is not the first time Masayaha has harvested logs outside its contract area. In 2022, a DayLight investigation exposed Masayaha’s illegal logging activities outside the Worr Community Forest in Grand Bassa County, where it exploited villagers’ need for roads. The report cited an August 2021 FDA publication in which investigators found evidence Masayaha connived with locals to steal timber. No actions were taken against the company for those activities, despite a protest.
William Pewu, FDA’s technical manager for commercial forestry, said Masayaha would go scot-free for its Gbargbo Village activities. Pewu claims the FDA does not record the logs in LiberTrace, a computer system that verifies the legality of timber.
“No, those logs are not for sale,” Pewu told The DayLight in an interview last week. “You only enroll logs in LiberTrace when they are for export. Those logs are for [a] bridge construction.”
Pewu’s comments are not backed by facts. The phrase “chain of custody” covers everything from “transport, interim storage, processing, distribution, and export.” In short, it extends from a log’s “source of origin in the forest to [its] end use.”
Furthermore, roadside logging does not derive from any law or regulation. In fact, in 2009, the FDA even fined a company for harvesting a hundred logs along a path outside a concession in Grand Bassa, according to a United Nations report. A 2017 regulation imposes a fine of twice the value of logs harvested outside a contract, a six-month prison term, or both fine and imprisonment upon a conviction. Other penalties include forfeiture of harvesting rights or a logging contract.
Masayaha illegally harvested over 500 logs from the Gbargbo Village in River Cess, 80 kilometers outside a Grand Gedeh forest, where it has a contract. The DayLight/Aaron Geezay
Masayaha’s illegal operation in Gbargbo bears a remarkable resemblance to the one conducted by a company nearly a decade ago. In 2016, an investigation by the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) found that Liberia Hardwood Company (LHC) harvested many logs outside the Bloquiah Community Forest. Strangely, some of the logs were felled in the very Gbargbo Village.
The FDA admitted at the time that roadside logging was illegal but said the logging would continue while it addressed “gaps” in the regulation. It took no action against LHC, which denied any wrongdoing, and there is still no regulation for roadside logging.
‘Not possible’
The bridge built from the illegal logs is equally tainted. It violates the standards for bridge construction, per the Code of Harvesting Practices. The code requires a log bridge to be built on a high portion of a riverbank so as not to stop or interfere with the water’s flow.
Masayaha engineers placed the logs directly in the water, stalling its natural course, photographs of the construction show.
Ministry of Public Works did not authorize the construction, a contravention of the precondition the FDA set for the construction. The Ministry said it had disapproved of the construction.
“Approval/consent was not provided on the basis that the [width] of the Cestos River was [wider],” Minister Roland Layfette Giddings told The DayLight. By the ministry’s standard, it was not possible to construct a log bridge at the location under consideration.”
That violation has led to consequences. At the start of the rainy season, the Cestos River overflowed its banks, washing many logs away. Masayaha later repaired it. Masayaha has started to use the bridge to transport logs to Buchanan.
But Fishermen, who have fished on the river for generations, now have to lift their canoes over the controversial bridge to access the other side of the river.
The story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: Iroko transferred most of the abandoned logs in February this year, one year and four months after they were harvested in the Central Dugbe River Community Forest. The DayLight/Derick Snyder
By Matenneh Keita and Esau J. Farr
KARQUEKPO, Sinoe County – In 2022, Timothy Odebunmi, joined two other Nigerian businessmen to establish Iroko Timber Logging Corporation in July 2021. Odebunmi has 50 percent shares, Samson Odebunmi, his relative, 45 percent, and Akinsiku Arinkan five percent.
The following year, Iroko signed a contract with the Central River Dugbe Community Forest. By October, it began harvesting logs in the 13,193-hectare woodland in Sinoe’s Jaedae District near the Grand Kru border.
It is unclear how many logs Iroko has felled. The FDA record shows 523 logs. However, Bartee Togba, the head of Central River Dugbe leadership, puts the number to about 700. Videos posted to Iroko’s Facebook page in July last year show workers hauling logs with an earthmover.
Under the regulation, logs are abandoned when unattended between 15 and 180 working days after felling, depending on their location.
The DayLight videotaped hundreds of logs on an open field in Dioh’s Town on the Greenville-Karquekpo route. Sources, including residents of that community, said the logs were only transferred there in February this year.
A screenshot of Iroko’s website shows the logs were harvested before or in October, nearly more than three times the legal time frame for a log anywhere to be abandoned.
Togba said some of the logs were still in the forest and wanted to document them. “I’m going to put the forest guards together… to carry them in the forest and record all of [that] information on those abandoned logs,” Togba said in an interview at his house in Karquekpo. He did not return queries on his findings after the interview despite repeated phone conversations.
The FDA has taken no concrete steps to deter Iroko or any other company from abandoning logs, now a sector normal. Between 2020 and 2023, Managing Director Mike Doryen made several pronouncements, including a public announcement in November last year, but never acted. Recently, current Managing Director Rudolph Merab toured the southeast, highlighting the issue but has done nothing more.
The FDA record shows that the agency approved Iroko’s permit to export 349 logs this May, something Iroko said it was “finalizing” soon. However, in an interview with The DayLight, William Pewu, FDA’s technical manager for community forestry, said the regulator would investigate.
“If Iroko has abandoned logs or woods, we are not aware of that,” Pewu said. “We have to first of all validate whether the information we are getting [is authentic]. We have to do a follow-up.”
Pewu’s assertion of being unaware of Iroko’s abandoned log situation is not backed by facts. The DayLight published an investigation on the issue more than a year ago. The FDA did not return questions the newspaper asked regarding Iroko at the time.
An elevated view of Iroko’s log yard with a solitary earthmover and a makeshift security booth. The DayLight/Derick Snyder
The FDA must investigate a piece of abandoned log information, according to the regulation, and publish its findings. The regulation further mandates the agency to seize and auction said logs with a court warrant, following several public notices. Penalties for the offense include fines and contract forfeiture.
‘[Overvalued]’
Iroko’s struggles suggest it cannot conduct logging activities in Central River Dugbe.
It claims it owns eight earthmovers and leases nine others, according to one official document. However, it has been seen with only a few equipment in the last three years. An old machine at the log yard and two in Polay Town, one of the eight communities that own the forest.
The document shows Iroko targets 100,000 hectares of forests in the region in 15 years but it has grappled to manage just 13,193 hectares in three.
Iroko plans to run a centralized log yard near Greenville, from where it would produce about 50,000 cubic meters of logs each harvesting season. Yet, its current log yard is smaller than a football pitch. Reporters did not have to fly a drone high to capture all of the logs, a solitary earthmover and a makeshift security booth last month.
Togba said Iroko’s capacity troubles were glaring. He said the company had been “[overvalued],” accusing the FDA of not assessing Iroko’s financial and logistical capacities.
“The law says before FDA gives the company permit…, they should first of all view their equipment. They must know the company has an equipment that is up to standard but these things were not done,” Togba said.
Two Iroko machines in Polay Town, Sinoe County in 2023. The DayLight/James Giahyue
“What I suspect in their operation is there is no active equipment. Looking at the poor arrangement based on the equipment that brought all of that mess, the company doesn’t have the financial capability to operate,” Togba added.
Official documents appear to support Togba’s comments. It took Iroko barely two weeks to get prequalified for logging in Liberia. It registered as the company on July 7, 2021, and was prequalified on July 23, 2021, according to its article of incorporation and prequalification certificate.
Iroko’s situation mirrors that of Akewa Group of Companies, another Nigerian firm in which Odebunmi has 20 percent shares. Beginning in 2008, Akewa failed to live up to each one of its four contracts in Grand Bassa, Margibi and Grand Cape Mount. It is locked in an arbitration proceeding with the Margibi community over locals’ forest benefits.
Iroko dismisses indications of its capacity issues. “We are a business entity and we work with positives and challenges of the business environment,” Iroko said in emailed responses to The DayLight’s queries. It would not make specific comments on challenges.
‘Null and void’
The FDA could have prevented the situation had it disapproved of Iroko’s contract, due to Odebunmi’s shares in Akewa. Back in 2019, Akewa was fined US$1,000 forging another company’s tax clearance to acquire a contract in Grand Cape Mount County.
Approving the Iroko-Central-River-Dugbe contract—with Odebunmi as a shareholder—violates the Regulation on Bidder Qualifications. The regulation debars shareholders of companies that commit any acts of public dishonesty for five years. Only three years had passed when the FDA approved Iroko’s contract.
Iroko said Odebunmi was unaware of his shares in Akewa and “has never signed any document to that effect.” It said Odebunmi did not know of Akewa’s tax fraud.
But those statements are not backed by facts. Odebunmi has owned a fifth of Akewa’s shares since 2010, through two amendments, Akewa’s legal documents show. A recent review of the forestry sector by the U.S.-based Forest Trends also captures Odebunmi as an Akewa shareholder.
Speaking on its illegal approval of Iroko’s contract, the FDA said it did not have a list of debarred companies and individuals, and that it needed a court action to enforce debarment. The FDA further said it could not enforce the qualification regulation because Iroko did not bid for Central River Dugbe. Like Iroko’s, the FDA’s assertions are not backed by facts.
Up: A page from Akewa’s article of incorporation shows Timothy Odebunmi as a 20-percent shareholder in the company. Here: A page from Iroko’s legal documents reveals Timothy Odebunmi as a 50-percent shareholder.
Though the qualification regulation mandates the FDA to form a list of debarred persons, other provisions on eligibility are not subject to the list. For instance, the Yes-or-No Prequalification Criteria requires a firm seeking prequalification not to have any shareholders connected to forgery.
The FDA’s claim that it could not apply the regulation because Iroko was not bidding for a contract contradicts its actions. The qualification regulation does not only cover bidding. It also contains requirements for the rights to conduct forestry activities in Liberia.
Moreover, the FDA applied such a provision by warning Iroko against perjury, which has nothing to do with the debarment list.
“Any statement made under oath to the panel that is found to be false renders this certificate null and void,” Iroko’s prequalification certificate reads. The three-year document will expire later this month.
This story was a production of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ).
Top: Several logs Delta Timber Company left at the Port of Greenville, Sinoe County that have now decayed. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Emmanuel Sherman
GREENVILLE, Sinoe County – Scores of logs at the port of Greenville and a community forest belonging to a logging company have decayed in the southeastern county, despite the company producing perhaps the least number of timber in the industry.
Delta Timber Corporation produced the timber in the last five years, based on the company’s official harvesting records. It is believed the company took the logs to the port between 2017 and 2018.
The DayLight reporters saw a grassy field of decayed logs at the port in January, some still showcasing “DTC,” the company’s industry-recognized abbreviation. A few lay in piles, while others spread across the bushy, open field.
Apart from the decayed logs at the port, there are others left unattended in the Numopoh Community Forest, where Delta operates.
“They are many in the forest all over, some in the landing,” said Sam Kandie, head of the community forest leadership. Landing is the place the logs are gathered and sorted. Kandie said the company last felled a tree in September 2021.
Official records show that Delta produced a total of 1,624.521 cubic meters of logs in the last five years.
But the company exported just 237.178 cubic meters or 41 logs, according to the Forestry Development Authority (FDA).
Delta Timber Company left scores of logs at the Port of Greenville in Sinoe County that have now rotted. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
That means between 2016 and 2021, Delta abandoned 1,387.343 cubic meters of logs. Logs are abandoned when companies leave them unattended for between three weeks and six months, depending on the locations, according to the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products.
But Delta’s abandoned logs are likely more than the ones The DayLight calculated. A 2018 report by Volunteers to Support International Efforts in Developing Africa (VOSIEDA) found the company abandoned over 500 logs it harvested outside Numopoh. Harvesting timber outside a contract area is a violation of the National Forestry Reform Law, and such logs are not captured in FDA’s tracking system.
FDA did not respond to queries on Delta’s abandoned logs. However, recently, it said in a statement it punished companies with abandoned logs without showing any evidence. It said in the statement that it had punished three other companies also operating in the Sinoe area for the same reason.
A pile of Delta Timber Company’s logs at the yard of the Port of Greenville, Sinoe County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Under the abandoned logs regulation, the FDA must petition a court to confiscate and auction logs it deems abandoned. The government loses revenue when logs rot.
Delta Timber Corporation and Numopoh Community Forest signed a five-year logging agreement in May 2016.
The story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ).
Top: A pile of logs in the Garwin Community Forest in River Cess County. The DayLight/Gabriel Dixon
KANGBO TOWN, River Cess – Between 2021 and last year, Tetra Enterprise Inc, an illegitimate Liberian-owned logging company, felled 1,300 trees in the Garwin Community Forest but has removed just a few.
“Tetra harvested 220 logs in 2021 and in 2022 felled additional 1,080 logs,” said Rev. Benison Sarchkoh, head of the community forest’s leadership.
In April, the leadership wrote the company, giving it an ultimatum to extract and scale the logs felled in the bush before the end of that month.
“Do short hauling to Kangbo Town at [the] proposed camp to clear the logs from the bush before the heavy rains,” Sarchkoh said in the letter, obtained by The DayLight. Kangbo Town is the headquarters of Tetra Inc. and home to Garwin Community Forest leadership.
Kangbo Town, the headquarters of the Garwin Community Forest’s leadership. The DayLight/Emmanuel Sherman
Sarchkoh said the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) endorsed their request of the community.
Tetra has left more logs in the forest than the number Sarchkoh provided, official data shows. Between 2018 and 2021, Tetra abandoned 28,039.6 cubic meters of logs it harvested in the Garwin Community Forest, according to our analysis of records from the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Industries (LEITI).
We estimated the 28,039.6 cubic meters at 5,000 logs. That, plus the 1,300 logs the company felled between 2021 and last year sum up to about 6,000 logs.
This reporter photographed some of the logs but could not go further due to inaccessibility.
A Tetra spokesperson attributed the delay in extracting the logs to bad roads. However, William Yeasay said the company had begun extracting the woods to its log yard in Buchanan.
“We have extracted 100 pieces.”
Under the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timbers and Timber Products, logs are abandoned if they are unattended between three weeks and six months, depending on the locations. From all indications, Tetra’s logs are abandoned, having remained in the forest for at least one year.
The penalty for such an offense is a fine equivalent to two times the volume of the logs, according to the regulation.
FDA did not respond to inquiries emailed to it, including whether or not Tetra was authorized to fell more trees in Garwin.
But recently, the agency said it would confiscate and auction abandoned logs across the country to curb the widespread violation. It said it would not award a harvesting certificate to any company that has that problem. To confiscate and auction the abandoned logs, the FDA must petition a circuit court following the publication of public notices, according to the regulation.
Tetra office and proposed camp in Kangbo Town, The Daylight/Gabriel Dixon
Broken promises
Tetra Inc signed a 15-year agreement with Garwin Community Forest on March 18, 2017, to operate in the 36,637-hectare forest, one of the richest in forest and suitable for commercial.
According to the agreement, the company would sell logs and give back to the community, including fees for land rental, harvesting, scholarships and others.
But in the last two years, the company has not met those legal obligations.
Tetra owes Garwin Community Forest over US$60,000 in land rental, scholarship and supportive fees for other essential projects. It owes villagers land rental for two years of US$50,362 and scholarships fee for one year of US$8,000. It also owes compensation for two government-built clinics of US$3,000, according to the community. Yeasay confirmed the outstanding payments.
Tetra has also not constructed schools, roads, or clinics, based on the agreement. According to the agreement, it should have built and furnished an elementary school in 2019 and a junior school this year. It should have paved a primary road and constructed additional clinics to the ones in the area by now.
As a result of these things, chiefs and elders of the region lodged a complaint with the Morweh Magisterial Court in Boegeezay Town, asking the judge to halt logging activities there until their agreement was reviewed.
“We will revisit the agreement this year,” Sarchkoh told The DayLight.
How Tetra is an Illegal Company
An April investigation by The DayLight revealed Tetra is an illegal company.
The report found that the company has a bearer share, which means it has an unnamed shareholder. Such shares are illegal under the Business Association Law.
The investigation showed indications Sawyer owns Tetra, something corroborated by her lawyer.
Former interim President of the Republic of Liberia Late Dr. Amos Sawyer and his wife Thelma Comfort Sawyer Deputy Foreign Minister. Picture credit: The Liberian embassy in the United States.
This story is a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: Decayed and burned logs African Wood and Lumber Company harvested from the Marblee and Karblee Community Forest in Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Emmanuel Sherman
Editor’s Note: This story is part of The DayLight’s series on Failed Logging Concessions in Liberia.
COMPOUND NUMBER TWO, Grand Bassa – No one is present at the facility. There are old logging pieces of equipment. Grass has overtaken logs scattered across an open field, with nearly all already decayed. A few still brandish: “AWL,” which stands for African Wood and Lumber Company.
Owned by an Italian businessman Cesare Colombo, African Wood signed a contract with Marblee and Karblee Community Forest in July 2019. The deal gave the company the right to harvest trees in a 24,355-hectare forest in Grand Bassa’s Compound Number Two. In exchange, the company would sell the logs and give the community an array of benefits, including fees for harvesting, land rental, and scholarships.
But in the last three years, African Wood has abandoned the contract, leaving behind about a US$100,000 debt, unfulfilled projects and piles of logs, according to the leadership of the community.
“The general feeling is that the people feel bad. Nobody feels good about it,” says Abraham Cooper, the head of the community’s forestry leadership. We regret it deeply.”
“The company ran away overnight,” says Oretha Tay, a cook, who claims the company owes her for a year. A security guard, who asked not to be named over fear of reprisal, backed Tay’s comments.
In the three years of abandonment, African Wood and Lumber owes Marblee and Karblee US$66,289 in land rental, scholarship and harvesting fees. That figure could increase by US$19,740 by August later this year.
Besides, African Wood did not construct any roads as promised in the contract, according to the community leadership. Under the agreement, it should have constructed and maintained four roads in affected communities by now.
The community wrote Colombo in August last year and expressed concerns about the delayed payments. “[The community] is asking the company to please pay this money in this August of 2022. We don’t want any further confusion between the community and the company,” the letter read, citing an earlier row over the payments.
An old truck is parked at African Wood and Lumber Company’s log yard in Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/Emmanuel Sherman
That letter came five months after a previous one in March of that year. “The more you keep the forest without operation, the more royalties such as land rental fees and annual scholarship fees will accumulate,” that letter said. “Our community forest will be left in suspense. We are not prepared to [condone] such.”
A week later, Christopher Beh Bailey, African Wood and Lumber’s regional manager and former Superintendent of Grand Gedeh County replied. Bailey said African Wood “was about to undertake the settlement of the royalties and social obligations.” However, he said it would not pay any fees for 2020 and 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic. He claimed that the government of Liberia had halted all logging activities that year. Bailey declined to comment for this story.
Bailey’s claims are not backed by facts. While the coronavirus pandemic disrupted logging activities nationally, the Liberian government did not halt logging activities. It only imposed partial lockdowns for Monrovia and other parts of the country between March and May.
Moreover, African Wood remained active in Marblee and Karblee while the pandemic raged on. Between 2019 and 2021, it harvested 2,682 logs amounting to 18,175.145 cubic meters in the forest, according to official records.
That volume of logs adds to African Wood’s debt to the community. The community’s leadership puts the cost to an estimated US$40,000, according to the March 2022 letter.
Unlike many in the sector, the contract between African Wood and Marblee and Karblee imbeds development dues into harvesting fees. Under their agreement, the company must pay US$4 for a cubic meter of log. Of that amount, US$2.25 goes towards community projects. However, the failure of the company to pay has left affected towns and villages without handpumps, toilets, a school and a clinic.
In another letter in March this year, Cooper called on the FDA to collect its benefits from African Wood and terminate their agreement.
“They breached the contract. So, based on this we want to cancel the contract with the company,” Cooper tells The DayLight in an interview.
“We the community people don’t have money to go to court because we are looking at FDA to be in the interest of the community. We want a swift answer from FDA,” Cooper adds. The FDA did not reply to questions The DayLight emailed to the agency.
Abandoned Logs
From 2019 when African Wood felled its first tree in Marblee and Karblee, to 2021, when it ceased operations there, it did not export any of the 2,682 logs it harvested. A good number of the logs in a log yard on the Buchanan highway have decomposed, with some burned. Cooper says there are many logs still in the forest and at another location, a few of which The DayLight photographed.
An abandoned African Wood and Lumber Company campsite in Karblee Clan, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
In Liberian forestry, logs are abandoned if they are unattended for between three weeks to six months, depending on their location according to the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products. In this case, all of African Wood and Lumber’s logs were abandoned latest June last year, according to our analysis of the situation and the regulation.
The FDA said on Tuesday that it would confiscate and auction abandoned logs across the country to curb the widespread nature of the violation. It would be the first time in more than a decade of forestry reform for the FDA to enforce the regulation. Like communities, the government loses revenue when a company does not export the logs it produces. It loses export royalties and may lose stumpage fees, a percentage of the cost of a volume of logs, depending on the species.
African Wood’s failure in Marblee and Karblee adds to Colombo’s notoriety in the logging industry. In 2020, African Wood and Lumber felled 550 trees in the Gbarsaw and Dorbor Community Forest without authorization. The FDA is yet to punish the company for that violation, one of the gravest in forestry. African Wood also owes affected communities their logging-related fees.
A log African Wood and Lumber Company abandoned in the Marblee and Karblee Community Forest in Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
And the International Capital Consultant (ICC), the company Colombo managed before he purchased Africa Wood and Lumber, owes affected communities in Nimba and River Cess huge debts. It also abandoned over 5,000 logs in that region.
Colombo did not reply to emailed questions. However, speaking about communities’ debts last year in an interview with The DayLight, he defended African Wood over debt criticisms. He said he had invested millions in Liberia’s forestry sector and was “committed to our obligation, and we never undermine the intent of the forestry reform in Liberia.” He has also in the past blamed small-scale loggers or chainsaw millers for not meeting his responsibilities to communities.
This story was produced by the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).