Top: Rotten logs in the Gola Konneh District, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Varney Kamara
ZIMMIDANDAI – A Liberian-owned company has left an unspecified number of logs in a logging concession area in Grand Cape Mount County, community leaders have said.
In 2009, Bulgar & Vincent Timber Company cut trees in a logging concession in the Porkpa District—known in the logging industry as Timber Sale Contract Area 10 (TSC A-10). However, in 2015, it pulled out of the area, leaving the woods to rot, according to Dao Sheriff, a member of the community’s leadership of the forest in an interview in a town called Zimmidandai.
“Most of the logs B&V harvested here were left in the bush,” said Sheriff. “After the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the company returned and cut several logs in 2015, and left this place in the same 2015.”
Sheriff did not say the exact quantity of woods B&V harvested. The company also had some logs in its log yard in the Po River area, according to a July 2017 handwritten letter to the FDA, seen by The DayLight. We could not independently verify the information, as the road to the forest was inaccessible due to years of abandonment and perennial rainfall.
B&V blames the government for the abandonment of the logs.
“We left logs there because the government failed to fix the road. We did not take them out because of this condition,” said Emmanuel Vincent, the CEO of the company, in a phone interview.” “It is the government that failed to do what it is supposed to do.”
That claim is incorrect. It was actually the company’s responsibility to “recondition and maintain roads adjacent [to] the contract area,” according to the agreement.
In June, the FDA announced the auctioning of abandoned logs across the country, including those in TSC A10. “The exercise will continue in the northern region and then go down south and western part,” said Mike Doryan, FDA’s Managing Director.
While that exercise has yet to be carried out, it does not apply here legally. Having been harvested in 2015, the FDA cannot obtain a court order to auction the woods under the current Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timbers and Timber Products. The regulation in place when the harvesting was done narrowed the definition of abandonment as only trees cut outside concession and lack tracking number. The current regulation was formulated in 2017 after the previous one proved ineffective in curbing the waste of forest resources.
Legal issues aside, there is no evidence that the FDA has done anything about deserted logs nationwide. The DayLight has investigated several incidents of abandoned logs in this region, the Gola Konneh District next door, and elsewhere in Grand Bassa, Lofa and Nimba. Doryen’s claim to auction the woods in June was unlawful as it takes months of legal formalities to do so.
‘They…damaged our forest’
The agreement between B&V mandates the company to pay US$1 per cubic meter of logs it harvested and US$1.25 for land rental fees. It was required to build schools, clinics, handpumps, and latrines for villagers but it did not deliver them. Its only project, a USD$4,018 guesthouse in Zimmidandai, has not been completed, according to a report released on Wednesday by the National Benefit Sharing Trust Board (NBSTB), which secures communities’ benefits and oversees their expenditure.
Vincent admits being indebted to the community but blames the Ebola epidemic and the coronavirus pandemic. “We lost heavily in that area,” Vincent said. “We left most of our heavy machines in there. Besides, the government restrained our operation because of the outbreaks. How could we have sold logs to pay benefits? We were practically closed down.” The FDA did not return queries for comment on Vincent’s claim but health authorities imposed some restrictions to contain both outbreaks.
It was unclear how much the company owes because the government has not remitted all the money logging companies have paid them for communities. TSC A10 received US$460 last year as part of the overdue payment and could receive twice that sum from the US$401,000 the government paid to communities recently.
Zimmidandai in Porkpa District, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding
By the way, that has not changed the gloom aura logging arouses in Zimmidandai. After years of failure, the government of Liberia finally canceled all 11 TSCs across the country, leaving thousands of United States dollars owed them unpaid and projects unconducted.
The FDA promised to work with the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee (NUCFDC) to address fees owed TSCs. Doryen reechoed that in our interview in June. However, the two entities have not done any work since the meeting, according to Andrew Zelemen, the national facilitator of the group.
“They came and damaged our forest and left us with no development,” Sheriff said. “Now, the government has canceled TSCs, and they are gone. All I can say to you is that we are inside it.”
A pile of logs abandoned by Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited
Top: Some of the logs Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited abandoned at its sawmill in Zorzor, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
Editor’s Note: In this second part of a series on Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited, we reveal how the Singaporean logging company abandoned a large number of logs in Lofa and Grand Bassa.
But it has abandoned about 2,500 logs it cut within that period, including logs the company illegally harvested, further investigation The DayLight conducted into the firm’s operations discovered. Around a fifth of the logs have already decayed.
Legally, logs are abandoned when they are left unattended between 15 and 180 days, depending on their location and the result of a three-month government-run inquiry. That means even logs Sing Africa felled in December last year, the latest of its production, are abandoned.
Our calculations of the company’s official production and export records between 2019 and last year show that it has 1,426 logs that have not been exported. Having only obtained production and shipment data in volume between 2017 and 2018, we estimated the difference of 10,761 cubic meters to be 1070 logs.
The logs are scattered at different locations. Most of them are in the company’s sawmill in Balagwalazu, with some in its log yards on the Gbarnga-Lofa highway and in Grand Bassa County.
We counted about 500 woods—several with Sing Africa markings—in a large open field in Buchanan, all of which have already decayed. Their remnants created sponge-like coatings everywhere as if the area were a graveyard for trees. You could take the cawing of birds that pierced the quietude of the deserted area for a eulogy.
“It’s not even good for charcoal now,” said one woman, who did not want to be named due to safety reasons.
The members of the leadership of Bluyeama Community Forest, who monitor the company and have records of all its operations, corroborated our findings. Gayflorson Korballah, one of Bluyeama’s leaders, pointed out huge piles of logs that had been harvested in 2017 and 2018. Alexander Songu, the head of the leadership, said most of the ones in the log yard had been harvested in 2019.
We traced some of the logs to the company’s official production records from their tracking numbers.
Tracking logs is a major component of postwar forestry reform in Liberia. Every tree felled must have an identification number that can be used to track logs from harvest to export.
The illegal logging and the failure of the company to pay the community its benefits have left locals frustrated. Since 2009, villagers have had the right to manage their forests alongside the government. Bluyeama, a 49,444 hectare woodland in the Zorzor District bordering Gbarpolu, was certified in 2011.
Following a difficult relationship with Ecowood, a previous logging company, it signed an agreement with Sing Africa in January 2016. But the company has not lived up to its promises. It owes both the Liberian government and the community US$121,271, according to the record of a meeting of players in the forestry industry on the implementation of Liberia’s Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union official records released in March earlier this year. That is one of the highest debts any company owes in the entire forestry sector.
Loss of Revenue
The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has known about the abandoned-logs issue since, at least, two years ago, evidence shows. In August 2020, an inquest by the agency found that Sing Africa abandoned 675 pieces of ekki wood (Lophira alata), an expensive, first-class log, in Buchanan. It also found that Star Wood—run by the Guptas, the Singaporean family that owns Sing Africa—left 465 logs at that same location.
Some abandoned logs in a log yard on the Gbarnga-Lofa highway, owned by Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
“Logging contract holders are not doing much to minimize [the] incident of abandoned logs,” the report, leaked to us, said at the time. It said companies were harvesting logs without first securing sales contracts.
“Much-needed revenues that the national government requires for national development have been lost due to the unprecedented abandonment of assorted round logs by logging companies,” it added.
But it was only two months ago that the FDA started to take action. In April, it gave all companies a one-month period to declare the logs they had not shipped. Managing Director Mike Doryen told The DayLight a countrywide auctioning of abandoned logs would have begun at the end of that month, which did not happen.
“[Bluyeama] is an area of concentration for ourselves,” Doryen said. “Those who did not remove their logs as per the stipulated time, the lawyer will now go to the court to seek judicial actions to have the logs confiscated the auctioned.”
Doryen’s timeline for an auction was impossible. It takes several months of court orders and required notices for abandoned logs to be auctioned, according to the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products. There were no records of such order at the circuit courts in Voinjama and Buchanan.
It was until earlier this month that the FDA began to inquire countrywide about abandoned logs, following three reports by The DayLight on the subject. Harris Zeah, the ranger responsible for Lofa, Bong and Margibi, was suspended and replaced a week after our report of illegal logging in Bluyeama. “Management’s action is predicated upon your consistent failure to meet work plan objectives, including your failure to adequately and timely address noncompliance issues in… the Bluyeama Community Forest,” Zeah’s suspension letter read.
Mukesh Gupta, Sing Africa’s CEO and head of the Guptas, denied any wrongdoing, blaming the coronavirus pandemic.
“We were loading by containers but when the Covid-19 hit, there was no buyer,” Gupta told The DayLight in an interview at the company’s Rehab office in Paynesville. “Covid-19 has damaged us so much. I think I should be supported, given the kind of investments we have made in the community.”
Though the pandemic shattered supply chains worldwide, especially in the Asian markets Sing Africa exports its logs, the company continued to cut trees. Between 2019 and 2020, it harvested 2,000 logs, according to official records. And while it only exported 189 logs during that time, it added 166 logs the following year. It did not apply for force majeure, a legal recourse companies take to address things like disease outbreaks, conflicts and natural disasters.
“We never cut the trees thinking that they would be abandoned. We cut the trees thinking that Covid-19 would go away soon. We are surprised that Covid-19 has stayed on for long,” Gupta added.
Sing Africa faces millions of United States dollars in fines and could be one of the heaviest in the Liberian logging industry’s history. Abandonment of woods in log yards, sawmills and ports carries a fine of three times the international prices of each class of logs.
The regulation was created to prevent waste of forest resources and to make sure companies harvest logs sustainably. It replaced an earlier regulation that narrowed the definition of abandonment to logs found outside a concession, lacking tracking barcodes. Its establishment in 2017 came amid a crackdown on illegal logging by importing countries, including the European Union.
Waste of the logs from Bluyeama adds to the Zorzor region’s forest loss. From 2002 to last year, the district lost 20.6-kilo hectares of humid primary forest, according to Global Forest Watch, which tracks deforestation worldwide. That number is one of the highest among community forests, according to a study by the FDA and the World Resource Institute, a global research charity. Tree cover loss refers to the removal of forest canopy by people or nature.
Piles of decayed logs at a log yard in Buchanan owned by Sing Africa. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Zahn Dehydugar of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists contributed to this report.
The fund for the story was provided by Fern. The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over its content.
Top: Logs, abandoned by Alma Wood in Vanjah Village, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue and Varney Kamara
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a series on the aftermaths of timber sale contracts (TSCs) across the country, which were canceled in March 2021 following years of illegitimacy.
VANJAH VILLAGE – The company of a Lebanese businessman fleeing the law abandoned an unspecified number of logs in Grand Cape Mount County, with the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) doing little to address the problem, an investigation by The DayLight has found.
In 2018, Alma Wood Corporation (Liberia), co-owned by El Zein Hassan, abandoned the woods in a small-scale logging concession in the Gola Konneh and Porkpa Districts of Grand Cape Mount County. Hassan fled the country the following year over a debt lawsuit with Afriland Bank, leaving the logs unattended in different locations in the area.
“There are many logs left abandoned and damaged in the bush,” Aaron Quaye, a community leader, told The DayLight. There are over 5,000 cubic meters [of logs] in the forests.”
This reporter saw scores of the woods scattered across the forest, the company’s log yard in a town called Mafalla, another town named Gohn and Vanjah Village. Some locals were burning the logs to make charcoal in Mafalla. Quaye said there were more logs in forests but The DayLight could not reach them due to the difficult road network in that region.
The DayLight’s calculation of the company’s official production and export records between 2018 and 2020 shows that it did not ship 519.267 cubic meters of logs it harvested in that area. That number could be more, given that the records only show the company’s 2018 production in the concession affecting Vanjah Village and Benduma town, where Quaye lives, not the forest around Bong Village, where Alma Wood also operated.
Woods are abandoned if they are “unattended” between 15 and 180 working days depending on their location, according to Regulation 116-17 on Abandoned Log, Timber and Timber Products. It was created in 2017 and repealed certain sections of Regulation 108-07 that narrowed the definition for “abandoned logs” as logs outside a contract area without tracking barcodes.
The regulation requires the FDA to notify the public over a long period once it learns of the situation. Ruth Varney, the agency’s representative in the western region, confirmed to DayLight the community had told her about the abandoned logs.
Logs Alma Wood abandoned in a forest not far from Vanjah Village in the Porkpa District of Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
In April earlier this year, the FDA gave all logging companies a one-month period to declare logs they have harvested as it takes inventory of probably abandoned logs countrywide. That deadline has expired a month ago and the agency said it would begin auctioning the woods this month.
“Those who did not remove their logs as per the stipulated time, the lawyer will now go to the court to seek judicial action to have the logs confiscated the auctioned,” said FDA’s Managing Director Mike Doryen in a rare interview with The DayLight. “That is a problem that we must solve.”
It was unclear whether the FDA has exhausted a mandatory process in the regulation in order to auction the controversial logs, taking 114 working days or just under six months. Within this time, it needs to investigate, possibly remove the woods to a safe location and make several public notices through the media and its website. It is only when no one claims the logs after that process that the FDA can obtain a court warrant for the auction. Doryen did not show any evidence that these things have been done.
Locals are using some of the woods abandoned by Alma Wood in its log yard in Mafalla, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Besides, Alma Wood’s own legal nightmare makes it even harder for a normal auctioning. Earlier this year, the FDA disapproved a deal for the logs to be sold to East End, a company owned by former Minister of Justice Cllr. Benedict Sannoh, over Alma Wood’s lawsuit. The agency learned that the logs had been used as collateral for Sky Insurance Company to pay the bail for Hassan’s release by the Commercial Court in Monrovia.
Hassan had taken a US643,000 loan from Afriland Bank missed several payment deadlines, according to several people familiar with the case (all parties to the case denied The DayLight access to court filings and an interview). Hassan would escape the country thereafter. Efforts by The DayLight to contact him or representatives of the company were not successful.
It is not just Hassan’s dealing with the court that is unlawful. Alma Wood’s operations in Porkpa and Gola Konneh are also illegal. Five-thousand-hectare logging concessions, known across the forestry sector as timber sale contracts (TSCs), are meant for only firms with at least 51 percent Liberian shareholdings. The company’s two operations in Cape Mount were some of five illegal deals the FDA signed or sanctioned that we and the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ) exposed as part of an investigation on TSC across the country. The one in Quaye’s community is called TSC A11 and the other one is TSC A16. Hassan and Radwan Darwiche, a Senegalese man, equally share the company’s 500 stocks, according to its legal documents. It had been subcontracted to the two TSCs in 2016 by Bassa Logging Company, a Liberian firm, and Sun Yeun, a 98 percent Chinese-owned firm, which also breaks the National Forestry Reform Law.
The two TSCs and nine others in Cape Mount, Grand Bassa, Gbarpolu and Bong County overstayed their legal timeframe of at least five years. All lasted for more than a decade combining to establish some of the most chaotic forest licenses of the postwar era.
Josephus Bank, the CEO and co-owner (one percent shareholder) of Sun Yeun claimed that the company had changed shareholders in an interview with us but did not present any evidence. The company has not changed shareholders since its formation in 2008, the documents we obtained from the Liberian Business Registry show. He blamed the FDA for the abandonment of the logs.
Quaye said Clarence Massaquoi, the CEO and co-owner of Bassa Logging, visited the forest last month with an “investor.” Massaquoi did not respond to specific queries on the matter in a WhatsApp chat.
“FDA contributed to those logs being there today. When Alma Wood’s contract expired, I wrote the FDA informing it about logs being [in the forest]. FDA delayed and I wanted to sell at the time,” Banks said in that interview relative to the logs in TSC A16. The FDA refuted that claim.
A pile of logs that Alma Wood abandoned in Vanjah Village, Grand Cape Mount County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Massaquoi faces a heavy penalty to redeem the logs amid Hassan’s escape, under the regulation on abandoned logs. He is required to first pay an administrative fee associated with, including the probable transport, storage, security and public notification associated with the woods. Penalties include a payment two times the volume of the logs in question by the legal fees for their stumps. Stumpage fees are calculated based on percentages of the international prices of categories of logs. The regulation was formulated to minimize the waste of forest resources and compel legal compliance in the harvesting and shipment of logs.
Quaye, who savored an opportunity to join his community’s forest management leadership in 2016, just before Alma Wood signed an agreement with them, said they were the biggest losers in everything. FDA had canceled all TSCs in March last year but did not see to it that communities get their benefits, leaving Alma Wood indebted to him and other villagers. Bassa Logging/Alma Wood owes affected communities US$56,550 in land-related fees, according to official documents. It did not pay villagers a cent for the trees it felled, fees for scholarships and a handpump, Quaye said.
“We regret all these things that are happening to our community,” Quaye said. “We are regretting because it takes so many years for trees to get mature in the forest. Our forest is depleted without any benefit that communities can point to.”
The FDA told an annual meeting of forestry players in March earlier this year that it would work with the union of community leaderships to address overdue payments and other benefits. He restated that in our interview with him.
“We didn’t do that (addressing benefits and other issues),” Doryen said, “but we will do it now.”
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ) of Liberia and The DayLight.
Top: The International Consultant Capital has abandoned thousands of logs in the Gbi-Doru District. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
GBI-DORU DISTRICT, Nimba County – Sylvester Garsaynee might have been elected chairman of a group that represents the interest of locals in a logging concession in one of Liberia’s most forested regions. However, he has been welcomed by an estimated 5,000 abandoned logs and outstanding payments and projects, which burdened his predecessor in the last three years.
Between 2018 and 2019, the International Consultant Capital (ICC) felled the logs in the Gbi-Doru Administrative District and the Gbier & Gblor Chiefdom. But it abandoned the logs in the forest ever since amid a row with the community over a bridge, with the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) taking no actions mandated by forestry laws and regulations to avoid waste of the woods.
ICC had signed a social agreement with villagers in 2016 as part of its 25-year concession with the Liberian government in 2009, known across the logging industry as Forest Management Contract K or FMC-K Nimba. It covers 127,842 hectares in the northeastern county and extends 40,887 hectares in River Cess and 98,181 hectares in Grand Gedeh. The contract lasts for 25 years but affected towns and villagers must elect new members to their community forest management committee every five years and review their agreement with the company. That is how Garsaynee entered the fray.
“The first thing we are going to do is to make sure the logs are transported from the bush,” Garsaynee told The DayLight in a mobile phone interview from Glahn’s Town, the headquarters of the community forest leadership.
“After that, we will work with the company to make sure it pays the cubic meter fees, the scholarship fees and other fees it owes us,” he added. In forestry, cubic meter fees are the product of the total diameters of all the harvested logs and a particular rate set in an agreement, US$2.25 in this case.
The past leadership of the community had demanded the German company repaired the facility after a log bridge the company built collapsed. The metal passage over Gwen Creek connects the only other road in the area. But when efforts by the pair to sign a memorandum of understanding over the bridge failed, the community asked the FDA to auction the logs and share the proceeds with the community.
“We are of the conviction that those resources are meant to enhance the livelihood of the communities and to generate taxes for the national government,” Jerry Gbaye Sr., whom Garsaynee would replace, wrote in a letter to FDA Managing Director Mike Doryen in November last year. That request was not granted.
Though the logs are abandoned, it is much harder for them to be auctioned, according to FDA’s Regulation 116-17. Depending on their location, logs are abandoned if they are left unattended between 15 and 180 working days, the law requires. But the FDA can only auction it if no one claims them following months of the legal notice and a court warrant, which our investigation showed has not been done in this case.
The FDA investigated the situation itself in August 2020 as part of an “assessment of abandoned logs in concession areas in region three” (Grand Bassa River Cess and Nimba). It found that ICC had abandoned 3,066 pieces or 18,272.158 cubic meters of logs and that some of the unattended logs had been “sold to a local sawmill/mini-mart operator.
“Logging contract holders are not doing much to minimize the incidence of abandoned logs,” the report said at the time. “Much needed revenue that government requires for national development has been lost due to the unprecedented abandonment of the assorted round logs by logging companies.”
The DayLight could not independently verify the number of abandoned logs. The FDA denied us access to the company’s production record, despite forestry laws and regulations guaranteeing public access to such information. Gbaye and other community leaders we interviewed put the number to over 7,000 but did not show any proof.
Also, the FDA imposed no fines on ICC for abandoning the logs, a violation of Regulation 116-17. The regulation calls for grave penalties for an act that “intentionally or negligently causes any logs, timber or timber products to become abandoned.” Penalties include a payment three times the prices of the total volume of species of abandoned logs at the world market price and forfeiture of either a company’s harvesting or export certificate. Created in October 2017, the statute’s purpose is to minimize the waste of forest resources and compel legal compliance in the harvesting and shipment of logs, timbers and timber projects.
‘We are waiting’
In March, the community and company met to resolve their dispute, according to minutes of a mediatory meeting, conducted by the Liberia Timber Association, the FDA and the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee.
Chris Bailey, ICC’s representative at the resolution meeting in Glahn’s Town, accused the community of demanding the company to pay US$1 million before using the bridge, according to the minutes.
Gbaye denies that accusation, saying the amount was an estimated cost of the project, not a fee for the community.
Garsaynee said the company agreed to repair the bridge and conducted a feasibility study on the facility shortly after he replaced Gbaye. “We are waiting on them,” he said. “Everything is now in their hands.”
The DayLight has reached out to Cesare Colombo, ICC’s CEO, for comments. ICC is owned by the estate of the late Liberian businessman Mulbah Willie and the Liberia Wood Industry, a subsidiary of the Liberian Investment Association Limited and Nimarks International Corporation, the articles of incorporation of the companies show.
A log is seen with a chain of custody identification number in Forest Management Contract Area K – Nimba County the International Consultant Capital (ICC) operates. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Apart from the abandoned logs, ICC has failed to live up to a social agreement it signed with the community. It has not paved a major road linking Glahn’s Town to Dorgbor Town, Gbi-Doru’s headquarters. It has yet to provide four overdue handpumps as per the deal. It has ceased to pay an annual US$6,500 for scholarships since 2018 and has not held mandatory, quarterly meetings with locals since 2019, our investigation showed.
Beginning 2020, the community had written Colombo, FDA, and other stakeholders in the forestry sector on the overdue payments and projects, letters The DayLight saw indicate. In a letter to Doryen on April 16 last year, the community said ICC’s failure to meet up with its obligations “has posed a severe embarrassment to communities’ projects, [ongoing] construction and… projects that should have been already in process.” Overdue payment is a violation of forestry laws and regulations. It is a pre-qualification requirement for licenses, shipment permits, and a ground for the cancellation of contracts.
Bailey blames the company’s failure on illicit chainsaw millers and farming activities in the contracted forest, according to minutes of the mediatory meeting. He falsely claims that the Glahn’s-Town-Dorgbor-Town road is not in their agreement. “The road will commence from Glahn’s Town to Dorgbor Town in the second phase of the social contract…,” the agreement says.
There were signs things are not going as planned following the March meeting of the community and the company. The parties agreed in their Glahn’s Town meeting that they would have met in Monrovia by now to continue their settlement but that has yet to happen.
The FDA did not reply to our queries for comments. We wrote Doryen a letter to that effect in January this year but did not get a reply. That was after we had emailed the top managers of the agency on the matter in December last year. Weedor Gray, the technical manager of the community forestry department, also did not respond to queries regarding the outstanding meeting between the community and the company.
Funding for this story was provided by the Civil Society Independent Forest Monitors (CS-IFM). The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over its content.
Top: An Iroko Timber and Logging Company log yard outside Greenville, Sinoe County. The DayLight/Derick Snyder
By Esau J. Farr
KARQUEKPO, Sinoe County – In early 2022, there were widespread jubilations across the eight towns that own Central River-Dugbe Community Forest. They had leased the 13,193-hectare woodland to Iroko Timber and Logging Corporation for 15 years in exchange for development benefits.
But more than two years later, Iroko failed to live up to the agreement. It owes the villagers a huge debt and required projects.
“Our expectation was to bring development to our district and various towns…, including schools, clinics and safe drinking water for our people,” Alexander Slah, a member of the community leadership, said. “I am actually disappointed.”
As it stands, Iroko owes the Central River Dugbe Community US$20,368, based on interviews and official records. These fees include land rental, educational support, volunteer teachers and forest protection. Unpaid harvesting fees stand at US$8,927, according to official records.
The harvesting fees could be higher. Iroko declared 523 logs constituting 3,570.848 cubic meters, official records show. However, it abandoned some of the logs in the forest, locals say. Bartee Togba, the head of the community’s leadership, said he and other townspeople would scale the wood to determine Iroko’s full debt.
Besides unpaid fees, Iroko has failed to undertake contractual projects. It has not constructed five hand pumps it should have completed by last year, according to the contract.
Two Iroko machines in Polay Town, one of the communities that own the Central River Dugbe Community Forest. The DayLight/James Giahyue
“Instead of installing the hand pumps between November and March, the company started in June to August. So, the water table goes low during the dry season…,” Slah said. Arthur Nagbe, a religious leader in Karquekpo, corroborated his account.
Iroko is yet to construct three boundary roads connected to Karquekpo and a guesthouse, which should have all been completed last October. The renovation of an elementary school and the construction of a library that should have been completed this December, according to the agreement, have not also started.
‘Handpicked’
Like Iroko’s external failures, there are indications of internal disappointments since its establishment in July 2021.
Iroko targets 100,000 hectares in 15 years but cannot even manage 13,193 hectares so far. The firm projected production of 50,000 cubic meters of logs as of this year but has produced only 3,570 cubic meters of logs since 2022, official records show.
It declared that it owned eight earthmovers and leased nine others. However, it has been seen with way fewer. One old machine is at the log yard near Greenville and two others were parked in Polay Town after Karquekpo.
Togba criticized the FDA for the Iroko situation. “They (FDA) must know that they have equipment that is up to standard but these things were not done,” he said.
But townspeople The DayLight interviewed blamed the community leadership for choosing Iroko. They said community leaders who vetted Iroko did not have the experience to do so. “They were handpicked,” said Ernest Slah, a resident, in an interview on Somalia Drive, outside Monrovia.
Togba dismisses that claim. He claims only the government has the responsibility to vet companies, though locals have that right in community forest.
Iroko is a new company and did not have a track record at the time it signed the Central River Dugbe contract but its majority shareholder, Timothy Odebunmi, was a red flag. The Nigerian has a record of persistent, perennial indebtedness to communities through his other company, Akewa.
Akewa had owed communities hundreds of thousands of United States dollars for over a decade. One of its contracts was cancelled with unpaid fees and another has been embroiled in a lengthy debt-related out-of-court settlement.
Timothy Odebunmi, the majority shareholder in Iroko Timber and Logging Company, also owns a fifth of Akewa Group of Companies’ shares. His ownership in the latter company disqualified the former from logging activities in Liberia. Facebook/Timothy Odebunmi
That aside, Odebunmi’s shares in Iroko disqualified the company from conducting logging activities in Liberia at the time of the Central River Dugbe contract. Odebunmi has a 20-percent stake in Akewa Group of Companies, which was fined for forgery in 2019. The FDA’s Regulation on Bidder Qualifications rules out companies whose owners are linked to public dishonesty for five years. The FDA ignored that rule and prequalified Iroko.
Lied under oath
Iroko shrugs off claims and indications of struggling to live up to its contract and denies any wrongdoing.
“We don’t know what constitutes a ‘capacity issue’ from your point of view, and can, therefore, not address your question,” Iroko said in an email.
“We would like to state that Mr. Timothy Odebunmi is not aware of having own a share in Akewa, and also Mr. Timothy [Odebunmi] has no knowledge of any tax clearance forgery issue as alleged,” it added.
Iroko’s claims are not factual. More than one year ago, The DayLight exposed Odebunmi’s connection to Akewa in which the newspaper emailed the company about its findings. Moreover, a recent review of the forestry sector lists Odebunmi as an Akewa shareholder.
Iroko’s machine photographed in its log yard near Greenville. The DayLight/Esau J. Farr
Iroko might have avoided the capacity issue. However, everything about the company’s operations is suggestive of a struggle for survival.
Two months ago, the FDA approved the export permit of Iroko to sell over 2,600 cubic meters but it has not exported the consignment. It has not exported any of the logs it harvested nearly two years ago. A recent DayLight investigation found the logs are abandoned, as some six months have passed since they were harvested, the longest period a log should stay anywhere before export. The FDA said it would investigate the abandoned logs accusation.
The FDA argued it approved Iroko’s contract because it had no list of debarred companies or individuals. The regulator further said it could not enforce the qualification regulation because Iroko did not bid for Central River Dugbe.
Those assertions are not backed by law. While the regulation requires the FDA to form a debarment and suspension list, it does not restrict a company or individual’s eligibility to the list. An individual’s eligibility is covered under the prequalification criteria, the standard for that person’s participation in logging activities.
The fact Iroko was prequalified with Odebunmi’s stakes shows that the company lied under oath. Per the regulation, the Nigerian firm should be prosecuted for perjury. The FDA referenced that provision when it certificated Iroko: “Any statement made under oath to the panel that is found to be false renders this certificate null and void.”
Locals are running out of patience over Iroko’s delay in meeting its contract obligations. They have planned a meeting to discuss their future with the company after the Independence Day celebrations. Some have already made up their minds.
“We are disappointed because the company failed us,” said Arthur Nagbe, a community leader. “I don’t even want to work with them again.”
This story was a production of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ).
FDA Deputy Managing Director Gertrude Nyaley made several false claims on Okay FM last Thursday. Picture credit: Facebook
By Gabriel M. Dixon
MONROVIA – In statements that are largely self-contradicting and underpinned by falsehood, FDA’s Deputy Managing Director for Operations, Gertrude Nyaley misinformed the public about community rights, eligibility for contracts, and legality procedures for confiscated and abandoned logs.
Nyaley made the false claims last Thursday when she appeared on Forest Hour, a radio program of Liberia Forest Media Watch, hosted on Okay FM.
The DayLight has fact-checked four major ones.
CLAIM 1: “If there are no shareholders and it is a new company and none of the significant individuals that existed in the previous company, [are] named in that [new] company’s legal document, they cannot be considered as the same company. That’s the trouble we had. So, they registered a completely new company but we, FDA, are still under obligation to advise the community.
“If you say this Company A, you must prove that these are the same significant individuals. But if they are not the same significant individuals, they are totally different individuals, how can you say they are the same company? You can’t say it!”
FACT-CHECK: This claim is false. A Singaporean family, the Guptas, own both Sing Africa and Indo Africa, according to the companies’ articles of incorporation. The Guptas even have a third company: Starwood, which has a contract with Matro Kpogblen Community Forest in Grand Bassa.
Shivali Gupta, Shivani Gupta and Prachi Gupta have equal shares in Sing Africa.
Mukesh Gupta also has 51 percent and Anju Mukesh Kumar has the other 41 percent of the shares in Indo Africa.
Mukesh Gupta has 70 percent of the shares in Starwood and Mrs. Anju Mukesh Kumar has the remaining 30 percent.
Sing Africa and Indo Africa share Kishan Rao Pamapalker as their registered agent, a person who represents a company’s interest in business deals and lawsuits.
Moreover, the two companies had the same officials, with Kumah Gupta as their chief executive officer and Moses Mononporlor, as community forest manager.
The DayLight published these facts in an October 2021 investigation, which New Dawn newspaper republished. The FDA took no corrective measures against the family until each of the companies abandoned its contract. In the end, communities are struggling to get their benefits from a bank ordered by the Commercial Court to possess their assets.
CLAIM 2: “Our work is to ensure that they work consistent with the law. We don’t choose [a] company for [a] community. Communities themselves write FDA introducing who they want to work with after they have gone through their rigorous processes. So, they choose the company to work with. And all FDA can say to you is look, ‘We think that these people may not have the technical capacity because of what they have done in previous communities. We need you to watch.’
“The law says even when they sent their request to sign and we ignored their request, after three months, they have the right to even sign.”
A screengrab of Deputy Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) Gertrude Nyaley’s appearance on Forest Hour on Okay FM.
This is also misleading. Nyaley misreferenced the procedures for an automatic renewal of a community forest management agreement with a commercial use contract.
Communities sign a community forest management agreement with the FDA for 15 years. Now, when that agreement is about to expire, Section 7.8 of the Community Rights Regulation gives villagers the right to automatic renewal if the FDA does not respond to a community’s request in not less than 60 days. That provision has nothing to do with a commercial use contract—also known as a third-party agreement—between a community and a company or an individual.
However, community forestry is no escapism from normal forestry practices. It only recognizes communities’ rights to forestland ownership and co-management of forest resources. It does not usurp the FDA’s powers.
Section 4 (g) and (f) of the FDA Act of 1976 is clear: “To prescribe the form of all licenses, permits, agreements and other instruments dealing with the use of forest resources.
“To control the issuance of such instruments and determine the conditions under which they may be granted, exercised, produced, revoked or returned.”
CLAIM 3: “We’ll move in first to one area for seizure, go to the magisterial court, we get the seizure, get to the site, [and] place the notice. After the period elapse[s], we move to the circuit court and apply the law.”
FACT-CHECK: This statement is misleading. A magisterial court plays no role in the legal processes regarding confiscated or abandoned logs. The word “court” is used 17 times in the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timber, and Timber Products, and 10 times in the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber, and Timber Products. In all instances, the regulations are clear that a petition to confiscate or seize wood must be done in the circuit court. There is no mention of the phrase “magisterial court” in both regulations.
CLAIM 4: “Abandoned logs are all over the country. It’s sad to say but it is true. The challenge has been, because of these woods you [saw in Bondi Mandingo] they cannot pass through the chain of custody system because of the timeframe on the ground. Once it is confiscated, it is illegal. We can’t do anything.”
FACT-CHECK: This statement is untrue. The regulations on confiscated and abandoned logs provide pathways for the FDA to reintroduce timber into the chain of custody system, which tracks wood from their origin to their end-use. This principle is consistent with even the Regulation for Establishing a Chain of Custody System that governs everything about logs.
Both regulations require the FDA to investigate and seek a (circuit) court warrant to seize and/or confiscate timber. Next, the regulator must seek another court order to auction abandoned or confiscated timber upon several public notices.
Top: Logs EJ&J Logging Company abandoned in the Ziadue & Teekpeh Community Forest. The DayLight/Esau J. Farr
By Esau J. Farr
ZAMMIE TOWN – Villagers in River Cess County have made efforts to cancel a contract it has with a logging company over unpaid benefits and unfulfilled promises.
EJ&J Investment Corporation signed a 15-year contract with Ziadue & Teekpeh in 2018. However, five years after logging in the 24,649-hectare forest, the company has failed to live up to the agreement.
“The community said [it is] not willing to work with EJ&J again and therefore has decided to cancel its contract,” said Philip Tarweah, chief officer of Ziadue & Teekpeh’s community forest management body (CFMB).
EJ&J owes the community more than US$72,000 for land rental, harvesting, scholarships and clinic support funds, according to our calculations as of November last year.
EJ&J failed to construct 16 handpumps and pit latrines each within major towns of the Kploh Chiefdom, where the forest lies. It also did not construct the two schools it promised the community.
In the last three years, Ziadue & Teekpeh has made several failed attempts to get their benefits.
In a June 21, 2021 letter obtained by The DayLight, the community sought a meeting with the company the following month. However, EJ&J did not honor the invitation, according to the townspeople.
The parties finally met three months after and the company promised eight handpumps in five months but has not delivered for more than a year.
Stanley Whilzar, EJ&J’s general coordinator, blames his company’s failure on the coronavirus outbreak.
“When it comes to the pit latrines, the elementary schools…, when we entered the first and second years [it was] when we experienced the COVID-19,” Whilzard said. “We couldn’t lay our hands on those projects.”
Whilzar’s remarks are not backed by facts.
Records of the FDA show EJ & J, harvested 2,150 logs or 13,275 cubic meters of logs from 2020 to 2021, during the height of the pandemic.
There is no evidence that EJ&J declared force majeure to suspend its operations and debts. No logger company did.
‘…More logs in the forest’
The DayLight photographed several large piles of logs EJ&J abandoned in the forest for more than two years. The logs were scattered on both ends of the grassy road that leads to the community forest.
Abraham Wizard, a member of the leadership of Ziadue & Teekpeh Community Forest in River Cess. The DayLight/Carlucci Cooper
A former worker of the company, who asked for anonymity for fear of reprisal, pointed at several locations in the forest where he said logs were. Villagers corroborated the ex-worker’s story.
“They have felled more logs into the forest, more than 10,000 logs. They are just wasting there,” said Abraham Wizard, a forest leader in Ziadue & Teekpeh.
EJ&J production records appear to support Wizard and other townspeople’s comments. Not one of the 2,150 logs it harvested during COVID-19 has been exported, the records show.
“We have been informing the company and FDA but they are not doing anything about it,” Wizard added.
The FDA did not respond to queries on the issue. However, the agency announced last November it would begin the process of auctioning abandoned logs across the country. It had made that pronouncement at least two times in the past and failed to take any concrete actions.
The FDA shares the blame for what has happened with Ziadue & Teekpeh.
FDA ignored the recommendations of a government-backed report in 2012 by approving EJ&J’s contract with Ziadue & Teekpeh.
Investigators of the Private Use Permit (PUP) Scandal had asked the FDA to set up a panel to assess EJ&J’s financial and logistical capacities before awarding it future contracts.
Investigators uncovered that Eliza Kronyanh, EJ&J’s owner, did not have the financial means to operate independently. They gathered evidence that her company signed contracts only to subcontract to other companies, exploiting locals.
[Additional reporting by Aaron Geezay in River Cess]
Funding for this story was provided by the Kyeema Foundation and Palladium. It was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: A graphic depicting the illegal involvement of Gabriel Doe in the logging industry during and after the Liberian civil wars. The DayLight/Rebazar D. Forte
By Emmanuel Sherman and James Harding Giahyue
KPANYAN DISTRICT, Sinoe County – In 2016, Numopoh Community Forest leased 7,220 hectares of forestland to Delta Timber Company.
Instead of the forest in Sinoe’s Kpanyan District, Delta harvested logs in another area of the woodland, an investigation by an NGO found two years later. It abandoned logs in the forest and at the Ross Port of Greenville, Sinoe County. Then it failed to live up to the agreement with Numopoh.
But all of this would not have happened had the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) disapproved the agreement. The involvement of Gabriel Doe, Delta’s owner, in the logging industry before and during Liberia’s bloody civil wars means he should not participate in forestry.
Doe owned the Cavalla Timber Corporation, one of 17 logging companies that either supported militias, participated in or facilitated the war. An estimated 250,000 people died during the carnage and about a million were displaced.
“Logging revenue was unlawfully used by political elites and warring factions to fund armed conflict[s],” said the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). “Logging companies shipped or facilitated shipments of weapons and other military materials to warring factions.”
Cavalla had an affiliation with the notorious Oriental Timber Corporation (OTC), owned by convicted war criminal Guus Kowenhoven, who traded illegal Liberian timbers and supplied guns to then-President Charles Taylor.
In 2001, the United Nations imposed a travel ban and assets freeze on Doe, Taylor, Kowenhoven and more than 100 other individuals linked to the Taylor regime, which took over a decade to be lifted. Two years after the travel ban, the United Nations sanctioned Liberian logs. The sanctions were intended to break the connection between the individuals and Liberia’s natural resources, and arms smuggling, the UN said at the time.
Gabriel Doe illegally obtained a logging contract though he and other wartime loggers are debarred from participating in forestry, according to the Regulation on Bidders Qualification. Picture Credit: Facebook/Gabriel Doe Doe
But to prevent future “blood timber,” “conflict timber” or “logs of war,” the reform agenda partially debars wartime loggers from the ravaged industry. It empowered local communities to enter into contracts and benefit from their forests.
An Illegal Re-entry
Apparently inspired by Cavalla, his old company, Doe established Delta in 2012. He holds 60 percent of Delta’s shares, with the rest outstanding, according to its article of incorporation.
Doe did not only have a relationship with former President Charles Taylor. He might have also allied with former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who led the country when Delta was established. In her 2009 memoir, This Child Will Be Great, Mrs. Sirleaf claimed she secretly boarded Doe’s airplane to escape from late President Samuel K. Doe (No relation to Gabriel Doe). Gabriel Doe denies that story.
With his paperwork in hand, Gabriel Doe headed to Sinoe’s Kpanyan District, a region in which he had worked many years ago. He had begun his logging career in Nimba in the early 1970s with another company, he told The DayLight in an interview in Monrovia. Cavalla had also worked in the southeastern region in the 1980s up to the early 2000s.
Villagers knew Doe’s past but he assured them it was a new beginning, Sam Kainde, the head of Numopoh’s leadership, told The DayLight.
“He told our people at this time that there is [National Forestry Reform Law] and [Community Rights Law of 2009 with Respect to Forest Land] that [are] going to [protect] the community so, what they used to do had passed,” Kainde said. “Our people grasped it in their minds.”
But it was the beginning of the community’s postwar nightmare.
The logging industry fueled the two Liberian civil wars, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Picture credit: Teun Voeten
In December 2018, just two years into the agreement, Volunteer to Support International Effort Developing Africa (VOSIEDA), an NGO, found the company harvested 500 logs outside its contract area. VOSIEDA’s report referenced an investigation by Global Witness in 2017, which captured the illegal felling and other accusations.
The FDA did not punish the company. Per the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timber and Timber Products, the FDA should have obtained a search warrant, confiscated the logs in question and auctioned them. It should have fined Delta two times the official price of the logs, a six-month prison term or both, according to the regulation. The FDA did not respond to The DayLight’s queries for this story.
Delta paid Numopoh just under US$1,000 for the illegal harvesting and US$4,963.75 for a one-year land rental fee, according to a receipt of the payment. It owes nearly US$20,000 in land rental and harvesting fees, based on the receipt and the agreement.
Delta has also failed to complete a school, establish a sawmill, and erect a clinic. It has not funded Numopoh’s scholarship program in line with the agreement.
In fact, in all, Delta has only paved a 26-kilometer dirt road.
Delta is one of the most dormant, failing to renew its business registration since June 2021, records at the Liberia Business Registry show.
Delta has abandoned nearly all of the logs it harvested, another violation. Between 2018 and 2021, it produced 1,624.521 cubic meters of logs. However, it only managed to export 237.178 cubic meters or just 41 logs, according to the LEITI, citing company and FDA figures. Some of the logs have rotted at the Port of Greenville, others are scattered in the Numopoh forest.
A receipt from Numopoh to Delta Timber Corporation shows the company paid the community US$5,961.75 in 2017 and 2018.
Doe wrongly claims that the logs are not abandoned.
“They were not abandoned,” Doe told The DayLight. “If you decide to operate in the port, you request for an area and you stockpile the logs until the vessel comes in.”
Doe’s claims are not backed by facts. Under the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products, logs cannot stay more than one-and-a-half months at a port. The regulation came a year after the Numopoh-Delta agreement to curtail the waste of timber but has not been enforced.
Several logs Delta Timber Company left at the Port of Greenville, Sinoe County have now decayed. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Numopoh and DELTA might have acted illegally by signing an agreement. However, the FDA broke its own law by approving it. The Regulation on Bidder Qualifications requires the FDA to disqualify businesspeople connected to the logging industry before 2006 unless they fully and honestly confess their deeds to the TRC.
Doe claims he received a certificate from the TRC after he appeared. “If I didn’t comply, [the] FDA would not have permitted me to do logging…,” Doe told The DayLight.
Proving or disproving Doe’s appearance is difficult, as he is not mentioned in the TRC report and most of the commission’s archives remain sealed until 2029. However, journalists who covered the commission and former commissioners, communication staffers and data clerks deny Doe’s claim.
But appearing before the TRC is not the only condition for wartime loggers to participate in forestry today. The qualification regulation requires wartime loggers to restitute funds that the government lost as a result of their illegalities. Interestingly, they must pledge they would not repeat their illegal dealings. There is no record that Doe did so.
Harrison Karnwea, the Managing Director of the FDA at the time—who approved DELTA’s contract— did not say whether or not Doe appeared before the TRC. Rather, he justified having approved the wartime logger’s contract.
Karnwea suggested he could not be held responsible for the Delta situation. He claims that the FDA is not required by law to have a list of debarred people and companies and that the FDA only witnesses contracts.
“The communities award their contracts to somebody and take the person to the FDA for the FDA to witness the agreement and acknowledge it,” said Karnwea, the current chairman of the agency’s board of directors.
“There is no such thing as [a] debarment list,” he added.
Karnwea’s claims are not based on the facts. The qualification regulation mandates the FDA to keep a list of debarred persons in addition to a list the Public Procurement and Concession Committee (PPCC) should make.
The National Forestry Reform Law requires the FDA to make sure that companies generally meet the threshold to conduct logging in Libera. Issues include individuals’ financial and technical capabilities, human rights and criminal records, integrity and government affiliation.
A screenshot of the page of the Regulation on Bidders Qualification mandates the FDA to keep a list of debarred individuals.
Contrary to Karnwea’s claim, the FDA does not witness community forest contracts. It approves—and can disapprove—them, based on the qualification regulation.
Karnwea’s apparent excuse that it was not his responsibility to prequalify companies does not hold. “The Managing Director shall be professionally qualified in forestry, the act that established the FDA says. “He shall be responsible for the conduct of the general operation of the Authority…”
Termination
Following those years of rigmarole, Numopoh is seeking an end to the contract with Delta. Kainde accuses Doe, who has been away in the Ivory Coast, of holding the forest hostage.
“Given the fact that the agreement has ended and the company has failed to fulfill its financial obligations, the community has decided that it will not renew its agreement with Delta,” Kainde wrote to the FDA in July. “The FDA should therefore not engage in any dealing with Delta regarding the Numopoh [agreement].”
The community’s action is not lawful. To end their relationship with Delta, locals will have to go through an arbitration process, according to the agreement. The arbitration panel comprises three persons, one each from the disputed parties and a third from the FDA.
Doe wants to continue with the agreement despite being indebted to the community.
Kainde told The DayLight Numopoh already engaged an attorney.
“We will seek legal advice for the way forward if FDA does not give us the authorization,” said Kainde.
[Konwroh Wesseh contributed to this story]
The story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: A graphic depicting an elder, illegal logs, abandoned logs and camp, and harvesting maps from an unlawful plan the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) approved. The DayLight/Rebazar Forte
By Esau J. Farr
CONIWEIN, Grand Bassa County – One day in late 2020, Abednego Davies spotted some loggers felling trees on the way to his farm.
The forest does not fall within the Marblee & Karblee Community Forest so, what were they doing there, Davies thought to himself. The land belongs to Coniwein a section in the Marblee Clan in Grand Bassa’s District Number Two.
Surprised and suspicious, Davies headed back to his village and told the elders, who proved his suspicion was right. In no time, the elders summoned a representative of the African Wood and Lumber Company and halted the illegal operations.
African Wood conceded it encroached on the villagers’ territory and began to negotiate to continue but that would not happen, according to documents The DayLight obtained and elders we interviewed.
The elders knew the harvesting was happening on the Coniwein’s land and so it was illegal. Back in 2019, Coniwein had opted to be part of the Marblee & Karblee Community Forest but African Wood refused, according to Gonaweh Gbiahgaye, one of the elders. The following year, the elders had warned African Wood from their land while the company prepared to harvest.
“Coniwein is a section with a substantial deed, which, if you want to do anything, you should meet the citizens,” villagers said in a May 2020 letter to African Wood at the time. Coniwein’s land covers 6,760 acres, a copy of the community’s deed, seen by The DayLight, shows.
Having ignored Coniwein’s warning, African Wood now tried to convince the elders to continue the illegal operations. A meeting by the parties ended in deadlock, according to Gbiahgaye.
The elders wrote Joshua Howard, a manager of the African Wood, rejecting its proposal to keep the logs in question and cut additional ones. Then they asked the company to pay for the logs it had harvested.
“We are telling you not to touch any of the logs or cut down any logs until we all meet and come down to one conclusion,” the January 2021 letter read.
The DayLight photographed the stumps of trees of African Wood and Lumber illegally harvested in Coniwein private forest in Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/Harry Browne
Such negotiation is prohibited in forestry. Communities are under a legal obligation to inform the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) in such matters, according to the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timber and Timber Products. It requires the FDA to investigate and seek a court’s approval to confiscate and then auction the logs in question. It also sets a penalty for logging outside a contract area.
But amid their rowdy negotiation, a huge pile of the illegal logs adjacent to Davies’ farm disappeared between March and July, according to some villagers.
African Wood had taken the logs not long after Davies discovered the illegal operations, former workers of the company said. One account had it that the company smuggled the woods overnight. However, The DayLight could not independently verify the claim.
“When they felled the logs, they took some and some remained in the bush. Our work was to extract logs from the bush for the company,” said David, whose duties included fastening the tags bearing barcodes to the logs.
Another former worker, Daniel Muopoe, corroborated the account. He said, “[African Wood] felled our logs from our community but they never carried [all of them].”
A handwritten letter from Coniwein to African Wood, warning the company against its encroachment on the community’s land. The DayLight/Esau J. Farr
In total, African Wood harvested about 200 logs, according to Muopoe and other ex-workers who participated in the illegal operations.
A team of reporters from The DayLight photographed and videotaped some of the logs in a forest near a town called Wayglon before and after the disappearance. White tags clearly brandishing “African Wood & Lumber Company” were attached to the wood. Some standing trees had tags on them, suggesting they had been earmarked for harvesting. Felled trees lay in the forest in a number of locations, some rotting.
With no logs nor money and three years after Davies’ discovery, Coniwein has decided to inform the FDA about the incident.
Actually, elders attempted to inform the agency but a townsman tasked to lodge a complaint did not do so. “I have not gone to the FDA because I don’t know how to get to them,” Patrick Karngbo, who serves as Coniwein’s land administrator, told The DayLight.
What Coniwein did not know was that the FDA had authorized the harvesting on their land.
The FDA had illegally granted African Wood and six other companies access to excess forests to harvest in short timeframes. The most infamous of the seven was the West African Forest Development Incorporated (WAFDI). A Ministry of Justice investigation discovered WAFDI had harvested the illicit forest area for nearly three years, exporting thousands of round logs.
Gonaweh Gbiahgaye, an elder of Coniwein Section in District Number Two, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/Harry Browne
But African Wood’s harvesting of the illegal FDA-approved forest area remained unreported—until now.
African Wood’s harvesting plan for 2019-2020 shows the FDA authorized the company to cut trees on 5,600 hectares. However, the plan further shows that 6.95 percent of the FDA-approved area was outside Marblee & Karblee, including in Coniwein.
Doryen wrongly claimed in the letter that the plan conformed with the Guideline for Forest Management Planning and the Regulation on Pre-felling Requirements. “After thorough review… by the joint team…, we hereby approve said plan, having met all basic requirements,” Doryen wrote African Wood’s CEO Cesare Colombo on June 17, 2019.
On the contrary, the plan broke all those legal instruments. Doryen did not respond to questions The DayLight emailed to him for this story.
African Wood’s operations in Coniwein are not the company’s first logging offense.
Adjacent to Coniwein’s woodland, African Wood has neglected the Marblee & Karblee Community Forest, leaving the landowners with about a US$140,000 debt and abandoning 2,682 logs, according to official records.
Colombo did not respond to questions for comments.
Top: The headquarters of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) in Paynesville. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
MONROVIA – The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has banned a Turkish logging company and barred its shareholders for illegal logging activities in Liberia, the agency said in a press release on Tuesday.
The FDA said Askon Liberia General Trading Limited abused its sawmill license and extracted and exported timber. The agency said it would recommend prosecution for its owners: Hassan, Yetar and Faith Uzan.
“The permit issued required Askon to source logs from legal sources and not engage in the informal harvesting of logs,” the FDA said. “The investigation into the whereabouts of these individuals will progress, and subsequent actions will be recommended or referred to the justice system of Liberia.”
Askon Illegal operation campsite between Ganta and Sanniquellie, Nimba County. The DayLight/Gerald C. Koinyeneh
Askon’s illegal operations were exposed by The DayLight in March. The report said Askon ran an illegal operation in Nimba County in which it harvested and smuggled timber in containers. It named Assistant Minister of Trade Peter Somah as an accomplice. The FDA said it took the report “seriously.”
Hasan Uzan, Askon’s majority shareholder, did not immediately respond to questions for comment on this story.
The FDA also said it took action against logging companies for stockpiling logs across the country. Companies abandon logs when they do not attend to the woods between three weeks and six months, depending on their location, according to the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products.
The agency announced it has suspended the harvesting certificates of Mandra Forestry, Ruby Light Forestry and Atlantic Resources. A recent report by The DayLight found Mandra abandoned some 7,000 logs from its contract with the Sewacajua Community Forest. Ruby Light Forestry, which operates in a large concession that extends to Grand Gedeh, has perhaps the largest field of abandoned logs in the country. Holding a logging concession covering Maryland, River Gee and Grand Kru, Atlantic Resources has abandoned a host of logs, including decayed ones in an open field in Greenville, Sinoe County.
This drone photo shows some of Mandra’s abandoned logs outside Greenville, Sinoe County
“This decision is prompted by the failure of these companies to honor the mandate from the FDA to enroll all logs harvested in LiberTrace,” the FDA said. LiberTrace is the system to tracks logs from their sources to final destinations.
Companies that have abandoned logs but do not have harvesting certificates will not be allowed to fell any trees until they export the wood, the FDA said.
The agency said it had initiated actions to confiscate abandoned logs. According to it, the action will deter companies from further harvesting logs without exporting them, one of the most common forestry violations today. Under the law, the FDA must petition a court to confiscate and auction abandoned logs.
“Companies in both categories, suspended certificates and otherwise, may be subject to further [penalties]…,” the FDA said.
Representatives of the three companies did not return WhatsApp messages for their sides of the story. However, in April, Augustine Johnson, Mandra’s manager, falsely argued the logs were not abandoned because they were durable, and that he had already paid the royalties on 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 at the time.
A screenshot of pictures showing decayed logs Atlantic Resources Limited harvested and kept in a log yard in Greenville, Sinoe County. The DayLight/Eric Opa Doue
In January, Massaquoi Robert, a transport supervisor of Ruby Light, too, wrongly argued that the company had abandoned no logs.
“We’re defacing the logs you see there. We have sales contracts right now,” Robert said at the time. “My logs are not rotten. You are not a logger, I say my logs are useful.”
