Top: The arrested illegal timber dumped at Bahn police station. The DayLight/Mark Newa
By Mark Newa
BAHN – Police in Nimba have arrested a truckload of illegal timber harvested from forests by a businesswoman.
The illegal timber, owned by Binta Bility, were harvested from community forests in the Zoe-Geh and Bu-Yao districts, destined for Ganta when it was stopped earlier this month.
FDA rangers arrested the consignment after they noticed the timber was oversized. Under the Chainsaw Milling Regulation, planks must be not more than two inches thick, 10 or 12 inches wide and at most 14 feet long.
The 79 pieces of the four-inch-thick timber, commonly called kpokolo, were dumped at the main police station. The woods are slightly less thick than the ones Bility illegally harvested in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County.
Bility said she was not aware of the regulation restricting chainsaw millers to those sizes of planks.
“I agreed to reduce [the woods] to the legal two inches,” Bility told The DayLight via WhatsApp over the weekend. “I don’t intend to do anything illegal.”
Arthur Gweh, the local police commander, and Emmanuel Gbeh, the FDA ranger who carried out the arrest, evaded the interview.
Bility, meanwhile, faces a fine of twice the price of the timber set by the FDA and could face up to 12 months in prison. She has not been punished for the ones she illegally harvested in Grand Bassa, though.
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: Othello Teah, “the regular caller” who has become an illegal logger. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
COMPOUND NUMBER TWO, Grand Bassa County – A man who calls on nearly all talk shows in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, is involved in an illegal logging business with at least one villager and the proprietor of the port city’s most famous woodshops, an investigation by The DayLight has found.
Othello Teah, the regular caller, produces timber, commonly called “kpokolo,” a form of illegal logging that is ravaging Liberia’s forests and undermining authorities’ quest to increase logging revenues.
This reporter saw 25 pieces of thick, square woods by the roadside in Boyeah’s Town in Compound Number Two ripped by Teah. Joe Jarvis Boyeah, a villager who he hired, told The DayLight the deal was between Teah and an unnamed farmer.
That information was corroborated by other townspeople we interviewed, including Joshua Gbar.
“The town doesn’t have a share in it,” Gbar said, adding that was the first of such operation in that area.
Teah admitted he runs the operation without a permit and first conducted it in 2019. However, he argued that he did not need FDA’s approval to produce the timber, which he wrongly considered planks.
“Any log that is placed in a dimension is pit-sawing. Two by two is a dimension. Two by five is a dimension. I know,” Teah, revered for his strong stance on issues in Grand Bassa’s radioland, said.
Some of the timbers Othello Teah illegally harvested in Boyeah Town, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Chanda Cole, Teah’s partner who is the proprietor of the Cole Joe Wood Work Shop in Buchanan—one of the oldest in the city—backs him. He said the timber was dahoma wood, a durable hardwood used in construction and boatbuilding.
“We don’t do permits from the government to buy and sell wood. We get a thing called business registration from [the Ministry] of Commerce,” Cole wrongly claimed. The ministry does not issue business certificates, the Liberia Business Registry does.
But apart from that, the operation of Teah and Cole violates forestry laws and regulations in several ways.
First, there is a difference between timber, which the pair is producing, and planks, which they falsely claim to be making, according to the Regulation on Establishing a Chain of Custody System. It sets the standard for sourcing, transporting, and exporting wood. It defines “timber is a sawn wood or log,” while planks or lumbers are the “products” of pit-sawn or chain-sawn woods.
Second, chainsaw millers are only permitted to produce planks, which are way lighter and smaller than the timber Teah had produced in Boyeah Town.
Third, chain-sawn woods can only be sourced from a concession area, authorized private forestland, and an approved community forest, not from an ordinary farmer.
And, in fact, chainsaw milling is illegal, as there is no current regulation for it after a previous one was dropped years back. It is being permitted to support construction works in Liberia since logging companies do not supply the local market. A regulation for the subsector has been drafted and is being reviewed by the Board of Directors of the FDA.
Inconsistency
Both Teah and Cole contradicted themselves on why they are harvesting the timber in Boyeah Town.
When we initially phoned Teah, he claimed that the woods were meant for the construction of a bridge in Compound Number Three. That was exactly what Joe Jarvis Boyeah told us. Later in an interview, Teah flipped that he was supplying a company. But when quizzed further, he said he was actually supplying Cole’s woodshop. That was the first time in days of discussions that he mentioned he had a business partner other than the farmer and Boyeah.
Cole continued Teah’s inconsistency. Teah had called him to convince this reporter that their business was not illegal. He, too, first claimed that the woods were meant for a company.
“We use it on the bridge, we use it on the machine to balance on it to work,” Cole said in an interview at his workshop. But he somersaulted as the interview progressed, claiming they were meant for his shop. One of the practices in chainsaw milling is that the wood must be sawn into planks in the forest, not elsewhere.
“Don’t change anything here, it’s pit-sawing,” Cole said. “Anything from two-inch up is timber.”
This investigation comes less than two weeks after The DayLight exposed a similar illegal operation in the Compound Number One area, conducted by a woman named Binta Bility. That report came after leaked videos and pictures of Varney Marshall, an FDA ranger showed he ran well-organized kpokolo operations, believed to be in Gbarpolu County.
Timbers that were illegally harvested in an operation conducted by Othello Teah, a “regular caller” in Grand Bassa. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Zahn Dehydugar contributed to this report.
The story was produced by the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ).
Varney Marshall (right) poses for a picture while a chainsaw miller works at Marshall’s illegal logging site in Gbarpolu County. Picture credit: WhatsApp/Varney Marshall
By James Harding Giahyue
KLAY, Bomi County – A leaked video of a ranger of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) shot by himself and photographs probably taken by his accomplices have revealed his illegal logging operations.
Varney Marshall, who is assigned at the Klay checkpoint in Bomi County, can be heard ranting in the one-minute-58-second video furious that one of his accomplices was trying to cheat him.
“Look at the woods Abe called 600 pieces. Look at the woods he [has] now hauled. I will wait for him until he comes here,” he can be heard saying at the beginning of the film.
He then turns his mobile phone around an open field of more than a thousand timbers.
“You see it, you see the woods? I am doing this video to send it to my woman straight. You see it, you see the wood?
“He’s here doing Gobachop. That’s here his dismissal will come from. You see the distances the woods [are]? Is that 600 pieces here?” “Gobachop” means black market in Liberian parlance. It was coined in reference to the late Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, whose leadership led to the demise of the former Soviet Union.
“You want to steal from me?” Marshall says in the recording.
The leaked video exposed Varnery Marshall, the FDA ranger who runs illegal logging operations.
The video and pictures are believed to be taken at different locations in the forest in Gbarpolu County. Some reveal a sea of timbers scattered on an open field. Some show wood parked in containers. Others reveal Marshall’s accomplices, sitting on top of a mountain of woods, standing near a gigantic tree and posing for a photo with their new chainsaws and gear. Several of the pictures featured Marshall himself modeling next to a chainsaw operator as he saw a huge log.
Marshall had sent the recordings and pictures to a source as a pitch for both men to partner in an illegal logging business. “We need to talk, brother,” Marshall tells the source in the WhatsApp message on August 16 at 8 p.m. His message does not get a reply. The source said he shared the message with The DayLight to prove he was also a victim, not just an actor of the unlawful activity.
The leak comes barely a week after the FDA said it has observed that several illegal timber products are being exported without a trace. It said smugglers were hiding wood in containers. “FDA checkpoint and Free Port of Monrovia staff members are instructed to open all sealed containers from forested areas to verify content and ensure that the FDA duly issued conveying permit documents,” the statement said.
The agency suspended Marshall and Edward Kollie Jallah, another ranger assigned at the Klay checkpoint, over the leaked video and their alleged roles in the transport of illegal woods that involved a police commander and other individuals, according to Cllr. Yanquoi Dolo, the head of the FDA legal team.
“Both Marshall and Jallah are suspended with directives that they report to Monrovia for investigation. They are expected to report to headquarters tomorrow. Their supervisor has been notified,” Dolo told The DayLight.
Marshall and Jallah did not answer phone calls placed to them. They did not reply to WhatsApp messages well.
A container is being uploaded at an illegal logging site run by FDA ranger Varney Marshall. WhatsApp/Varney MarshallWoods loaded in a container that Varney Marshall harvested in a forest believed to be in Gbarpolu. WhatsApp/Varney MarshallA pile of woods Varney Marshall, an FDA ranger, illegally harvested in a forest believed to be in Gbarpolu County. WhatsApp/Varney MarshallA pile of woods Varney Marshall, an FDA ranger, illegally harvested in a forest believed to be in Gbarpolu County. WhatsApp/Varney MarshallSome of Varney Marshall’s accomplices pose with new chainsaws and gears. WhatsApp/Varney MarshallWoods Varney Marshall illegally harvestedTwo illegal loggers who work with Varney Marshall. WhatsApp/Varney MarshallWoods Varney Marshall harvested illegally. WhatsApp/Varney Marshall A mountain of timbers Varney Marshall, an FDA ranger, illegally harvested. WhatsApp/Varney Marshall
CORRECTIONS: This version of the story deleted the repeated phrase “means black market.” It also corrects “woods” for wood in the fifth paragraph.
“My thing was to ensure that I attract potential investors to Liberia,” Anderson told The DayLight in a phone interview.
Anderson said he contacted Augustine Dunbar, one of his friends, who took him to Weimu, a village in the Bopolu District of Gbarpolu County. Dunbar then introduced him to villagers there, Anderson said. Within months, the logs were ready for transport.
At that point, Anderson contacted Dawoda Sesay, the commander of police deports in the Paynesville area known as Zone Five, to help arrange the transport. Sesay hired three container trucks to move the logs, promising to pay them either US$1,000 or US$900, according to Sesay himself and the truck owners.
Last month, the trucks arrived at Anderson’s logging site, were loaded with logs, and took off. But rangers of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) halted the transport. Two trucks were arrested at the Klay checkpoint on the Bomi highway and the one at Sawmill on the Tubmanburg-Bopolu highway.
The rangers found out that Anderson and Sesay did not obtain approval from the FDA to transport the logs. The Klay trucks were immediately impounded at the FDA regional office in Tubmanburg. The one at Sawmill was held exactly there. After weeks of investigation, the rangers later discovered Anderson and Sesay were running an illegal logging operation, one of the severest offenses in the forestry sector.
The FDA has sued Sesay and the owners of two of the trucks over the illicit operation.
“The FDA sees the actions of Mr. Sesay and the owners of the truck as a gross violation of the National Forestry Reform Law,” Cllr. Yanquoi Dolo, the head of FDA’s legal department, told The DayLight in an email. “The Managing Director of the FDA, Hon. C. Mike Doryen has frowned on this gross illegality and has requested that sternest of action against the violators consistent with the laws governing the forestry sector.” The lawsuit comes as reports of illegal shipments of timbers and timber products are on the increase.
An investigation by The DayLight has found more details of the illicit activities, following our initial report of the seizure of the logs two weeks ago.
Ex-diplomat Richmond Anderson. Facebook/Richmond Anderson
Commander of Zone Five police deports Dawoda Sesay. Facebook/Dawoda M. Sesay
‘Sample’
Before you engage in logging activities in Liberia, you must have a company, registered at the Liberian Business Registry and then apply at the FDA. The agency will vet your company, including its capacity to operate and your criminal record. Once your business meets all of the criteria, it is prequalified to do logging in Liberia. Thereafter, you will have to seek a contract with the FDA or an agreement with a community, subject to the agency’s approval. That goes with the transport of woods.
That was not the case with Anderson. “I have not done logging before, don’t know the different species of logs. I have no idea, it was my first time,” Anderson told us in the phone interview.
Anderson said Dunbar introduced him to a customs officer at the Freeport of Monrovia he only identified as Peter, who told him it was possible to ship woods without a permit.
He said he had Korean business partners who were interested in exporting first-class logs and had assured him of buying the woods once he delivered them. He added that the woods were a kind of experiment for future deals.
“They (Koreans) want to carry the wood as a sample and then pay later,” Anderson said. “So Sesay agreed to help me with some of the money.”
Some of the logs there were illegally harvested in Gbarpolu in one of the container truckers that were seized by the Forestry Development Authority. The DayLight/Gabriel Dixon
The FDA has indicted Sesay, Shakia Kamara, who owns one of the Klay trucks, and Layee Sheriff, the owner of the one at Sawmill, in separate lawsuits in Bomi and Gbarpolu County, according to court officials. The agency is seeking a US$25,000 fine, a 12-month prison term for the men, and forfeiture of the vehicles, all maximum penalties under forestry laws and regulations. It would indict the owner of the third truck once it gets a name, according to Dolo.
The agency has also asked the courts to allow it to take the logs in line with the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timbers and Timber Products. It will need another court order to auction them.
Sesay admits he hired the trucks to transport the woods but said he did not know whether the operation was illegal.
“As police officers, we have our inalienable rights: the right to live, right to survive. So, if my brother came to me and said, ‘Look, I need this assistance,’ then… I made the arrangement… is that something prohibited? Sesay told The DayLight in an interview at his Mount Barclay residence. “Even if I knew what they (truckers) were going to get, that is none of my business. If the transaction was illegal, I was not there to know that it was illegal.
“The good thing there, I didn’t facilitate armed robbery, I didn’t facilitate murder, I didn’t facilitate drugs trafficking, nor human trafficking,” he added.
The owners of the trucks said they were also unaware that the woods were illegally harvested. Sheriff, one of the two trucks’ owners who have been indicted, said Sesay had promised to give them the documents for the wood once they arrived at the site but did not.
The National Port Truckers Association of Liberia said the scandal has “embarrassed” the group. It said it would try to prevent such illegal transport in the future.
“We want to have a memorandum of understanding [with the FDA] because we want to avoid future embarrassment. This is a complete lesson to us now. We know that there is a lot of clandestine activities going on with the transportation of woods,” said Yahaya Kemokai, the secretary general of the association.
The FDA said in a statement last week it has observed that several illegal timber products are being exported without a trace. It said smugglers were hiding woods in containers. “FDA checkpoint and Free Port of Monrovia staff members are instructed to open all sealed containers from forested areas to verify content and ensure that the FDA duly issued conveying permit documents,” the statement said.
The truck that was held at Sawmill, owned by Layee Sheriff, one of the people indicted for alleged illegal logging. The DayLight/Gabriel Dixon
‘On Credit’
The site of Anderson’s logging operations appeared equally illegal. A muddy and rough road branches into the forest at the top of a hill. Remnants of the illegally harvested logs lay around.
It was not clear how much volume of logs was harvested. However, Anderson said they were all Ekki woods, a very expensive species of logs that currently sells for US$210 per cubic meter on the international market. His statement was backed by Dolo, who said, “All the trucks have crossed cut Ekki Logs.”
The illicit loggers felled 17 trees but used 15, according to the villagers we interviewed. “It was 17 trees but they said two were damaged, they had holes in them,” said Emmanuel Massaquoi, one of the villagers.
Anderson and the locals had verbally agreed to cut the 15 trees in exchange for US$2,800 per tree, according to both parties. But it was a long negotiation process that involved half a dozen people.
Anderson and Sesay initially contacted Dunbar, who introduced the pair to a man only identified as Korvah. It was Korvah who actually introduced the pair to Massaquoi. Massaquoi then contacted Fatu Samukai, his mother-in-law, who claims ownership of the forest, Massaquoi told us in the interview. Samukai appointed Massaquoi to represent the village. Then the unlawful deal was sealed.
By law, communities are entitled to benefits from their forest resources but they must first meet FDA requirements. Moreover, said the agreement must be approved by the agency. That was not the case with Weimu, another layer of the illegal activities.
Anderson, Dunbar, Korvah, Massaquoi and Samukai could also be indicted, as the FDA conducts a further investigation into the illicit act, according to Dolo. A person commits an offense if they intentionally or negligently cut trees illegally, according to the regulation on confiscated logs.
“I regret my action. I am just appealing to the commercial and legal departments of FDA,” Anderson said. “I have learned the hard way.”
Korvah declined to comment, we were not successful in tracking down Dunbar, and Samukai was still recovering at the Jallah Lone Hospital in Bopolu at the time of our investigation.
Meanwhile, the case at the 11th Judicial Circuit Court in Tubmanburg begins Tuesday. The DayLight will provide you with details of the proceedings as they unfold.
Henry Gboluma and Mohammed Sheriff contributed to this report.
The story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists (CoFEJ).
Top: A man brushes grass from a pile of logs illegally harvested by Universal Forestry Corporation, a company started and still owned by Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Cooper Kruah. The DayLIght/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a three-part series on Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Cooper Kruah’s conflict of interest as a shareholder in Universal Forestry Corporation. It focuses on Minister Kruah’s illegal logging dealings.
TAPPITA, Nimba County – At the end of a 20-minute motorcycle ride from a town called Korlay, lie dozens of logs on a rocky, bushy road into the forest.
“That’s just small you see here. There are more in the bush,” one man tells my colleague Gabriel Dixon, our two motorcycle-taxi riders and me, as he cleared grass from a pile of logs. We cannot name him and other villagers we will interview over their fear of retribution.
We are in the Sehzueplay Community Forest in the Tappita District of Nimba County, where Universal Forestry Corporation (UFC) operates. The company signed an agreement with villages here in 2020 to share logging resources for 12 years. Last month, an investigation by The DayLight found that the Minister of Posts and Telecommunication Cooper Kruah is one of the owners of the company, rendering the agreement illegal. Kruah has admitted to being in a conflict of interest over his continued role in the company for more than four years since he became a government official.
But we have come here to uncover more of UFC’s violations, beginning with these logs it harvested in this part of the Gio National Forest. The leadership of Sehzueplay says the woods were cut between October 2020 and November last year, and records from the harvesting corroborate this timeline.
The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) did not approve the harvesting, according to a January 21, 2022 memo from a ranger to Jin Kyung, UFC’s general manager, we have obtained.
“During our recent visit to your concession area, we discovered that you were doing illegal [felling]. You are felling [trees] without being awarded a [felling] certificate,” the memo reads, signed by Steve Kromah, the ranger responsible for forest contracts in the Tappita area.
“In view of the above, you are hereby ordered closed with immediate [effect], pending advice from the FDA management,” it says.
Kromah had said in an earlier interview with The DayLight in Buchanan that he had halted the company’s operations because “Their felling certificates are all expired.” Now, he accuses us of misunderstanding his initial comments on the matter.
“Maybe I don’t know English but that is what I mean. Maybe you don’t understand forestry language very well but what I wrote is what you’re seeing there,” Kromah says in a phone call.
“When management asks me, I will know how to answer. Management will understand it that way. You cannot understand it. I didn’t write it to you,” he adds and hung up the phone. He has been reassigned, according to sources familiar with a recent wave of reshuffles at the FDA over illegal logging.
Unauthorized harvesting is a violation of the Code of Harvesting Practices. (That is the same offense another company committed in River Cess) UFC is required to pay a fine of twice the total value of the volume of each species of logs illegally harvested as per their world market prices, according to the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timber and Timber Products.
The FDA will, however, have to obtain a court order to confiscate and auction the logs but it must first find out the total volume of the illegally harvested logs. Partial data of the harvesting we obtained shows 150 logs, but the community leadership estimate there are 200 more woods. Some of them are in good shape but others have defects, indicating it would be difficult to auction them.
UFC also did not conduct an environmental and social impact assessment in 2020 for its operations in Sehzueplay, according to the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI). That again contravenes the Code of Harvesting Practices, which sets it as a prerequisite for felling trees. The Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA), the government institution that oversees the assessment, did not grant us an interview on the matter up to writing time.
Logs Universal Forestry Corporation, owned by Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Cooper Kruah, abandoned scores of logs in Tappita, Nimba County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
That would not be UFC’s only violation, though. The company subcontracted another firm called Ihsaan Logs Company (ILC) with neither the approval of the FDA nor the consent of the community. ILC is managed and owned by Mohammed Paasewe, the former Superintendent of Grand Cape Mount County.
In fact, ILC-hired loggers harvested some of the logs we see in the forest, according to communications between the two companies seen by The DayLight. Logs with “UFC/ILC” markings shine through wet, towering grass, back that evidence.
UFC and ILC had signed the illegal agreement in November last year, the documents, seen by The DayLight, show. The deal was torn apart, less than two months later due to disagreements over payments and equipment, according to the documents.
“We have resolved to inform [you] that as of the date of this letter, the [proposed] agreement is off our table for negotiation, and that we are advising you to immediately recall all of your personnel/employees that were sent to our concession areas,” a January 31, 2022 letter from UFC to ILC reads. “We also reserve the right to demand payment for our yellow machine that you used… during your operation.”
Paasewe replies to an unnamed representative of UFC with a series of requests for repayment of fees his company had paid UFC in a WhatsApp chat seen by The DayLight.
“What happened to the US$1,200 that you received before… (US$700 for the visit of his computer man to attend a meeting [a] in Tappita, US$500 to stop the mechanics from taking parts from his machine)?
“What happened to the US$300 to bring electricity to his house, US$300 to finish his preparation for the new place, US$400 for the repair of the pickup and US$300 for documentation, and also who pays the US$500 for the advance payment for the repair of the D8 [bulldozer]?
Paasewe alleges in the exchange that Kyung had told him that Sehzueplay had 19,000 hectares of forestland, not the 6,890 hectares it covers in reality.
Kyung replies to Paasewe roughly two weeks after his previous letter, agreeing to repay ILC US$10,850 in March, which Paasewe says has not happened five months on. Efforts to speak to Kyung did not materialize. He did not reply to emailed questions on his deal with ILC and other issues as well. We called him twice but he said he was in the forest and had no access to a computer or internet.
As part of their deal, ILC was supposed to pay UFC US$200,000 as an advance payment on the sales of logs at the rate of US$30 per cubic meter, regardless of the species. (Logs are priced based on their species) In return, ILC agreed to harvest at least 1,500 cubic meters of logs each of the remaining 10 years of the contract.
An illegal logging deal between Universal Forestry Corporation and its Ihsaan Logs Company failed over payments and equipment. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Then the parties settled to delay the construction of the headquarters of the community’s leadership and a school building— both due last year—by two and three years, respectively, the unapproved agreement shows.
“That is why we did not sign that document. “It was not in our interest,” Moses Wobuah, the head of the community leadership, tells us in an interview at his home in Korlay, one of seven towns and villages affected by UFC’s unlawful operations. Volay, Zeongehn, Zuolay, Graie, and Sehye Village complete the list.
“That document is null and void. It is not legal,” Wobuah adds.
Paasewe has not repaid the full amount he embezzled. “We are in the process,” he tells me in an interview at his office in Monrovia. “I don’t want to have those kinds of things hanging over my head. I want to get that out of the way.”
Having admitted to theft barely a year before his UFC subcontract, Paasewe’s company is ineligible for any logging operations, according to the National Forestry Reform Law. Businesspeople who concede to such a crime are barred by the law from any kind of forest resource license for five years.
ILC applied for prequalification to do logging in Liberia last year but has not been approved, according to Paasewe and sources at the FDA. The agency did not provide The DayLight copies of ILC’s application documents, though public access to such information is guaranteed under the National Forestry Reform Law and the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) between Liberia and the European Union. The FDA had flouted its own Regulation on Bidder Qualifications by initially prequalifying UFC for Sehzueplay with the Postmaster General of the Republic of Liberia one of its shareholders.
Paasewe says he is willing to relinquish his shares in ILC or place them in a firm or a person he has no control over to be in line with the law.
“We’re going to have to do an overhauling. When we are reapplying, you can be assured of that,” he says.
“I am grateful for the work you do because this will keep everybody’s foot to the fire to do what is right. Whether we are victims or whatever, I think when you are called to order, you should always be ready to correct and do your best. What you are trying to save is not for me but for the generation coming after me,” he adds.
Paasewe’s criminal record worsens things for UFC. Like conflict of interest, its unauthorized transfer of the agreement to ILC is another ground for termination of its contract, according to the forestry reform law.
Kruah, a lawyer, claims that turning over his five-percent shares to Prince Kruah, his son, also a lawyer, prevents him from a conflict of interest. “His son is above the constitutional decision-making age and he even [owns] more shares than his father, which is his right under the Constitution of Liberia,” says Caesar Slapeh, a spokesman of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in a Facebook message to The DayLight.
But that is not what the law says. It mandates an official of the government to relinquish their shares in private companies doing business with the government to an “entity outside the person’s influence and control, such as an unrelated individual or a blind trust…” With Prince Kruah’s 15 percent equity in UFC, according to the company’s “amended” article of incorporation, Minister Kruah now has more stakes in the company and is in starker contrast with the law.
Owned by Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Cooper Kruah, Universal Forestry Corporation has failed to build a school, a road, and provide scholarships for towns and villages affected by its operations. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Most of the violations we find mirror UFC’s role in the infamous Private Use Permit (PUP) Scandal of 2012, in which some 2.5 million hectares of forests were illegally awarded to logging companies. An official inquest found the company committed several offenses while logging in Butaw District, Sinoe County between 2010 and 2012. That investigation found that UFC did not conduct an environmental and social impact assessment, skipped an environmental permit, did not present a harvesting certificate before commencing logging and that it paid community benefits into a personal account, among other things. UFC’s permit and 62 others were canceled in what remains the biggest scandal to engulf the forestry sector since the end of the Liberian Civil War (1989-2003).
Delayed payments
Amid these violations, UFC has not lived up to the agreement it signed with Sehzueplay, another legal reason for the cancelation of its contract. The company owes the community land-rental fees and an unspecified amount from logs it has harvested in the 6,890-hectare woodland, according to Wobuah. In addition to the school building and leadership quarter in that illegal deal with ILC, UFC has failed to pave a 19-kilometer road, provide drinking water sources and an annual US$4,000 for scholarships.
Official records of the company’s payments corroborate the community’s account. UFC owes both the community and the Liberian government US$155,000, according to the joint implementation committee of the VPA. That is the second-highest debt owned by a company operating in a community forest. Only Liberia Tree and Timber Trading Company (LTTC) has more, US$269,007.
Nanleh Vaye, a member of Sehzueplay’s leadership says UFC has had struggles with equipment. He tells us that disgruntle workers of the company months earlier stole parts from its earthmovers in an apparent disagreement over wages. We see four of the machines parked in the area: two at its office in Korlay and two others on the route leading to the logs. They look like they have not moved for a long time.
“They have not sold one piece of logs from that forest,” Vaye says. “We agreed to give them chance until they can sell.”
But you can sense the general frustration over the UFC among villagers. They have known about Kruah’s ownership of UFC but had thought it would work in their interest as a lawyer and native of Sehzueplay.
“Cooper Kruah said he wanted jobs for Doe Administrative District,” one villager says. UFC has held several mining claims predominantly in this area, the focus of our next investigation on Kruah’s illegal businesses.
“He’s [a] shareholder of the community and legal advisor for the community,” says another, “but he takes the company over us.”
The Forestry Development Authority (FDA), did not grant The DayLight an interview on the company’s illegal operations. We made the first request in a letter on the 27th of last month and followed up with an email more than two weeks after. Managing Director Mike Doryen had said in a phone conversation, “Rest assured, we will take the appropriate action. I will not protect any official of government who breaks the law.”
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: Liberian civil society actors have called on the European Union to include rubber to the list of commodities to be produced sustainably in a proposed regulation. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Varney Kamara
MONROVIA – Liberian civil society actors have suggested that the European Union include the rubber industry and financiers in the proposed European Union’s new regulation on agriculture products linked to deforestation and land degradation across the country.
The European Union, the second-largest importer of agriculture products from Africa next to Asia, named oil palm, cocoa, coffee, and timbers under its proposed deforestation-free products regulation but did not capture the rubber industry, which occupies 405,008.229 hectares or 14.8 percent of Liberia’s total forestland, according to an analysis by The DayLight.
Deforestation, which involves the clearing of wide areas of trees, undermines biodiversity and heightens the impact of climate change. Liberia, which covers 42 percent of the remaining area of the Upper Guinea Forest containing important animal and plant species, faces increasing threats from plantation owners expand.
“The regulation is good, but we need to look at other issues,” said Jonathan Yiah, a forest campaigner at the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI). “There is a need for us to include issues of accountability that will cover both producers and EU countries, including rights of communities.”
The EU guideline meant to improve governance across agriculture and forestry sectors also failed to include financiers of companies who have received billions of dollars from European Banks that have largely contributed to deforestation. A report by the Global Witness last year found Dutch Banks have spent US3.1 billion through loans provided to oil palm projects in West Africa. Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL), the country’s largest oil palm company, reaped US$375 million of this amount through loans it secured from the Utrecht-based, Rabobank the report said.
Campaigners say adding companies’ financiers to the regulation would halt European investment in deforestation-related projects.
“Adding financiers to the regulation will send out a loud message of deterrence for people who may want to continuously use [their] money to exploit the system,” Yiah said at a daylong review of the document over the weekend, founded by the EU.
The proposed regulation on deforestation is a supporting arm of the VPA, a legally-binding trade agreement between the European Union and a timber-producing country outside the EU. Like the VPA, regulation “No 995/2010” seeks to ensure that timber and timber products exported to the EU market come from legal sources and that they are in compliance with the local and international trade regulations. Going forward, exporters must provide documents on land use rights, clearance on environmental protection assessment, sales rights, among others.
The review formed part of an ongoing consultation process taking place across producer countries in West Africa. The review was also meant to strengthen the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) and its Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with producer-countries. Next year, European parliaments are expected to finalize the document after their assessment of the inputs of civil society with its enforcement scheduled for 2024.
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