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Over Land Grab, GVL Defies Watchdog with Impunity

August 13, 2024

Top: A guard at a Golden Veroleum Liberia gate in Lower Kulu Clan in the Tarjuwon District, Sinoe County. The DayLight/Matenneh Keita

By Esau J. Farr

WIEH TOWN – Before the Ebola epidemic in 2013, Levi Jarteh joined other townspeople from Tarjuwon to file a complaint against Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the watchdog of the global oil palm industry.

They accused GVL of encroaching on their land and destroying sacred places. The Palloh Hill, believed by locals to host spirits that granted good harvest, gave way for the mill. The Slinee Creek, where women sought children, made way for an irrigation system for palm nurseries.

Five years after their complaint, the RSPO found GVL liable for land grab. It ordered GVL to stop work in that area until it signed a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Tarjuwon, including the Lower Kulu Clan, where Jarteh was born. The rebuke called for GVL to remap its plantation in the disputed area. The RSPO gave GVL a three-month deadline to implement the order.

“Any deviation from the above-mentioned milestones and timelines by GVL will be viewed adversely and may lead to consideration of suspension and eventual termination of membership,” the RSPO said.

GVL’s appeal of the decisions was rejected and left the RSPO, only to rejoin about a year later. GVL is a member of RSPO through its parent company, Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), a Singaporean multinational, one of the world’s largest oil palm firms.

But, more than six years after that ruling, GVL has not signed a new MoU with Tarjuwon. Instead, the company has defied the RSPO by constructing the mill, planting in some areas and building houses in others. It has not been punished as the global watchdog had warned.

The first of those violations happened just three months after the RSPO’s order. Satellite images published in a report by the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), an NGO based in Margibi, show GVL cleared additional farmland in Lower Kulu.

Then in 2019 evidence gathered by Blogbo-Teh, a local advocacy group, and RSPO confirmed that GVL cultivated additional land in Lower Kulu and continued to construct the mill.

GVL admitted to the violation, saying, “It took what it believed was a precautionary approach and interpreted the order to apply to the whole of the Lower Kulu area.” RSPO reordered GVL to complete the mapping of its plantation bordering the Upper and Lower Kulu “without any further delay.”

Again in 2022, Blogbo-Teh filed another complaint with evidence that GVL continued to develop the mill, houses and palm nurseries. Blogbo-Teh rued GVL’s “snail-pace” implementation of the RSPO’s orders, saying, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied.’”

Levi Jarteh, the General Town Chief of Wieh Town, was one of the townspeople who filed a complaint with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2013. The DayLight/James Giahyue

“It is unfortunate that duty bearers who have responsibilities and have signed international treaties, conventions and laws in our country do not have the willpower to do the right thing,” Simpson Snoh, the chairman of Blogbo-Teh, told The DayLight. Blogbo-Teh, which means “round land business” in the Kru language. Blogbo is a section within Lower Kulu.

“We are advocating for justice to be done per RSPO’s principles,” Snoh added.

GVL confirmed Blogbo-Teh’s findings, saying it carried out “minor works” at the mill site, repaired machines, established a nursery and replaced dead palms. The RSPO is reviewing that complaint. The DayLight has emailed the certification scheme for comments and will update this story once a response is obtained.

‘No more farmland’

Just as the years have witnessed an array of credible complaints of violation, so too have efforts to map GVL’s plantation in Tarjuwon.

In 2018, when the RSPO made the decision, Earthworm Foundation, a Switzerland-based nonprofit was appointed by RSPO to map Tarjuwon. However, Blogbo-Teh questioned the group’s independence, as it had worked for GVL before.

Subsequently, Proforest, a UK-based NGO, was appointed to conduct the mapping. But it came at the time the Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) was about to conduct Liberia’s fourth census. So, Proforest supported LISGIS to carry out the national duty and submitted the report to the RSPO in November 2021.

But LISGIS’ map established clan boundaries, and not the size of GVL’s plantation in Lower Kulu, the crust of the matter.

“We want to know the total hectare of land and how many hectares of land is occupied by GVL or will be occupied by GVL before any MoU can be signed,” added Simpson Toby, an ex-chairman of Blogbo-Teh.

Golden Veroleum has a 65-year concession with the Liberian government to develop 220,000 hectares of land in Maryland, Grand Kru and Sinoe. The DayLight/Derick Snyder

“No more farmland [for us] because the palm bush is around us,” said Jarteh, the General Town Chief of the Lower Kulu Clan. “We have to travel beyond the palm plantation before we make farm and that distance is a [three-hour walk].”

The RSPO announced it would schedule a meeting with Proforest on the mapping report, whose draft the watchdog said it had received.

GVL dodged questions The DayLight emailed to it. However, it said in a periodic report to the RSPO that it would begin negotiation with Tarjuwon if the watchdog recommended that. The company has only reported for the first quarter of this year so far.

Meanwhile, locals of Lower Kulu say they are open to a negotiation with GVL. They want similar benefits that GVL-affected communities are entitled to, as they are excluded from the current MoU.

GVL’s current MoU calls for the payment of US$5 per hectare of developed land and gives citizens priority for jobs in affected communities. The agreement gives citizens access to healthcare services, schools and scholarships, especially employees and dependents. It also contains infrastructural development, including the construction of roads and bridges.

GVL, Liberia’s largest oil palm company, signed a 65-year agreement with the Liberian government covering 220,000 hectares of land in Sinoe, Grand Kru, and Maryland in a deal worth US$1.6 billion.

Ophelia Kumon, a resident of Wieh Town said, “Since they took the land, they should provide us safe drinking water, school for our children and job opportunities for the citizens here.”

Green Livelihoods Alliance (GLA) provided funding for this story. The DayLight maintained editorial independence over the story’s content.

GVL Fails to Build Hand Pumps, Allegedly Dirties Creeks

August 7, 2024

Top: Golden Veroleum Liberia has failed to provide hand pumps for communities who own the land the company develops. The DayLight/Esau Farr

By Matenneh Keita

DU-WOLEE, Sinoe County – Nimely Teah, an 80-something-year-old great-grandfather has two problems. At his farm in Teah Village, rainwater allegedly laced with chemicals from a Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) palm plantation runs into a creek he uses for drinking, cooking and washing. In Panama, a large neighborhood where he lives, there is just one hand pump, and the creeks are far away.

“I want to sue GVL so, we can go to the court for the water business,” Teah told The DayLight at his farm. “They say I must die from the germs.”

Teah is one of thousands whose water sources have been polluted by the GVL oil palm plantation. GVL, Liberia’s largest oil Palm company signed a 65-year agreement with the Liberian government covering 220,000 hectares of land in Sinoe, Grand Kru, Maryland, River Cess and River Gee in a deal worth US$1.6 billion. GVL also signed individual MoUs with landowning communities, including Du-Wolee Nyennue Township in Kpanyan District, Sinoe County.

The Du-Wolee Nyennue MoU was signed in 2016, two years after GVL’s concession. The MoU guarantees the company more than 2,367 hectares of land. However, it obligates GVL to build hand pumps for populations between 25 and 150 people affected by its operations, among other things.

But a DayLight investigation found that GVL has not constructed mandatory hand pumps in the townships, violating the MoU. All of the old hand pumps the company renovated stopped working years back and have not been repaired.

Panama, the largest of its affected communities in Du-Wolee Nyennue, with some 2,000 people, is the most telling. GVL has not built a hand pump in the community, according to residents. The one the company renovated is insufficient for the population, residents say.

“When GVL came, they told us they did some inventory on the water system. They said even some of our community pumps that were built by some NGOs, they were going to rehabilitate them,” said Anthony Jerboe, a community leader in Panama. “But since that time, they have not come to the community, and we are suffering from water issues.”

Locals have used creeks for generations as the only source of drinking water in the communities, The DayLight gathered.

Old Man Nimely Teah of Panama, who owns the Teah Village. The DayLight/James Giahyue

But there is a problem with the creeks, too. Fertilizer from palm trees is washed into the creeks, residents say. This is even worse during the dry season when the water table drops, leaving townspeople with no other alternatives.

“We will just continue to drink it because there is no safe drinking water,” said George Sebeh, a resident of Panama and Old Man Teah’s son-in-law.

Sebeh was speaking to reporters in Teah Village, where reporters accompanied a villager to fetch water from the creek Old Man Teah had mentioned in his interview.

Empty palm husks

These accusations of water pollution are credible. A 2016 study by the Ghanaian Sync Consultant Limited found GVL polluted drinking water sources. Two years later, another study by Liberia’s Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) uncovered the same thing. In the eight years of its operations in Du-Wolee Nyennue, GVL has ignored these reports.

The situation in Zinc Camp is nearly the same, though GVL erected a hand pump there. Residents of the uphill community, which hosts a small-scale palm farm, cannot drink the water the hand pump produces.

“We boil the handpump water and bath with it,” said Kojay Glay, the chairlady of the community. “I’ve been here for three years. In those three years, I have not seen GVL come here to work on the hand pump.” Glay’s comments were corroborated by other Zinc Camp residents.

Due to the condition of the facility, the people of Zinc Camp fetch water from creeks. Initially, they were near the creek but now they walk a distance of between 15 and 20 minutes. Water from GVL’s empty palm husks—used as fertilizer—allegedly flows into creeks nearby, polluting them.

Residents allege rainwater from GVL’s empty husks or empty fruit bunches (EFB) flows into creeks they depend on for drinking water. The DayLight/James Giahyue

“We used to drink all of the creeks before the coming of GVL. Because of the palm, we can’t drink from everywhere in the creek. There are certain areas that you go to before you can drink the water,” said Wilfred Toboe, Zinc Camp’s General Town Chief.

Empty husks or empty fruit bunches (EFB) contain nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and sulfur. While the other gases are harmless, sulfur can be harmful, based on its concentration, scientists say.

‘Bad’ water situation

While the rainy season is good news for Panama and Zinc Camp, it is a nightmare for Blue Barrack and Mamakre.

Like Panama, GVL has not constructed any hand pump in Blue Barrack, according to residents. All five of the ones there were constructed by NGOs but are not in use, as verified by The DayLight.

Its 7,065 people depend on a creek, mainly during the dry season. During the rainy season, groundwater from the town’s main route—GVL often reconditions—seeps into the creek, residents say.

“Sometimes during meetings, we inform GVL. They can say, ‘Yes we will do it,’ but GVL doesn’t have time for Du-Wolee,” said Augustine Myers, Blue Barrack’s tribal chairman. Other residents The DayLight interviewed supported Myers’ story.

This hand pump in Blue Barrack was renovated by GVL but broke down some years ago, according to residents. Picture credit: Anonymous.

The DayLight could not independently verify Myers’ erosion-pollution claim. However, reporters photographed some of the spoiled hand pumps.

For Mamakre, GVL built a hand pump there but has needed repairing for about three years now, according to residents. The DayLight photographed the broken-down hand pump, its borehole sealed with sticks likely to protect children.

Mamakre’s creeks are also polluted due to erosion on the town’s main road paved and maintained by GVL.

“This water situation was alright when GVL never came,” said Anthony Tarpeh, the General Town Chief. “Since the GVL, the water situation is bad.”

Tarpeh said people, particularly children, were getting sick from drinking water from the creek this rainy season. Naomi Doe, Blue Barrack’s co-chairlady, had made the same accusation.

James Otto, a lead campaigner with the Margibi-based Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), blames GVL for the water situation. Otto believes the company was unaware of the scale of the problem because it did not hold MoU-required quarterly meetings.

“I think there is a total breakdown in the way the company engages with the communities,” Otto said in a Montserrado interview.

“I think the hand pump is just one example but there are many other things.”The water problem in the landowning, affected communities does not only violate the company’s MoUs and concession. It breaches a principle of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the watchdog of the global oil palm industry.

Remnant of a hand pump constructed by GVL in Mamakre. The DayLight/Konwroh Wesseh

The principle calls on member firms to “respect community and human rights and deliver benefits.” GVL is a member of the RSPO through its parent company Golden Agri-Resources Ltd of Singapore.

GVL dodged questions for comments on the water situation in its project-affected communities. However, said in an email it was committed to its obligations. The company said it had worked with communities to provide clarity and timelines for resolution in cases where commitments are disputed or have not yet been fulfilled,” GVL said in an email.

Back in Du-Wolee Nyennue, people want GVL to build or repair hand pumps. Glay of Zinc Camp, Sebeh of Panama, Kumeh of Mamakre and Myers of Blue Barrack hope it happens soon.

“I will appreciate when GVL [builds] the hand pump,” said Old Man Teah of Teah Village. “I’m tired of drinking fertilizer water.”

[Konwroh Wesseh and an anonymous resident of Sinoe contributed to this report]

The Green Livelihoods Alliance (GLA) provided funding for this story. The DayLight maintained editorial independence over the story’s content.

GVL Violates Villagers’ Rights Then Sues Them For Palm Theft

March 8, 2023

Top: (L-R) Two Men suspected of stealing palm nuts carry a handheld palm oil mill. Lincoln Weah, a villager suspected of stealing palm nuts is detained by the police. Bags of palm are wasted on the ground. Picture credit: Sustainable Development Institute (SDI)

By Mark B. Newa

BUTAW, Sinoe County – Things were about to change for Lincoln Weah and his friends but he did not know.

It was July 7, 2022. Weah had just returned from setting up his palm oil production worksite in a palm farm around the Bellehful village. Suddenly, a group of guards of Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) and armed police arrested him.

Wearing palm-oil-stained clothes, they accused Weah of stealing palm nuts from GVL’s plantation and demanded he took them to the worksite.

“When we reached there, they began to beat me, forcing me to call the names of my friends in the village,” Weah tells The DayLight. “They promised that when I showed the people who are making palm oil on the farm, they would let me go.”

Weah believed the guards and police officers and named his three workmates. But it was a trick. As soon as he disclosed their names, the beating intensified, according to Weah. A picture obtained from the NGO Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) shows the 32-year-old sitting on the blackened ground of the worksite, surrounded by guards and policemen. Other pictures show metal drums of palm nuts, the men carrying a handheld palm mill and Weah detained by a police officer.

They led Weah back to Belleh-ful and arrested the other men, who had been there all long. He, Shelton Wawoe, Tolou Kamara and Timothy Tarpeh were shoved in a vehicle and taken to jail in Butaw. Not long after Moses David, 43, a GVL worker and owner of the farm the suspects produced palm oil, joined them.

GVL`s security guards and state security forces manhandle one of the villagers in Bellehful, Sinoe County. Picture credit: Sustainable Development Institute (SDI)

The arrest is the beginning of a series of ordeals the men face that continues today: prolonged pretrial detention, loss of properties and a threat to their livelihood. David risks a possible forfeiture of his benefits for a decade of service to GVL.

‘They stopped us’

Following their arrest, four of the men spent five nights inside the police cell. They were later transferred to the Central Prison in Greenville, according to the men and court records. The other man was transferred the next day, the records show.

“Since we were arrested and beaten, I am not feeling well in my body. Sometimes when I wake up, my knees and the rest of my joints can be sticking. I do not have money to go to the hospital,” Weah tells this reporter.

“They stopped us from getting medicine,” says Wawoe, 55, the oldest of the men.

Detaining a person beyond 48 hours without charge is a violation of their rights, according to Liberian Constitution. Diggs Drunwille, Sr., the police commander of Sinoe County declined to comment on the matter. A GVL spokesman justified the actions of the guards and police.

“GVL has the responsibility to protect its personnel, properties and rights utilizing legal means, including the involvement of police and other authorities where appropriate,” Alphonso Kofi, tells The DayLight in an email.

Weah, Tarpeh, Wawoe and David were released on bail on July 13, according to documents from the Kaisieh Magisterial Court in Butaw. Kamara, a Sierra Leonean, remained there until October, as no one filed his bond. The court release him only after local rights campaigners and townspeople intervened.

One day after their release, the court charged the men with theft of property. They used a motorcycle to steal loose palm nuts worth US$1,550, GVL alleges as per court records. The police seized six containers, four metal drums and other items from their worksite. All five men deny any wrongdoing.

In separate interviews, the suspects allege that the guards and police made away with their money and other belongings. Wawoe says he lost L$120,000, US$650 and a cell phone that costs US$150. David claims he lost US$600, mattresses, clothes and other properties during his arrest.

GVL has, meanwhile, suspended David, who works as a fieldworker for the company. Theft is a ground for the termination of an employee’s contract under the Decent Work Act. David’s suspension came nine months after GVL paid off 16 of its workers over their wrongful dismissals in October 2021.

Lincoln Weah, Moses Karnuah, Tolou Kamara, Timothy Tarpeh and Shelton Wawoe. The five men are accused of stealing palm from GVL plantation valued at US$1,500. They deny any wrongdoing. The DayLight/Mark B. Newa

David accused GVL of trying to deprive him of years of service to the Indonesian company. Kofi refutes David’s accusation. He says his suspension had nothing to do with severance pay. “His suspension is dependent on the court’s ruling,” Kofi says.

The accused men say they are finding it difficult to survive. The guards and police have prevented the men from accessing their worksite on the farm, according to them. Kofi dismisses these allegations.

David owns the two-acre palm farm where the accused men worked. The farmland lies between an abandoned plantation owned by Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) and GVL’s Butaw plantation. Known in the oil palm industry as an out-grower, villagers’ farms are an important part of a plantation’s development. It is one of the principles that govern the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the global watchdog for the commodity.

GVL has a 65-year agreement with the Liberian government for up to 350,000 hectares in Sinoe and Grand Kru and Maryland Counties. The 2010 deal was worth US$1.6 billion.

It is Liberia’s largest producer of crude palm oil, exporting US$31.7 million worth of the commodity between 2020 and 2021, according to the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI). However, land-grab, deforestation and labor offenses have marred the concession for its 13 years.

Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) has an agreement with Liberia, covering 220,000 hectares of land in Sinoe, Grand Kru and Maryland. The DayLight/Derick Snyder

Slow Case

The magisterial court has not heard the case yet. It has postponed the proceedings several times, in July, October, December last year, and January and February this year, court documents show.

Moses Karnuah, who stood the bond for Weah, Wawoe, Tarpeh and David, says the delay was taking a toll on him.

“Everyone has an activity to attend to,” Karnuah told the reporter. Karnuah, 45, says “When the people I stood for are not here, the court will hold me responsible, or I will go to jail. I want the case to… reach the final decision, then I will be free.”

“This is giving us hard time to do other things for ourselves,” Weah says, via phone on his way back to Butaw from Saclepea, Nimba County.

The court has rescheduled the case from February 1 to a later date.

Funding for the story was provided by the Green Livelihood Alliance (GLA 2.0) through the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI). The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over the story’s content.

Fourteen Dismissed GVL Workers Fight To Get Back Their Jobs

May 11, 2021

A signboard welcoming visitors to the Butaw estate of GVL in Sinoe County. Harry Browne/The DayLight

Banner Image: A Golden Veroleum Liberia signboard in Butaw, Sinoe County. The DayLight/Harry Browne

By James Harding Giahyue

Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) dismissed 14 of its workers for their alleged involvement in a riot in Butaw in May 2015

The former employees lodged a complaint against the company for constructive dismissal and unfair labor practice with the Sinoe County Labor Office in February last year

GVL lawyers have failed to attend seven out of 10 pre-investigation hearings and case has been moved to a full investigation

Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) and Friends of the Earth Netherlands accuses GVL of “trying to deny the dismissed workers justice”. Golden Agri Resources (GAR), GVL’s investors, denies the accusation

BUTAW, Sinoe County – Fourteen former workers of Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL), have challenged their dismissals by the company at the Sinoe County Labor Office, and are demanding reinstatement and retroactive pay or a payoff.

The former employees, mainly fieldworkers, were accused by the Indonesian company of participating in the infamous May 25, 2015 riot in Butaw, according to documents from the Labor Office on the case. The riot left one dead and over US$7,000 of the company’s properties destroyed. The former workers were all jailed without trial and released a year later. One inmate died in prison and another shortly after their release in 2016.

The 14 complainants are Sunday Okusu Sackor, Vincent Koon, Adolphus Tarpeh, Otis Chea, Franklin Duaryenneh, Luton Snohtee, Edwin Palay, Obie Karbah, Josephus Weagbah, Rufus Tiawroh, Titus Teah, Fred Henry and Samuel Yabbah and Erick Dayklee. They all worked in GVL’s palm plantation in Butaw. They are being represented by Atty. Sagie Kamara of the Heritage Partners and Associates Inc. (HPA).

They filed the “constructive dismissal and unfair labor practice” case on February 18 last year, more than four years after their release. In it, they allege they were verbally told of their dismissals and denied access to their workplaces, the case documents show.

“GVL has not only refused to permit us to return to work but refused to pay us our salaries and other benefits we are entitled to by virtue of the contracts of employment,” they say in the complaint.

“Allow us to resume work in our respective positions and places of assignment, pay us our salaries and other benefits for the period of our detention up to and including the date and time we are recalled,” they say in the complaint, adding they would accept a payoff.

GVL, Liberia’s largest oil palm company, holds 220,000 hectares of land in Sinoe, Maryland and Grand Kru for 65 years in a 2010 deal worth US$1.6 billion. The company was reprimanded in 2018 by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)—the certification body for oil palm companies across the world—for land-grab and labor breaches.

NGOs Urge GVL Investors to Take Action

GVL’s legal team headed by Jones and Jones law firm and the company’s inhouse lawyer, Atty. Garpeh Wilson, has attended only three of 10 pre-investigation hearings, according to minutes of the proceedings The DayLight analyzed. Between October 22 last year—when the first hearing took place—to April 29—the last one—GVL has given an excuse for bad roads, asked for the recusal of the hearing officer Elwoods Monger, and denied it received the former workers’ complaint.

Some GVL employees at work in Butaw, Sinoe County. Harry Browne/The DayLight

The Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) and Friends of the Earth Netherlands, who are supporting the complainants in the case, have written Golden Agri Resources (GAR)—GVL’s majority shareholders—on the company’s alleged stalling of the proceedings.

“We are constrained to, however, draw your attention to the dilatory tactics being employed by your investee GVL to frustrate the ends of justice and deny members of the indigenous community their right to be heard as well as fair and fast trial,” the two nongovernmental organizations said in the letter to the world’s second largest palm oil company last week.

“Given that you have significant management of and other control over GVL, including the obligation for GVL to adhere to your social and environmental policy, we request your timely intervention to promote, protect and ensure the rights of customary communities and GVL workers,” it added. GAR prohibits firms it invests in from violating the rights of workers.

GAR, however, denies its Liberian subsidiary did anything wrong but said it was investigating the matter.

“Based on the information available to us right now, there is no evidence to confirm that GVL has intended to delay the legal proceedings,” said Dr. Götz Martin, the head of the Singaporean company’s sustainability implementation, in an email. “GVL is keen to seek an amicable solution with the complainants.”

An amicable solution might be possible but the case has been moved to full investigation. Christian Tababo, Sinoe County’s Labor Commissioner, has replaced Monger, who recused himself from the rest of the case. Once the Labor Office concludes its investigation, the matter could be moved to court.

The next hearing is yet to be announced.

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Tag: Golden Veroleum Liberia

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