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FDA Fails To Punish Firm For Chain of Illegal Logging

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Top: A tree, locals said, was felled by Masayaha Logging Company outside the Worr Community Forest. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By Emmanuel Sherman

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a series on illegal logging activities by Masayaha Logging Company, which works in Grand Bassa County.

TARR TOWN, Grand Bassa County – Mid-last year, Masayaha Logging Company asked chiefs and elders of Doe Clan in Compound Number One to harvest expensive logs in their forest in order to build roads, handpumps and a townhall in that community. But the company wanted the deal kept a secret.

The villagers agreed with the terms, adding a fee of US$5 on each cubic meter of red hardwood used for railroad ties and bridges.

“We told them to connect the road from Tarr Town to Kpana Town because the people there are suffering,” recalled Daniel Tarr, one of the elders who brokered the deal. The next month, Masayaha begin felling some 641 cubic meters of the red ironwood, according to the locals’ record of the harvesting.   

“The company wanted some ekki [woods],” added Junior Gueh, a townsman who also works for the company and helped craft the deal.

But the deal was illegal, as the forest adjacent Tarr Town is outside the Worr Community Forest Masayaha legally operates. It is one among a string of illegal operations the Lebanese-own firm has run in that region in the last two years, involving five towns. It has been documented that Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has taken no required actions against the company.  

Masayaha has a 15-year agreement to operate the Worr Community Forest. Magna Logging Corporation, owned by Liberian businessman Moley Kamara, originally holds the contract for the forest but appears to have subcontracted it to Masayaha. The forest covers 35,337 hectares in Compound Number One B but the company traveled about 100 kilometers to the Doe Clan in Compound Number One A to harvest first-class logs. It said there were not many of that species trees in the Worr Community Forest, according to several villagers we interviewed.

An operator moves logs illegally harvested by Masayaha Logging Company in Garkpa Charlie Town, Grand Bassa County. Picture credit: Stephen Toomay

Mary Beeweh, an elderly woman in Zolah Town, told The DayLight the company harvested logs in the forest there in 2020. Beeweh said Ali Harkous, Masayaha’s CEO visited the town. Her description of a bald, bearded Lebanese man matches Harkous’ figure.   

Masayaha also felled an unspecified number of logs in Lolo Town last year, according to residents. We told them ‘If you fix our two bridges here, we will give you the logs [you] want,” said  Solomon Kpolon, an elder of that town. “The first was 17 logs but the second one they took it overnight we did not know about it.” This reporter saw some of the logs the villagers said Masayaha felled in the forest not far from the town.  

In Vorlorgor, a village next to Tarr Town, villagers seized the company’s machines after it felled 17 trees, according to John Garbleejay, an administrator of that town. They later allowed illicit activities to go on after the company promised to pave the main route that leads into the community, Garbleejay said.

Harvesting outside a contract area is a grave violation in forestry. A company’s penalties for such an offense include a fine in United States Dollars upon conviction by a court.  

There is evidence that the FDA has known of Masayaha’s illegal logging deals from its first known offense in 2020 but ignored them. The agency conducted an inquest in August that year on several logging violations in Grand Bassa, River Cess and Nimba, those of Masayaha. Investigators recommended an “appropriate action” against it but that has yet to happen.

And that, too, was not the first time the FDA heard about Masayaha’s violations and failed to act. Several months earlier in 2020, Reuben Barnie, one of the villagers, informed FDA about the incident. Barnie had spotted a Masayaha truck transporting logs from Kweezah, the home of the descendants of people who were evicted from the land Firestone occupies today. Knowledgeable of the company’s contract area, Barnie raised an alarm.

Records of Masayaha’s illegal logging in Garkpa Charlie Town were taken by Matthew Gaywheon, a villager. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue  

“We are calling your attention to please come in our district to carry on an investigation so as to stop future embarrassment,” Barnie wrote in a May letter last year. He took to a local radio station and engaged the company. He then followed up with numerous phone calls to Joseph Tally, FDA’s deputy managing director for operations, whose recordings Barnie gave to The DayLight.  

“Barnie how you doing?” Tally can be heard in one of the recordings.

“Yes, we still keeping our fingers crossed for the verdict,” Barnie responds, referencing a previous conversation in which Tally promised to take action against the company.

“Keeping your finger crossed for what?”

“For the verdict. The people went to do the investigation.”

“I told you we have already suspended the people activities.”  

Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), a Switzerland-based firm that developed Liberia’s log-tracking system or LiberTrace, also reported the illegal operation. The development of the system was crucial to forestry reform, as importing countries such as the European Union and Great Britain demanded legal timbers. It is now turned over the majority of its responsibilities to the FDA’s legality verification department (LVD).  

A stump of the trees Masayaha illegally felled in not far from Lolo Town in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Like Barnie, Stephen Toomey, one of the residents of that area,   reported the case to the FDA. This reporter witnessed Toomay raise the issue in a Worr Community Forest meeting in October last year. Joseph Kpainay, an FDA ranger assigned in the region, then asked him to file an official complaint with the agency’s regional office in Buchanan. Toomay did it days after the meeting but got no response. Kpainay acknowledged receipt of Toomay’s letter.

“The concerned citizens of the affected communities are therefore calling on your good office to promptly investigate, intervene and promptly provide an appropriate solution…,” Toomay’s letter read.  

News of the illegal logging Masayaha carried out last year made it to FDA’s headquarters in Paynesville.  In August, the same month as the illegal felling, SGS reported on the incident.  

“During the month, some felling out of CFMA Worr concession was seen again !!!,” SGS said in a report. It also criticized the FDA for approving the company’s harvesting plan that year without a required five-year plan, a breach of the Code of Harvesting Practices and Standard Operation Procedure.

“Surely, because no action was taken from the felling out of concession at… Worr reported by SGS a year ago, that illegality is still going over there.”

But amid SGS’ report and Barnie’s advocacy, FDA permitted Masayaha to export logs that could have included the stolen woods. Between 2020 and last year, Masayaha exported  365 logs, 360 of them ekki woods, according to official shipment records. In fact, it approved three of the company’s shipments about the time of the Garkpa Charlie Town illegal logging, according to the SGS report.

In normal forestry practices, the FDA is supposed to trace every log the company harvests back to its stump to make sure the logs were legally sourced before they are transported.

Also amid the mountain of evidence against Masayaha, FDA should have sought court orders to confiscate and auction them. It should have also fined the company two times and four times the prevailing international price of the volume of logs it harvested in Kweezah and Garkpa Charlie Town, respectively, according to the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timbers and Timber Products. The current price set by the FDA  ekki woods is US$210. The company could have been slapped with a 12-month prison term if convicted by a court.

Two logs Masayaha illegally harvested in Garkpa Charlie Town in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Barnie called Tally, furious that the logs had made it out of the community and the company had not been fined for the violation. “Those logs are at the Port [of Buchanan] and are taken from where they have no concession. I’ve been calling some eight, nine months ago on the issue in Number One Compound. Now the people are carrying the logs,” Barnie can be heard in the recording, threatening to protest at the port to stop the shipment.

It was unclear how many logs Masayaha harvested in all its illegal operations. Neither SGS nor the FDA provided that information. However, the villagers’ records of last year’s felling seen by The DayLight put that number to 641 cubic meters. The elders had designated Mathew Gaywheon, a townsman, to represent them during the operation. If Masayaha had been convicted for its 2020 illegal harvesting and the one last year, it could have paid over half of the million United States dollars for a second offense.

There were signs of the operation in the area. We saw stumps of the felled trees. The elders of the town said a short piece of log lying adjacent to the palaver hut under which we conducted interviews was a remnant of the operation. A number of logs were still at the site of an open field, where villagers said Masayaha’s workers piled up the woods. Earthmovers’ trails adorned the site, despite a year of downpour.

The area matched the one in the pictures Toomay shared with us of the unlawful operation in Garkpa Charlie Town. One of the pictures shows a Masayaha vehicle parked next to the thatched kitchen where we conducted some of our interviews. Others reveal the company transporting some of the logs with official identification tags, indicating they had been registered into the FDA’s database.

The FDA did not grant The DayLight an interview on the matter. We emailed the agency earlier this month and received a response last week from Tally, who scheduled the interview for Tuesday. However, he did not turn out at the time of the interview he had set. Cllr. Yanquoi Dolo, the head of FDA’s legal department, declined to speak on the matter.  

Kamara, the CEO of Magna, also declined to speak on the matter.  

Harkous did not respond to queries sent him via WhatsApp for comments on his company’s illegalities.

Some of the elders of Tarr Town signed an illegal agreement with Masayaha Logging Company to illegally harvest logs in their community. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue  

This Story is a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

Woman Runs Illegal Logging Operation

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Top: A pile of thick, square timbers, commonly called “Kpokolo” illegally harvested by Binta Bility. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series, which exposes an illegal logging operation.

COMPOUND NUMBER ONE, Grand Bassa County – Two hundred and sixty pieces of thick, square timbers lay by a roadside in Zoegar Town, one of 18 sections in the Doe Clan. Twenty-five more are scattered in the forest.

The woods were harvested in two former logging concessions in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa. They are the products of an illegal logging operation being conducted by a businesswoman named Binta Bility, an investigation by The DayLight found.

“The pile of [timber]… is for one Binta Bility,” said Volygar Garblah, the Chief Elder of that region. Garblah said she had asked to harvest red hardwoods in two former concession areas and he and other chiefs worked out a payment scheme with her.

“Sometimes the sticks are from two or three sections in Doe Clan.  When she went to Fubahn, the people charged her, from Kpelleh Town way they charged her also, and men were used to haul the timber from there,” Garblah said, adding Zoegar Town and Dumue Town were also involved in the illegal activities.     

The operation she runs is commonly called  “Kpokolo,” a new form of illegal logging across the country, which targets expensive hardwoods that are smuggled out of the country in containers. The woods are used for railroad tiles and bridges.

Bility denies any wrongdoing. But dozens of interviews with chiefs, elders motorcycle-taxi drivers, and the illicit loggers point to her.  

Felling trees without a permit or from an illegal source is a grave offense in forestry. She faces a huge fine and a prison term if convicted by a court.

‘My Daughter’

Bility started working in the Compound Number One area in 2020 with planks but decided to switch to timber last year, according to Garblah. He said he had known Bility since she helped him pay for his medical bill some time ago.

“She is my daughter. She said, ‘Please give me a place to pack my logs, and after that, I will come for us to talk,’” Garblah told The DayLight. After our talk, then, I later talked with the section people.” He said they did not have a written agreement with her.   

Binta Bility runs illegal logging operations in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. Picture credit: Facebook/Binta Bility

An orange and green 1996 MAN truck was parked at Gbarblah’s home with an improvised wheelbarrow, commonly called push-push in its trunk. Its license plate reads “C3742.”

“The car is for Binta but she left it with me,” Garblah said.

The forest where Bility operates was known in the logging industry as Timber Sale Contract Area Two and Timber Sale Contract Area Three. They were operated by Renaissance Group Incorporated and Akewa Group of Companies, respectively, before being canceled last year along with eight similar contracts following years of failure and illegitimacy.

Harrison Togbah, who identified himself as one of the forerunners of the illegal operation, said there were 17 workers, including some townsmen. He added that  Bility gave the team pictures of the hardwoods to cut and that they had worked for six months. 

“That’s the first consignment wasting outside there,” he said in reference to the woods on the road to Zoegar Town. “We made the arrangement that out of 200 pieces [of timber], she will be able to give me US$700.”

Togbah showed our reporters Bility’s mobile phone number he saved as “Boss Lady.” Togbah and Bility had communicated 36 times, according to Togbah’s call history. The number on his phone matched the one our reporters had used to contact her earlier on.

Massa Sawo, Togbah’s supervisor, confirmed she is their boss. Sawo declined to take further questions when quizzed on the illegality of their activities. “Ask Binta herself,” he said and hung up the phone.

‘Just Sample’

The people in Lolo Town showed they were as fond of  Bility as those in Zoegar Town.  A woman, who did not give her name, called  Bility “my ma,” when our reporter showed her the picture Bility uses as her Facebook profile. Other residents, including Solomon Kpolon, an elder of Lolo Town, also identified Bility as the woman in the picture.

We visited the illegal logging site near the Worr River, a good distance from Lolo town. It was an old camp Bility had set up for her chainsaw milling operation, according to the townspeople we interviewed. There were an abandoned, makeshift warehouse still locked and an apartment camp house. Cassava, potato and pineapple thrived among the invading, wet bush. Leftover woods dotted the area. Twenty-six timbers measuring seven feet long and 10 inches wide are next to a felled tree.

“The kpokolo in the bush… are samples. [She asked us to do the sample so that] if someone she can bring the person here to see it,” said Stephen Bull, who said he headed the operation at that site and had known Bility since 2020. He even called out her number offhand.

Bull added that it took up to 15 men to place the woods in the push-push our reporters saw in the back of the truck at Garblah’s house. Thereafter, the vehicle takes the illegal timbers to the central location in Zoegar Town, according to Bull.

We found a phone number written with charcoal on the plank wall of the warehouse at the camp belonging to Kantee Zabeh. Zabeh, who said he was 20 years old,  claimed to be Bility’s son in a phone interview. He gave her address as 21st Street, something Togbah had earlier told our reporters.

Timbers that were illegally harvested by Binta Bility in a forest in Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Garblah said the woods were meant to be exported.  “Bility told me that the place she usually sells the timber is where the fighting is taking place in Europe, so this is why the woods have not gone yet and [are] still packing over there.”

By law, chainsaw milling is illegal but is permitted because the woods are supplied to the local market. The FDA has a system where fees are collected at various checkpoints, while it formulates a regulation for that kind of logging.

But kpokolo is illegal. Such timbers are exported outside of the official system that tracks woods from harvest to shipment, a crucial principle of Liberia’s forestry reform.  Bility is not registered in that system known in the industry as LiberTrace, according to Gertrude Nyaley, the technical manager of FDA’s legality verification department (LVD). The DayLight had made a formal inquiry on the businesswoman’s status.   

This investigation comes more than two weeks since leaked videos and pictures revealed similar operations run by an FDA ranger, who has now been suspended. The agency has alarmed over the smuggling of wood in containers, which it says makes it difficult to track down.  

Bility denies she runs unlawful activities in Compound Number One. She challenged the fact the villagers revealed she was the mastermind of the illegal harvesting. “Stop disturbing my line but you are free to report whatever you [want] to,” she said in a WhatsApp chat. “I know I’m not doing any illegal logging.

“Good luck, dear,” she added.

“I just can’t stop laughing,” she said in another WhatsApp chat with several laughing emojis.

A man measures the diameter of a tree illegally harvested by loggers hired by Binta Bility in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Bility still carries on with her operations. In our second round of interviews with Garblah, he told The DayLight she called him and asked whether he had spoken with us. A motorcycle-taxi driver, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, also said she dropped off a worker in the area on Sunday.

When told that Bility denies working in that part of the country, Bull gave a wry smile. “For her to deny that she is not working here is not right,” he said.

A person who does not hold a contract but harvests logs carries a fine for three times the value of species of timber at the prevailing price set by the FDA, according to the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timbers and Timber Products.  The current price for ekki woods is US$210.

The vehicle being used by Binta Bility to transport illegally harvested logs in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/Mark Newa

CORRECTION: This story deletes the word “legally” in the twelve paragraph for consistency.

Mark Newa, Emmanuel Sherman, Gerald Koinyeneh and an unnamed motorcyclist-taxi driver contributed to this report.

The story is a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).

Leaked Video Exposes FDA Ranger’s Illegal Logging Operations

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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 Marshall
Woods loaded in a container that Varney Marshall harvested in a forest believed to be in Gbarpolu. WhatsApp/Varney Marshall
A pile of woods Varney Marshall, an FDA ranger, illegally harvested in a forest believed to be in Gbarpolu County. WhatsApp/Varney Marshall
A pile of woods Varney Marshall, an FDA ranger, illegally harvested in a forest believed to be in Gbarpolu County. WhatsApp/Varney Marshall
Some of Varney Marshall’s accomplices pose with new chainsaws and gears. WhatsApp/Varney Marshall
Woods Varney Marshall illegally harvested
Two illegal loggers who work with Varney Marshall. WhatsApp/Varney Marshall
Woods 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.

Ex-diplomat and Police Commander in Illegal Logging

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Top: Some of the illegal logs Anderson harvested in Weimu, Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/Gabriel Dixon

By Gabriel M. Dixon and Emmanuel Sherman

WEIMU, Gbarpolu County –  Isaac Richmond Anderson, Jr. had just come back to Liberia after serving as First Secretary at the Liberian Consulate in South Korea and decided to start a logging business.

“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).

Viktor Bout: How A Russian Arms Dealer Matters to Liberia

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Top: A file picture dated 4 October 2010 of then-alleged Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout inside a cell at the criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand. Picture Credit: EPA

By James Harding Giahyue

MONROVIA – The United States has proposed a prisoner swap deal with Russia to release Viktor Bout, the convicted arms dealer serving a 25-year term, in exchange for Brittney Griner, the American basketball player recently sentenced to nine years by a court in Moscow for possessing and smuggling drugs, and an ex-U.S. marine serving a 16-year jail term for espionage.

Freeing Bout, who played a well-documented role in the First and Second Liberian civil wars, would be a setback to have him account for the crimes he allegedly committed in Liberia, security experts and justice advocates say.

Between 1989 and 2003, Bout sold weapons to Liberian warring factions—most notably former President Charles Taylor—busting several United Nations arms embargoes.  Within that time, Taylor’s forces and rivals illegally exploited the country’s timber and mineral industries to buy Bout’s weapons. Some 250,000 people were killed in the conflict, which spiraled to other countries in the region. The conflict degraded Liberia’s forest and the country became synonymous with “Logs of war” and “conflict timbers” across the world. The chaos stirred reform in the logging sector.

In 2009, Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recommended that Bout be investigated for his role in the country’s crises but this is yet to happen more than a decade on.

“[Bout’s] possible release is a dent in the quest for justice in Liberia,” says Hassan Bility, the executive director of Global Justice and Research Project (GJRP), which helped convict Liberian war criminal Alieu Kosiah and United States immigration fraudsters Mohammed Jabbateh and the late Thomas Woewiyu whose crimes were linked to Liberian civil wars.

“His imprisonment did bring some relief and justice to Liberia. The US, in line with its interest in justice, at least did something which we appreciate,” Bility adds.

Bout was active in Afghanistan, Colombia, Angola, the former Yugoslavia, Yemen, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But it was his deals with Taylor that capped the former Soviet soldier’s career as the world’s most notorious gunrunner—or that led to his downfall.  

While Bout busted arms embargos to supply Taylor with arms and ammunition in Liberia, Taylor illegally exploited the country’s logs and minerals and abused its huge shipping registry—the second-largest in the world—to pay Bout. The two men met personally, according to eyewitnesses cited by American journalists Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun in their 2007 book “Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes and the Man Who Makes War Possible.”

Earning other aliases: “Sanctions-buster,” “Lord of War” and “The McDonald’s of Armed Trafficking,” Bout broke a number of United Nations arms embargos on Liberia between 1992 and 2003. His fleet of ships and airplanes transported the weapons to Liberia, using different pseudonyms and shell companies, transiting through countries like Gambia, Chad, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Niger. That fitted well with his mastery of speaking English, Russian, Portuguese, French, Arabic and other languages, a benefit of his training as a translator in the Soviet military. In 2005, the United States Treasury Department said Bout controlled one of the largest networks of ships worldwide. He had ties with other gunrunners, including Sanjivan Ruprah, a Kenyan arms dealer, who was arrested in Belgium in 2002. Ruprah has stayed in Liberia and carried several Liberian passports, which identified him as the deputy commissioner of maritime affairs.

Taylor’s illegal timber operations were equally organized. It comprised the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), the then Ministry of Mines and Energy, militiamen led by his son Chuckie Taylor, logging companies, and combatant miners. At least 17 logging firms, including Oriental Timber Company (OTC) and Exotic Tropical Timber Enterprise, played a role in illegal arms trafficking, and civil instability in Liberia, according to the TRC. A report by the UN-backed Forest Concession Review Committee found that logging companies paid US$7.9 million in Taylor’s personal account. In one transaction, OTC paid Taylor US$3-5 million, according to a 2002 Global Witness report, citing sources.

An old OTC camp in River Cess. The DayLight/Eric Opa Doue

Taylor ran his illegal operations with Bout mainly through Guus Kouwenhoven, a Dutch gunrunner, who owned OTC.  By 2000, the company controlled 1.6 million hectares of forestland, or 42 percent of the country’s concessional forest. The United Nations Panel of Experts on Liberia cited a transfer of US$500,000 by OTC’s parent company in Singapore, Borneo Jaya Pte Ltd to San Air, one of Bout’s airlines. OTC-chartered ships supplied weapons to Taylor at the Port of Buchanan three times between September and November 2001. The supplies contained 7,000 boxes of ammunition, 5,000 rocket-propelled grenades, 300 howitzer shells and other equipment,  according to a report by Farah in the Washington Post. Meanwhile, OTC wasted logs to build bridges, polluted villagers’ water sources, desecrated ancestral graveyards, and, among other things, failed to fulfill promises it made to affected communities. Taylor’s forces protecting the company’s interest committed several human rights abuses. The Inquirer newspaper reported in 2000 allegations that the company operated a “private prison and barracks.” The UN imposed sanctions on Liberian timbers (and diamonds) to curtail the carnage. That sanction was only lifted after the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf agreed to reform the sector. New laws and regulations were created, a system to track logs from harvest to export was established, and communities’ benefits were guaranteed. 

Amid those things, an insurgency against Taylor’s government, coupled with international pressure and prolonged sanctions, weakened Taylor. In 2003, the Liberia United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), which had launched its rebellion against Taylor in 1999, attacked the capital. With American President George W. Bush stating he “must leave Liberia” and Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo offering him exile, Taylor resigned in August 2003.  And that marked the end of the 14 years of civil unrest.

The following year, Bout and Taylor were subjected to UN and U.S. sanctions, travel ban and assets seizure, similar to the one placed on three officials of the current Liberian government. It took more than a decade for the asset freeze and travel ban to be lifted.

Bout moved on with his illegal arms deals after Taylor’s fall, surviving an International Criminal Police Organization or Interpol notice, and forgery charges in the Central African Republic. In July 2004, Bush issued an executive order, freezing the assets of Bout, Taylor, Taylor’s relatives and some members of the Liberian government. Taylor’s ex-wife and now Vice President of Liberia Jewel Howard Taylor, and opposition figure Benoni Urey were subject to the measure.

“The actions and policies of former Liberian President Charles Taylor and other persons, in particular, their unlawful depletion of Liberian resources and their removal from Liberia and secreting of Liberian funds and property, have undermined Liberia’s transition to democracy and the orderly development of its political, administrative, and economic institutions and resources,” the executive order read. The assets freeze followed a similar one by the UN Security Council earlier that year.

Bout ignored the sanctions and went on with his operations. In 2008, he was arrested in an Interpol operation in Bangkok, Thailand.  Bout had offered to supply weapons to rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It turned out the rebels were actually officers of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Royal Thai Police.

Initially, American prosecutors charged him with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, conspiracy to kill US officers and employees and conspiracy to provide surface-to-air missiles and other weapons to a foreign terrorist organization. But while the U.S. Justice Department pressed for Bout’s extradition from Thailand to America, prosecutors happened upon a new development. Bout had been negotiating to buy a plane on U.S. soil, which violated the sanctions Washington imposed on him and Taylor. Additional charges were filed against him: illegal purchase of aircraft, wire fraud and money laundering. He was convicted by a New York court in 2012 and sentenced to 25 years in prison, 15 years of supervised parole and forfeiture of US$15 million. The court dismissed his initial charges, saying they only originated from the deceptive operation that led to his arrest.   

That drew the curtains on the career of perhaps the world’s most infamous arms trafficker, born Viktor Anatolyevich Bout on January 13, 1967, in the former Soviet Union now Tajikistan. His life has inspired a number of documentaries, TV series and movies, including “Lord of War,” which exposed the nature of the international illicit arms trade.

Amid those things, an insurgency against Taylor’s government, coupled with international pressure and prolonged sanctions, weakened Taylor. In 2003, the Liberia United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), which had launched its rebellion against Taylor in 1999, attacked the capital. With American President George W. Bush stating he “must leave Liberia” and Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo offering him exile, Taylor resigned in August 2003.  And that marked the end of the 14 years of civil unrest.

Former President Charles Taylor (far left), and Guus Kouwenhoven (far right). Picture credit: Global Witness

Bout’s conviction was followed by those of Taylor and Kouwenhoven. A UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) found him guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2012 and sentenced him to 50 years in a British prison. The Netherlands-based court found Taylor aided and abetted murder, rape, conscription of child soldiers and pillage, among other crimes, in the neighboring country that killed an estimated 50,000 people. Prosecutors proved that Taylor supplied the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels with arms and ammunition in exchange for diamonds. Five years after his conviction, a Dutch court sentenced Kouwenhoven in absentia to 19 years for illegal arms trafficking and war crimes in Liberia and Guinea.  He had fled to South Africa on medical grounds. Dutch authorities tried to extradite him but a South African judge denied the motion on grounds that his crimes were not committed in the Netherlands.

Liberia’s failure to Prosecute Bout

The TRC recommended Bout face trial for alleged human rights abuses linked to the extractive sector. The allegations included illegal arms dealings, illegal extraction of natural resources, aiding and abetting economic crime actors, fraud, and tax evasion. It also recommended Taylor and Kouwenhoven face charges for war and economic crimes. 

Liberia has not prosecuted warlords living in the country for one of Africa’s bloodiest conflicts, least to mention a Russian national. Calls for Liberian war crimes court have increased since former football superstar Geroge Weah was elected president in 2018 but his government has not mustered a political will to do so.

“I would urge countries that have suffered the wars armed by Bout, like DRC, Liberia and Sierra Leone, to seek his extradition from the US,” says Patrick Alley, a campaigner at Global Witness, who investigated Menin and Ruprah. Liberia has had an extradition treaty with the United States since 1939.

There is a good chance Bout could be released in the prisoner swap. The Americans are seeking the release of Griner and Paul Whelan, the other U.S. citizen, who is serving a 16-year prison term in Russia for espionage. Meanwhile, Russia wants Bout, who has not spoken a word to the Americans about an apparent link between his trafficking network and the Russian government. “No American will be exchanged unless Bout is sent home,” Steve Zissou, his U.S.-based lawyer warned last month. Russian news agency Tass reported last week, that Alexander Darchiev, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s North American Affairs, confirmed the deal.

Arthur Blundell, a security expert who worked with the U.S. government and the UN on Liberia’s forestry reform, says his release would add salt to the country’s wounds.  

“Bout in prison at least meant that he was not able to conduct his arms-trafficking and other illegal operations,” says Blundell tells The DayLight via email. “This undoubtedly saved thousands of lives in conflict zones around the world. 

“And thus, it is a sad day for countries like Liberia to see a convict go free before his prison term has been served.”     

Villagers Managing Forest, But Sector Woes Haunt Them

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Top: Villagers in Bahn Town, the headquarters of Jo River and Nyorwein Community Forest, are excited they can now benefit from their forest. The DayLight/Emmanuel Sherman

By Emmanuel Sherman

NYORWEIN, RIVER CESS – Throughout the two bordering clans of Jo River and Nyorwein far away in the Central River Cess District, villagers expect their logging agreement with Magna Logging Corporation to bring much-needed development to their community.

The newest among 49 authorized community forests across the country, they have leased their land in exchange for roads, toilets, scholarships and clinics, according to the agreement. Those benefits aside, Magna is required by the Community Rights Law of 2009 with Respect to Forest Lands to pay affected communities for use of their land and each log it harvests in the 39,000-hectare forest.

But their hopes could be dashed, given the nature of the logging industry, particularly, community forestry.  The 12 years of community forestry has been spiteful rather than sparkling for many communities. Forestry Development Authority (FDA) appears to side with companies more. There are reports of illegal logging in several communities.  Companies and individuals are abandoning woods they harvest at an alarming rate, owe communities thousands of United States dollars and the FDA approves new contracts for them.       

Jo River & Nyorwein does not have to look far for some of these grim examples. Between 2020 and last year,  African Wood and Lumber Company, another logging firm, illegally cut 550 logs in the Gbarsaw & Dorbor Community Forest. The FDA representative responsible for the county was suspended and replaced. It owes that community thousands and has yet to conduct mandatory projects.

Similarly, in Ziadue & Teekpeh signed three years before Jo River & Nyorwein, Brilliant Maju and E&J Investment Corporation have not lived up to their agreement with the community. The company duo has failed to implement projects, sparking protest last year. Following the hostilities, it made a commitment to construct eight handpumps and two latrines in affected communities between September last year to February this year but has not completed them.    

By the way, these industry woes are already at Jo River & Nyorwein’s doorsteps. Before its contract with the villagers here, Magna had not lived up to its agreement with Worr Community Forest in Compound One, Grand Bassa County. (It had paid Worr all its land rental, harvesting and scholarship fees, though.) When it signed the agreement in August last year, the company had not done any roads, still had to complete five handpumps, and had not rehabilitated a clinic it agreed to do by that time.

Broken-down equipment of E&J Investment Corporation in Ziadue & Teekpeh in River Cess. The DayLight/Emmanuel Sherman

Magna is also in breach of its contract with Jo River & Nyorwein. The company has yet to begin operation since signing the agreement in August last year. It also has not paid its land rental fees of US$26,105 to the community. It has not done a major road leading to the forest, something locals consider a priority, according to the agreement.  

“We really need roads, where there is a road there is life,” says Philip Ben, one of the community’s leaders in an interview with The DayLight in Buchanan.

“Since we signed the agreement last year, we have not had a meeting with them again,” says Alice Giahyou, another member of the leadership. The agreement mandates the villagers and the company to hold periodic meetings whose expenses the company must underwrite.

Molley Kamara, the owner of Magna says the meeting will be held in a week’s time. “There is a community meeting on August 20. I am pretty sure the community’s concern will be addressed,” Kamara tells The DayLight in an email.

“First, it is less than one year ago [since] we signed with Jo River [& Nyorwein]. And we are not worried,” Kamara adds.   

Jo River & Nyorwein has its own internal problems. Ben, Giahyou, and have capacity problems and no knowledge of forest governance. Its leadership is not aware of the sector practices and legal frameworks.   

“We know some of our rights… but we don’t understand all,” Giahyou adds.

There were indications the leadership of the community are not aware that their agreement with Magna is a public contract. Ben refused to share a copy of the agreement with The DayLight. He initially accepted to give our reporter the agreement, following a week of discussion. When the reporter finally tracked him down at his Worldwide Church in Buchanan, he asked the reporter to first buy legal papers to photocopy the documents. But he stormed out of the arrangement when the reporter came back with the papers. The reporter then demanded he repays the funds used to purchase the papers. Ben refused to repay until the intervention of members of the church.

Paul Nickerson, the head of the community leadership, also refused to share a copy of the agreement with The DayLight while in Monrovia in July. Nickerson eluded us three times before he stopped answering his phone. He only phoned us when he was already back in River Cess. 

Weedor Gray, the technical manager for FDA’s community forestry department did not grant The DayLight’s request for access to the agreement, though the document is a public record. No contracts are available on the agency’s website as required by the National Forestry Reform Law. We obtained it from elsewhere. Gray did not return our emailed request for comments.

The Answer is Women’s Participation

Foundation for Community Initiative (FCI), which promotes the empowerment of women and youth in the natural resource sector, has begun working with Jo River & Nyorwein to strengthen its capacity. The four-year project encourages women like Giahyou to participate in the governance of the forest. It has been holding community meetings and using local radio stations to raise awareness in the area.   

With funding from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), FCI will also work in Ziadue & Teekpeh, according to a document on the project.   

“Jo River and Nyorwein have a lot more to do, their knowledge and skill in forest governance are very limited,” says Felix Foyah, a campaigner of FCI who works on the project.

Foyah says FCI is building on the important relationship women play in forestry to help Jo River & Nyorwein meet the challenges in the sector. Women tend to use forest resources more than men. Many women know which trees are for food and medicine, and how to conserve forests—important knowledge during food crises, according to the FAO. Evidence shows that increased women’s participation in community-forest leadership improves forest governance and sustainability, according to a 2019 report.  

African Wood and Lumber Company harvested 550 logs, including these ones in Gbarsaw & Dorbor Community Forest. The DayLight/Emmanuel Sherman

“That is exactly what we hope to achieve. Once there are more knowledgeable women on forest matters that are in the community leadership, they can better combat illegal logging, deforestation and forest degradation,” says Foyah. Only five out of nearly 50 members of the leadership of Jo River & Nyorwein are women.

“We know that there are a lot of issues in forestry,” he adds, “but that is how we can solve those problems.”

Zahn Dehydugar of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ) contributed to this report.

Funding for the story was provided by the Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI). The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over its content.

FDA Seizes Container Trucks Loaded with Illegal Logs

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Top: One of the four container trucks loaded with illegally harvested logs at the FDA Regional Office in Tubmanburg, Bomi County. The DayLight/Emmanuel Sherman

By Emmanuel Sherman

TUBMANBURG, Bomi – The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has seized four container trucks loaded with round logs that have been illegally harvested in Gbarpolu  County.

Joseph Tally, FDA’s deputy managing director for operations, told The DayLight on Sunday that the agency would provide details on Monday but said it was still investigating.

“Right now, we are in pursuit of the [alleged] perpetrators,” said FDA’s Managing Director Mike Doryen, responding to a Facebook user’s allegation that the agency had taken a bribe from the company. “If we wanted [a] bribe, we could have allowed the containers [to] leave, and not to [seize] the logs.” He did not answer calls placed to him.

FDA rangers at the Klay checkpoint arrested the trucks recently after their drivers failed to show permits for the transport, according to sources.

The sources said the rangers later found out that logs were harvested from a forest in the Bopolu District by Reliable Import and Export Company, which has not acquired a logging license. The logs are ekki, an expensive species of wood, currently trading for US$281 per cubic meter on the international market.

The National Forestry Reform Law of Liberia prohibits logging without a contract.     

Penalties include the payment of three times the international prices of the species of logs, according to the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timber and Timber Products.   

Under the regulation, the FDA must confiscate the woods and auction them through two separate court orders.

One of the four trucks loaded with round logs that were seized by the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) in Tubmanburg, Bomi County. The DayLight/Emmanuel Sherman

(This version updates the previous version of the story, adding comments from the Managing Director of the FDA, the name of the company, and details of the woods illegally harvested and their price. We will add details as they unfold)

Henry Gboluma of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ) contributed to this report.

Inside Minister Cooper Kruah’s Illegal Logging Deals

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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.  

The CEO of ILC is another layer of illegality. Paasewe was dismissed as superintendent in 2015 by then-President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for “misuse of public funds.” However, he criminally collected US$11,215.63 and L$293,980 as superintendent in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, according to the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC). He restituted US$5,000 of the money in an out-of-court settlement, the LACC reported at the time.

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 already faces a fine between US$10,000 and up to three times the money he has received from UFC if he is convicted in a mandatory lawsuit. Now, he faces a US$2,000 fine and a 24-month prison term over UFC’s mining deals in this same Tappita region. And he faces suspension or dismissal for breach of the Code of Conduct for Public Officials, the same offense the Liberian Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) alleges the Minister of Agriculture Jeannie Cooper committed.

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).  

Company Abandons Some 2,500 Logs

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Abandoned logs
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.    

BALAGWALAZU, Lofa County – Sing Africa Plantation Liberia Limited, a Singaporean logging company, might have harvested about US$2.2 million worth of logs outside its concession in Bluyeama Community Forest mainly between 2018 and last year.

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.

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