Top: The Temple of Justice in Monrovia. Picture credit: Reuters/James Harding Giahyue
By Gabriel M. Dixon
MONROVIA – The Monrovia City Court has issued an arrest warrant for 10 people for their alleged involvement in unlawful logging activities, first revealed to the public in an investigation by The DayLight.
They include Dawoda Sesay, a former police commander, Varney Marshall, a former ranger with the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), and Beomjin Lee, a Korean national.
They have been charged with property theft, forgery, economic sabotage, criminal conspiracy, criminal facilitation and bribery. A police inquest found the men felled a number of first-class logs in Gbarpolu County and attempted to ship them through the Freeport of Monrovia.
“These people will go in the bushes fell the trees, cut the logs, and use bogus documents in order to evade taxes, and will use those documents to ship the containers of logs out of Liberia,” Police Inspector General Patrick Sudue told a news conference last week.
The DayLight had broken the story and went on to assist the police in their investigation, providing them with important pieces of information that would lead to the charges.
The newspaper, which focuses on environmental investigations, first published on 14th August last year that the FDA had arrested three container trucks loaded with illegally harvested timber nearly a month earlier.
The paper would go on to publish a detailed account of the illicit activity that same month, naming members of the syndicate and the role they played in the illegal harvest. Not long after that, the FDA petitioned the circuit courts in Bomi and Gbarpolu to auction the logs, orders it is yet to be granted.
The DayLight also published a leaked video, revealing Marshall’s own illegal logging operations. Marshall can be held in the video complaining over his accomplice’s attempt to cheat him while filming huge piles of boxlike wood, commonly called “Kpokolo.” Pictures apparently taken by another accomplice show the depth of Marshall’s criminal operations, including loads of containers of kpokolo.
On Monday, the FDA announced it has dismissed Marshall, citing the report and charges against him at the Monrovia City Court. “A video circulated on social media and reported by The DayLight online media captured Mr. Marshal’s open engagement in illegal logging activities, a vice he was hired to prevent and combat,” the FDA said in a statement. It added that Marshall had admitted in an inhouse probe.
FDA also said it has suspended Edward Jallah without pay, another FDA ranger captured in The DayLight’s initial report that eventually led to the city court’s charges.
Miners work in a mine at Noway Camp, Vambo during a gold rush in 2014. The DayLight/KK
Top: Miners at a goldmine in Vambo, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/ K.K.
By Emmanuel Sherman
MONROVIA – Johnny John’s (not his real name for security reasons) pregnant girlfriend was close to labor, so he had to intensify his daily hustle. Unemployed and the sole breadwinner for his two-person family at the time, life was an uphill climb for the 25-year-old. But all of that changed when he met this Nigerian drug smuggler.
“He called me and said, ‘My man I sell drugs. We can operate and you can get something for yourself so when your girl gives birth you get some money,’” John tells The DayLight on a car bound for Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County.
“So, myself, I started it.”
Nigerians are infamous for drug smuggling in Liberia. In 2018, for instance, 10 out of 13 drug trafficking cases involved a Nigerian, according to the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Nearly a dozen Nigerians have been arrested or prosecuted between 2009 and this year, according to our analysis of several news stories and reports within that period.
John was a little bit nervous on his first mission. He knew the risk involved in this illegal transaction. The police would arrest him if he was caught and he could spend some time in jail.
“I was scared. I started it in Duport road, down Duport road…there is a ghetto there,” John says.
But his fears soon vanished. All of his drugs or “parcels,” as he calls them, were sold. Duport Road was the best place for a starter. The infamous slum is a hub for illicit drugs and criminal activities.
John’s debut was amazing as he pushed L$20,000 worth of heroin and received a L$4,000 commission from his Nigerian boss. His boss knew that he had become fearless in the operation and was excited about it.
That night his girlfriend was happy about the money he took home but she did not know how he got it. He kept it a secret.
John would go on to have several other successful missions after his inaugural operation on Duport Road. There were three on the Old Road, five in the Gobachop market, and countless times in the Red-Light area. Now it was time to venture outside of Monrovia, into the goldfields, the main market of his Nigerian boss.
John started with a goldmine called “Philadelphia” in Grand Gedeh County. It would lead him to other mines across the country such as at Sand Beach in River Cess, “New York” in River Gee, and Kinjor in Grand Cape Mount. If the open ghettoes in Paynesville offered him an opportunity, the canopy of the forest presented a perfect hideout.
Crossing checkpoints were John’s new worry. In the Paynesville area, he did not have to cross them. However, he was prepared for it. His boss had connections that proved useful in a number of instances.
The checkpoint between Nimba and Grand Gedeh was always a tough nut to crack. The officer often asked the passengers to disembark the vehicle and checked their loads. One time, he nearly got caught. An Officer of the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency (LDEA) asked for the owner of the bag of rice he was carrying. John thought that was the end, but he managed to compose himself.
“I told him I was carrying it up the mine for my people,” he told The DayLight, revealing he often camouflaged the banned substance in legitimate goods.
“We stuffed them in bags of rice, fufu. The rice is something to eat, but sometimes I gave it out. I just want my market to land in the place. I only care for the market.”
Once he crossed all the checkpoints on the route to a particular destination took a motorcycle taxi, something that is predominantly used for transport in the rural parts of the country. The drivers are famed for riding in rough terrains. That profile makes it gel well with the bush routes leading to goldfield and diamond creeks across the country.
John’s sales justified his risk, fetching him between LD$200,000 or LD$300,000 worth of drugs.
“Drug is not something for credit. As soon as you give it to a person; the person gives you your money,” he tells me.
Drug users smoke heroin at a goldmine in Kaquekpo, Sinoe County in 2017. New Narratives/James Harding Giahyue
Individual miners made John’s clients list but mine owners were his biggest business partners. Artisanal mineworkers say heroin stimulates them. Known among drug pushers and users as “tar,” heroine is a very addictive drug, responsible for the huge number of disadvantaged youths or “zogos.”
“If I don’t take it, I can’t work,” said one drug user at a goldmine in Kaquekpo, Sinoe County in 2017. It can make me do the gold work perfectly, 24 hours, day and night, no resting.”
Mine owners encourage drug dealers on their claims in a bid to enhance productivity. A 2016 USAID-funded report by the Foundation Against Illicit Drugs and Child Abuse found that mine owners and mine workers even exchange gold for illicit drugs.
John’s favorite goldmine was kinjor in Grand Cape Mount, a region that has a huge potential for gold, and is home to many artisanal goldfields. It is renowned for hosting the New Liberty Goldmines, Liberia’s first industrial gold project. On one operation, he sold half of a million Liberian dollars.
“My phone used to ring like [Minister of Finance and Development Planning] Samuel Tweah,” John says, bursting into a huge laughter.
At that point, Johns’s family status had well improved. He was no longer worried about “how to start his day.” His newborn daughter was now three years old and was now at one the best schools in Congo Town. Her mother, his girlfriend was doing a lucrative business. He gave out money easily and threw parties almost regularly.
John’s lavish lifestyle did not go unnoticed. His relatives and friends became concerned. The news finally hit them that he was one of the most prolific drug pushers. Occasional visits to his house by notorious drug users made things even worse for him and open recognition by zogos was too much of a coincidence. His relatives advised him and he heeded.
“I get my children. I don’t want them to hold me accountable” [for destroying other people’s children’s future],” Johns says. “I feel guilty, but I don’t have the financial support to assist the people whose lives I helped destroy.”
Top: A pile of meat about to be set ablaze at the headquarters of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) in Paynesville. Photo credit: FDA
By Dounard Bondo
MONROVIA – In Liberia, forests make up more than two-thirds of the country’s land area and cover approximately 6.69 million hectares. As half of Liberia’s population lives within 2.5 kilometers of a forest, the forest and its resources have become vital to the survival of most of the population who largely depend on it for food.
But the consequent rise in human contact with wildlife has increased the possibility of zoonotic diseases; which are infectious diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans through direct contact or through food, water, or the environment.
Liberia is no stranger to the deadly consequences of zoonotic diseases. In 2014, the country recorded its first case of Ebola, a virus scientists believe can be transmitted from fruit bats and monkeys. At the end of the outbreak in 2016, it had recorded 10,678 cases with 4,810 confirmed deaths, the worst in the sub-region.
Known as one of the deadliest viruses to humans, Ebola can cause severe bleeding, organ failure and death. The virus can be easily spread, as it can be transmitted through the body fluids of an infected person, especially dead bodies.
According to the American Center for Disease Control, while scientists do not know where Ebola virus comes from, they believe it is animal-borne, with bats or monkeys being the most likely source.
“I remember when the virus came, people were just dying, one person would fall sick and the next thing is the people in the whole house they are staying in would die,” says Siah Peters, a 38-year-old farmer from Voinjama, who witnessed the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
“Ebola killed my sister and her family. Someone in their house got it, then it spread, that’s how they died one by one, we could not even bury her, the government took the body away to burn it,” she adds.
With Liberia being home to large sections of the Upper Guinea rainforest, the country remains vulnerable to Ebola and other zoonotic diseases. However, Ebola resurfaced in Uganda, Sudan and Congo last year. In Liberia, a community health worker program and a law against hunting some of the animals that cause Ebola is helping to reduce the likelihood of another outbreak, while protecting Liberia’s wildlife.
“Liberia is at risk for zoonotic diseases because of many factors. One of the factors is the clearing of forests by humans in search of food which exposes them to wildlife,” says Mildred Bembo Harris, a public health professional and the Liberian country team leader of STOP Spillover – a USAID-funded global project which is working to prevent zoonotic diseases and their spillover.
“Some of this wildlife have diseases that could spill over from animals to humans. For example, the Ebola outbreak is believed to have come from fruit bats that are still consumed in some quarters,” Harris adds.
The program enlists people in rural areas to serve as the first line of defense through a community healthcare program. Since the launch of the community healthcare program in 2016, the Liberian Ministry of Health has stated that there are now around 4,000 community health workers serving the country’s 15 counties. They not only provide services for people in rural areas, thus increasing access to healthcare, but also serve as the focal point for the observation and reporting of zoonotic diseases.
The first phase of the program in the country depended on volunteers in suburban and urban regions. Using the results of those evaluations, the Ministry of Health and Last Mile Health, its non-governmental organization (NGO) partner, launched an initiative in 2012 to bring paid health workers to rural areas.
The results of the pilot program showed that prenatal care and other preventive health services were much more accessible to low-income and rural families. The ministry then used it to test and adjust the program’s components before rolling it out on a countrywide scale in 2016.
As part of the program, health workers undergo months of training in malaria diagnosis, first aid, and maternity health after being nominated by their fellow villagers and passing a literacy test. Then, they start talking to people in their community, addressing any problems that arise, and collecting data on local homes to address health concerns.
“This is integral as local communities do not just have little access to healthcare, but they are also at the higher risk of zoonotic diseases… because local populations hunt wildlife for food,” says Bernice T. Dahn, a former Deputy Minister for Health Services and Chief Medical Officer of the Republic of Liberia.
This view is reinforced by Harris who says “The community health workers have been a great asset to the country as they serve in rural and remote communities. There are several diseases and viruses that Liberia is on the watch out for due to public health concerns. These health workers help with surveillance in communities by reporting on time so that any potential outbreak is detected timely and responded to prevent its spread.”
A Ban On Hunting Protected Species
In addition to the community healthcare program, the Forest Development Agency (FDA) is also implementing the Wildlife and Protected Area Management Law of 2016 that bans the hunting of certain protected species for bushmeat.
The ban is not only protecting wildlife, but it is also helping to combat the spread of zoonotic diseases as It covers chimpanzees, four different species of monkeys, and bush hogs—all with a history of transmitting zoonotic diseases.
The ban is important as societal attitudes towards the consumption of bushmeat helped spread zoonotic diseases like Ebola. “When Ebola first came, we thought it was witchcraft or poison, but the government told us that it was the monkey and bush meat that we used to eat, we did not believe it at first because we have been eating it for long,” says Martha Johnson, a 40-year-old trader in Ganta, Nimba county.
Violators of the ban face a fine of US$5,000 to US$10,000 dollars or a two to a four-year jail term for any person found guilty. Additionally, the law also requires that any dead wildlife, seized or confiscated by the Authority may be quarantined, destroyed, or delivered to the appropriate governmental agency.
While the country had originally placed a temporary ban on bush meat consumption during the Ebola outbreak in 2014, post-Ebola saw an increase in both the supply and demand for bushmeat.
In response, FDA officers have positioned themselves in forest communities where they seize and destroy piles of bushmeat gotten from protected species as a means to deter the practice.
“I used to sell bushmeat before but I stopped because the FDA agent will take it all away from you and you will lose the money you put in it,” says Peters. Additionally, the government and international partners have also begun training ex-bushmeat sellers in other life skills. The purpose of the training is to encourage the sellers to switch to a legitimate line of work rather than continuing the unlawful trade of wildlife.
“I also heard on the radio that Ebola was in Congo this year, I hope it doesn’t come to Liberia, we suffered from it already,” Peters adds.
Gender Impact on the Community Health Program
The suffering Peters speaks of exceeds not just the physical and emotional impact of Ebola but also the specific gendered impact on women and girls.
Scientists believe people contract zoonotic diseases from animals they hunt for bushmeat. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
According to a report by Oxfam – an international NGO which works in Liberia, anecdotal evidence suggests that more women contracted the virus than men owing to their caregiving roles within the home and society. This role was even more prevalent during Ebola as formal healthcare provision was weak and often inaccessible.
“We women really suffered during Ebola; we were just dying. And it was spreading fast among us because when anybody is sick in the house, it’s their ma that’s responsible, it’s also us that can go to the market for food, so I am not surprised that the virus really spread among us,” says Johnson.
Additionally, women in the healthcare sector who served primarily as nurses, midwives, and traditional birth attendants, were severely affected by Ebola. During the epidemic, Liberia lost eight percent of its doctors, nurses, and midwives to Ebola, many of which were women.
Pregnant women who already had limited access to quality health care lost crucial resources due to Ebola. Consequently, the epidemic resulted in an upsurge in the number of avoidable deaths of pregnant women. It was widely reported that pregnant women were being turned away from clinics and forced to give birth in the street, in cars, or in their own houses.
For Peters, Johnson and many other Liberians who witnessed Ebola, there is the hope that the measures taken are adequate to prevent the next zoonotic disease outbreak.
“We really suffered, I hope Ebola or anything that’s like never comes back again,” Johnson says.
This story was produced with the support of a grant from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.
Top: A collage showing investigations published by The DayLight in 2022. The DayLight/Gabriel Dixon
MONROVIA – This year has been very eventful for The DayLight. We produced some very revealing investigations, particularly in the forestry sector. They include violations of all sorts: conflict of interest, illegal logging and wildlife poaching.
Our stories led to at least one official inquest and two court cases. They put the forestry industry under the spotlight for accountability and transparency, apparently led to administrative actions within the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), and uncovered certain illegal logging activities commonly called “Kpokolo.” We even lifted the lid on abandoned logs across the country.
As the year draws to an end, we take a look at our best stories:
The Invincible park shines with beauty but goes against international aviation safety regulations. Picture credit: Knewsonline
In this April piece, Gabriel M. Dixon exposes how President George Weah’s much-loved Invincible Park, built at the foot of the James Spriggs Payne Airfield, breaches international aviation standards. Citing the rules and regulations of the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO), the article showed the facility is a beautiful nuisance. Draped in the exposure of Weah’s inconsistent comments in the buildup to the park’s dedication, the story features a history of accidents at the airport and its 6,000-foot runway’s relevance to Liberia’s troubled political history.
It is our most-read story with more than 4,555 readers as of writing time.
Akewa Group of Companies has been involved in illegal logging for over a decade now. Picture credit: Facebook/Akewa Group of Companies
Editor-at-large Emmanuel Sherman and Managing Editor James Harding Giahyue started the year on a very high note, investigating a bundle of violations by Akewa Group of Companies.
The January investigation exposes very serious offenses committed by the company as well as the failure of the FDA to enforce forestry laws and regulations. They include lying under oath, forging another company’s tax clearance, prolonging indebtedness to communities and illegal issuance of contracts meant solely for Liberian companies.
A scene of Masayaha’s illegal logging operation outside the Worr Community Forest in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Editor-at-large Emmanuel Sherman tells a tale of Masayaha’s illegal logging activities. The Lebanese-owned company harvested an unspecified number of logs outside its contract area in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. Evidence Sherman gathered—interviews, pictures and official reports—shows Masayaha felled trees in several communities far away from the Worr Community Forest it is, in practice, entitled to.
Sherman and our Director/Managing Editor James Harding Giahyue would expose the company’s other wrongdoings, including an illegal transfer of its logging rights from Magna, a Liberian-owned firm, its indebtedness to communities and abandonment of nearly 600 logs.
Rain sets over a village in Foya, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
James Harding Giahyue tells us how a collaboration among villagers, local authorities, civil society, the private sector and an international nongovernmental organization is putting Foya on the cusp of victory against deforestation.
Trees have been replanted on riverbeds and where there was savannah, with crops thriving. A large group of farmers is returning to swamplands and producing rice threefold. All of this is happening with locals having formalized ownership of their land.
Foya may have surrendered its breadbasket profile to the marauding savannah grass fueled by climate change but it is getting it back.
Pangolin scales in Bopolu, Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
In a four-year investigation covering nine counties, The DayLight sheds light on a network that traffics pangolin scales out of Liberia. It names and shames major actors of the illicit trade and exposes the organization of the cabal as well as its trafficking routes.
Illegal timber or “Kpokolo” harvested by Binta Bility, a businesswoman, in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
The unlawful operation in Grand Bassa County of Binta Bility, a businesswoman, was exposed in this September investigation. The article showed that Bility produced block wood, which has come to be known in the industry as “Kpokolo.”
Having initially denied she ran the kpokolo operation in Compound Number One and somersaulted to confirm she was the one, Bility has vowed to cease her illicit activities. But the law requires she is punished.
Logs illegally harvested by Universal Forestry Corporation, co-owned by Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Cooper Kruah, are seen in the Sehzueplay Community Forest. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
This late June investigation, the first of a three-part series, reveals the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Cooper Kruah is involved in a conflict of interest with shares in Universal Forestry Corporation (UFC). The company has held about a dozen mining licenses and one logging contract since Kruah became a minister in February 2018.
Kruah established UFC back in the 1980s and retains his five-percent stake in the company even after he was appointed to his ministerial post in February 2018. Kruah admits he holds the shares but claims he turned them over to a relative, which still contravenes a number of Liberian laws, including the Constitution.
The second part of the series uncovers Kruah and UFC unlawfully subcontracted their agreement with a community forest in Nimba and harvested a number of logs without authorization.
The third and final part of the series will focus on UFC’s mining violations.
Sing Africa harvested a huge number of logs outside its contract area in Zorzor, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Another bombshell in June, this first of a two-part series exposes a Singaporean company that cut some US$2.2 million logs outside its contract area in Balagwalazu in Lofa’s Zorzor District.
Sing Africa had rejected the particular portion of forestland where it felled the trees in 2016 when it signed an agreement with the Bluyeama Community Forest. However, that patch of the forest has a good number of first-class logs, and the company secretly harvested them.
At the same time, the second part of the series shows Sing Africa also abandoned an estimated 2,500 logs.
FDA Managing Director Mike Doryen said at the time: “Eventually, we are going to take some actions [against Sing Africa]. We are in a better position now to be faster.”
Doryen suspended and replaced the FDA ranger responsible for Grand Bassa after the story was published. However, no actions have been taken against the company.
African Wood and Lumber harvested logs in the Gbarsaw and Dorbor Community Forest in River Cess without authorization. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
African Wood and Lumber Company, owned by an Italian businessman, harvested 550 logs in a River Cess community forest, this July article reveals.
Cesare Colombo’s company felled the trees in the Norwein District without a harvesting certificate, a violation of the National Forestry Reform Law.
The Forestry Development Authority (FDA), infamous for its complicity in the sector, suspended and replaced its staff responsible for River Cess after the publication. It made no reference to The DayLight’s investigation, though.
Police commander Dawoda Sesay and Richmond Anderson, an ex-envoy at the Liberian Consulate in South Korea, are being held for illegal logging. Picture credit: Facebook/Dawoda Sesay.
This August investigation by Gabriel Dixon (Henry Gboluma and Mohammed Sheriff) exposes a log-trafficking network comprising a former envoy, a policeman, illicit loggers, middlemen and villagers. It all came to light when The DayLight published
People named in the investigation and an FDA ranger whose illegal activities were exposed in a leaked video are being investigated. And the FDA has petitioned courts in Bomi and Gbarpolu to confiscate and auction the illegal timber and vehicle used to transport them.
Some of the teak woods Rosemart Inc. exported from the illegal permit the FDA awarded it. The DayLight
In our biggest report of the year, The DayLight exposes FDA Managing Director Mike Doryen and top managers of the agency award export permits outside of the legal channel.
The October investigation proved that Doryen and co have collected fees from two companies—Rosemart Inc. and Porgal Enterprise Inc.—but have not accounted for the funds. It also sheds light, particularly, on the illegal operations of Rosemart, which has operated illegally for a number of years in Nimba County. A follow-up article uncovers the company has shipped US$100,000, citing the illegal permits we obtained.
FDA’s attempt to deny the report did more harm than good. It claimed that Générale de Surveillance (SGS), the Swiss firm that established Liberia’s log-tracking system, rejected Rosemart’s logs. However, SGS refuted that claim.
Also, Gertrude Nyaley, the technical manager for FDA’s legality verification department (LVD) overseeing the log-tracking system, denied knowledge of Rosemart’s permits.
Top: A Sierra Leonean truck awaits locals in Vahun, Lofa County to smuggle planks into the neighboring country. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
A self-proclaimed aide of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) and a customs officer collect fees on planks exported to Sierra Leone through Vahun, Lofa County
But the export of such woods is strictly prohibited under forestry legal frameworks
The smuggling of planks is an open secret and has been going on in that region for years
Vahun’s bad road networks and its closeness to Sierra Leone fuel the illicit trade
The FDA said it is investigating the matter
VAHUN, Lofa County – Planks produced in Liberia are not allowed to be exported. They are made solely to support construction works within the country since round logs are meant entirely for foreign markets.
But that rule does not apply in Vahun, Lofa County’s district on Liberia’s northwest border with Sierra Leone. Locals here smuggle planks in broad daylight, thanks to agents of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) and Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA).
Instead of blocking the trafficking of wood, the agents do the exact opposite. Abraham Konneh, a villager who claims to be an aide, gets unspecified amounts on consignments of planks crossing the border. Richard Gbargondah, the LRA chief collector in that region, collects L$20 on each wood.
“The FDA people are aware that we sell the wood in Sierra Leone. LRA and the police, too,” said Daoda Kromah, a chainsaw miller in the region. The FDA and the LRA get toll.” Daoda Kromah is not his real. His and the names of other chainsaw millers in this story have been changed to protect them from any reprisals.
The DayLight obtained a number of receipts of the illegal transactions. That was also corroborated by chiefs, elders, and plank makers, known in the forestry sector as pit-sawyers or chainsaw millers. The term “chainsaw millers” come from the millers’ use of chainsaws or power saws. “Pit-sawyers” connotes a centuries-old method of producing planks with a handheld saw by placing a tree trunk over a pit.
It appeared the isolated nature of Vahun, one of the most forested places in Liberia, plays a part in the plank scam. The district is cut off from other parts of Lofa due to its bad road networks. People here conduct all of their businesses across the border, including the purchases of gasoline and spare parts for chainsaws. In fact, they even use Leone, the Sierra Leonean currency.
‘Just a token’
“Please allow the [bearer] of this document to carry his truck of planks,” Konneh said to the Vahun police depot in a note, seen by The DayLight. It was in reference to 200 planks that were to be trafficked on March 23 earlier this year.
Konneh said Ben Miller, an FDA ranger assigned at the Proposed Wonegizi Nature Reserve, appointed him as an aide, a claim supported by other villagers. He said he collected up to 200,000 Leones (L$1,700) on each transport of planks to Sierra Leone.
“The sawyers themselves declare [their production] and give what they have,” Konneh said in an interview. “Sometimes they don’t pay. It is just a token.” We caught up with Miller 139 miles away in Konia but he declined an interview.
Locals smuggle planks across Liberia’s border with Sierra Leone via Vahun, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Gbargondah’s LRA scam is more organized than Konneh’s FDA profiteering. It all started with a meeting on tax collection Gbargondah organized some time ago. He had convinced locals that paying taxes would record Vahun’s contribution to the Liberian government’s revenue.
“I did not want to be counted among the unproductive custom officers,” said Gbargondah, who controls the tax region from Barziwen, Zorzor District to the Sierra Leonean border in Vahun.
People started to comply with the tax code, including Gbargondah’s illegal plank scheme. He charges L$20 on each plank and only allows records from 100 pieces and above. Unlike the FDA agent, he provides official LRA receipts to make the payments look genuine, deceiving the townspeople that the money they pay goes into the government’s revenue.
Gbargondah claimed that he started to collect the duties on planks just four months ago. However, receipts of some of the illegal transactions show earlier dates. He collected L$8,000 on 1,000 planks valued at L$533,333.99 on May 14, 2022, for example, according to one of the documents.
Also, the procedure for payment in Gbargondah’s scheme is a red flag. Invoices for the exportation of timber do not come from the LRA. They are generated within the chain of custody, a system that tracks the wood from their sources to the buyers, and has become to be a game-changer in Liberia’s quest to tackle illegal logging. It is a major component of Liberia’s trade agreement with the European Union, known as the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA).
‘We are not happy’
Abraham Konneh’s handwritten note to the police in Vahun.
A receipt issued by Richard Gbargondah, an LRA customs officer in Lofa
Vahun’s chainsaw millers said they were aware planks are not to be sold on foreign soil but had no option. Predominantly farmers and gardeners, incomes from smuggled planks help them clean their farms and take care of household needs, according to them. They said they sell construction and furniture woods between L$600 and L$1,400 in Leones. Ishmael Kamokai, a chainsaw miller in a town called Folima told The DayLight his main customer was a woman in the Sierra Leonean city of Kenema he only named Lucia.
Piles of newly milled planks lined up the route to the border in the Guma Mande Clan. Rotting planks, blackened from years of rain and sunbath, could be seen nearly everywhere on the 30-mile road.
A heavy truck with a Sierra Leonean license plate was parked in Folima. Kromah, Kamokai and townspeople interviewed said the vehicle crossed the border nearly every week, transporting up to 250 planks per trip. It is the most infamous of all the smuggling vehicles. Ibrahim Sannoh, its driver, evaded an interview.
“We are not happy as Liberians to take the resources of the country to carry in Sierra Leone but no other way,” said Kamokai.
“Vahun has lots of resources, including diamonds, gold and other things. Because of the lacking of road connectivity completely, this is why most of our resources can go to the neighboring country,” adds Mohammed Kamara, the central clan chief for Guma Mande. “You cannot expect people who live here with resources and they are not well connected to their own country.”
The road from Vahun to Kolahun is one of the worst in the country. Untrimmed bushes make it difficult to see the ground. Erosion caused by yearly rainfalls, rocks and steep hills feature almost permanently. At one point, it takes a deep left turn at the head of a cliff so deep that even the green and yellow coloring of a cocoa garden on its side could not cover the lurking danger.
Kromah narrated how he and other chainsaw millers attempted to transport some 800 planks to Voinjama in a truck in 2017 but lost all the woods. He said they had to pay for the repair of the vehicle and needed a full year to recover from the loss.
“If you go on the road, you will see some of the woods,” he said with a dry smile. “We lost more than L$1 million.”
The LRA did not reply to queries emailed them nearly two weeks ago up to writing time.
The FDA said it did not have a local office in Vahun, and that Miller had denied authorizing Konneh to collect fees in the name of the agency. Konneh also denied he collects tolls, despite admitting to doing so in our interview.
“We do not take this at face value and are investigating along with the authorities,” said Yanquoi Dolo, the head of the FDA legal team in an emailed statement.
Planks by the roadside toward Liberia’s border with Sierra Leone in Vahun, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Edward Blamo contributed to this report.
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: Viktor Bout being led by US security officers. Reuters/Sukree Sukplang
By James Harding Giahyue
MONROVIA – The United States has releasedViktor Bout, the notorious arms dealer who sold weapons to warring factions in Liberia’s civil wars in exchange for the country’s timber. His release was part of a long-proposed prisoner swap deal between Washington and Moscow that saw the latter freed Brittney Griner, the American basketball player who was serving a nine-year sentence by a court in Moscow for possessing and smuggling drugs.
“I’m glad to say Brittney’s in good spirits… she needs time and space to recover,” President Joe Biden told reporters at the White House on Thursday following.
Russian state media showed footage of Bout and Griner passing each other at the airport alongside their respective teams crossing on the tarmac with their respective teams. Bout greets Russian officials while Griner looks on.
“The Russian citizen has been returned to his homeland,” the Russian foreign ministry statement said.
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, destroying Liberia’s forest. As the result, the country became synonymous with “logs of war” and “conflict timber.”
Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recommended in 2009 that Bout be investigated for his role in the country’s crises but this is yet to happen more than a decade on. And his release has made that possibility even slimmer.
“Even though he spent time in jail, through the effort of the US justice system, we do not think he deserves to be a free man,” said Hassan Bility, the executive director of Global Justice and Research Project (GJRP), an NGO that has helped to prosecute Liberian war criminals Alieu Kosiah and Kunti Kamara, and United States immigration fraudsters Mohammed Jabbateh and the late Thomas Woewiyu whose crimes were linked to the country’s civil wars.
“Bout’s business deals and his thirst for profits led to the murder of tens of thousands of Liberians. And what do the victims get in return?” Bility said.
Critics of the Bout-for-Griner swap were unfair as the Russian’s crimes were way graver than the American’s offense. While Bout was convicted of wire fraud, money laundering and the illegal purchase of an aircraft, Griner was held for being in possession of a cannabis-laced ointment.
Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the US House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, said in the Guardian, “Trading Viktor Bout, a dangerous convicted arms dealer who was in prison for conspiring to kill Americans, will only embolden Vladimir Putin to continue his evil practice of taking innocent Americans hostage for use as political pawns.”
Stephen Rapp, former chief prosecutor for the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, said there was still something to celebrate.
“I am pleased that Britney Griner has now been freed. I would have preferred that this could have happened without the release of the notorious arms dealer Victor Bout,” Rapp told The DayLight. “I take some solace in the fact that Bout was in jail for almost 15 years since his arrest in Thailand in March 2008. I am sure that many were saved from death and injury from the use of the arms that he would have traded to violent groups around the world.
‘The Merchant of Death’
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 arms trafficker.
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.
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 14 years of civil unrest.
In 2004, Bout and Taylor were subjected to UN and U.S. sanctions, a 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 from power, 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 assets freeze followed a similar one by the UN Security Council earlier that year.
Bout ignored the sanctions. 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, perhaps, closed the chapter on the career of the world’s most infamous arms trafficker, born Viktor Anatolyevich Bout on January 13, 1967, in the former Soviet Union now Tajikistan.
Top: Timber illegally harvested by Binta Bility in a forest in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Emmanuel Sherman
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series that exposes illegal logging operations conducted by a businesswoman.
COMPOUND NUMBER ONE, Grand Bassa County – Binta Bility, a businesswoman whose illegal logging activities were first exposed two months ago, has promised to work in the confines of forestry laws and regulations. But it may not be that easy, as she has to account for the wrongdoing she has committed.
Bility has been producing timber for months in Bassa. Last month, her consignment of 79 illegal timber was seized by police in the Nimba town of Bahn. A ranger with the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) had noticed that the woods were oversized and stopped the transport.
Bility had insisted she was doing the right thing, labeling The DayLight as “fronting to promote confusion and instability among forest-dependent communities” in the Analyst newspaper. However, in a complete turnaround, she has admitted that her activities are unlawful.
“From now on, I will do everything legally,” Bility told The DayLight in a WhatsApp interview about the woods seizure and her other illegal activities. “I don’t intend to do anything illegally.”
Just before the arrest in Bahn, Bility had continued with her illegal activities. She had sealed a deal with villagers in Teemor, Grand Bassa, not far from the site of her initial operations in Compound Number One. She signed an agreement with locals to harvest 500 pieces of boxlike timber, commonly called “Kpokolo” in exchange for L$45,000. Three hundred has already been produced, with a thickness of nearly five and a half and eight inches, and seven feet long.
In a one-sided article in the Analyst newspaper over a month after the investigation, Bility claimed The DayLight was misleading the public and accused the online newspaper of instigating confusion in forest-dependent communities. She, however, offered no proof to back that accusation. “My pit-sawing activity, which is far from logging activities, continues to bring relief to rural dwellers,” she said in the article at the time.
Binta Bility has vowed to discontinue her illegal logging activities but has to face the law. Photo credit: Facebook/Binta Bility
But those claims were wrong because pit-sawn or chainsaw-milled woods are different from the ones Bility produced. She initially lied that she was not the person harvesting timber in that area but somersaulted after the publication profoundly proved it was her. Fondly called “Mammie” by locals, she had worked there as a chainsaw miller for several years before shifting to kpokolo earlier this year. Under the Chainsaw Milling Regulation, planks must be at most two inches thick, 12 inches wide and 14 feet long. The thicknesses of the Kpokolo she produces are two and four times the legal size for planks. It sometimes takes an entire football team to lift them. The regulation was introduced to bring chainsaw milling on par with the best forestry practices, including sustainability, legality and community benefits.
“I will resize all those woods to two inches,” Bility said, blaming her previous activities and previous comments on the lack of awareness of the regulations. “We have already started resizing them.” She then provided a photograph of two young men milling two-inch planks in a forest, she said, in Grand Bassa.
Yanquoi Dolo, the head of the FDA legal team, said the police were investigating Bility’s operations in Nimba. “The wood there is important evidence,” Dolo told The DayLight.
Size aside, the source of Bility’s timber in Grand Bassa also renders them illegal, a graver offense. The woodland where they were harvested falls within the Worr Community Forest. Covering 35,337 hectares, the forest is contracted to Magna Logging Corporation. Magna transferred its right to operate the forest to Masayaha Logging Company, a Lebanese firm, more than three years ago.
The townspeople interviewed said they told Bility about this situation but both parties forged ahead with their deal. While Bility saw Teemor as an opportunity to extend her logging activities, local chiefs and elders took advantage of the situation for their own benefit.
“The company let us down and we don’t know what to do. So, we are just trying to find means,” said Daniel Goee, assistant town chief of Norr Town, where the timber was illegally harvested.
“We want to use the percentage to maintain our road ourselves,” added Teleco Lincoln, a spokesman for the youth in that area.
Timbers illegally harvested by Binta Bility are seen piled up in a town in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Morley kamara, Magna’s owner and CEO, did not return queries emailed to him. Despite being mandated by law to grant public access to logging information, Kamara had asked The DayLight not to contact him anymore following our series on his company and Masayaha’s unlawful deals.
Bility denies being told of the Magna-Masayaha agreement and insists “I am not working in any company’s forest.”
Yei Neagor, the FDA regional officer responsible for Grand Bassa, Nimba and River Cess, declined to comment on the matter. Neagor, who helped expose a firm’s illegal logging activities in River Cess and was promoted to her current position shortly after that, had investigated Bility’s initial operations in Compound Number One but no actions have been taken against the businesswoman.
Dolo, the FDA’s lawyer, said the FDA was investigating Bility’s operations in Bassa and would make a statement on Friday.
Two men mill planks in a forest in this photo shared by Binta Bility as proof that she has stopped producing boxlike timber, commonly called “Kpokolo.”
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: The arrested illegal timber dumped at Bahn police station. The DayLight/Mark Newa
By Mark Newa
BAHN – Police in Nimba have arrested a truckload of illegal timber harvested from forests by a businesswoman.
The illegal timber, owned by Binta Bility, were harvested from community forests in the Zoe-Geh and Bu-Yao districts, destined for Ganta when it was stopped earlier this month.
FDA rangers arrested the consignment after they noticed the timber was oversized. Under the Chainsaw Milling Regulation, planks must be not more than two inches thick, 10 or 12 inches wide and at most 14 feet long.
The 79 pieces of the four-inch-thick timber, commonly called kpokolo, were dumped at the main police station. The woods are slightly less thick than the ones Bility illegally harvested in Compound Number One, Grand Bassa County.
Bility said she was not aware of the regulation restricting chainsaw millers to those sizes of planks.
“I agreed to reduce [the woods] to the legal two inches,” Bility told The DayLight via WhatsApp over the weekend. “I don’t intend to do anything illegal.”
Arthur Gweh, the local police commander, and Emmanuel Gbeh, the FDA ranger who carried out the arrest, evaded the interview.
Bility, meanwhile, faces a fine of twice the price of the timber set by the FDA and could face up to 12 months in prison. She has not been punished for the ones she illegally harvested in Grand Bassa, though.
Top: Global Environment Facility (GEF) CEO Carlos Manuel Rodriquez speaks to journalists at COP27. Photo credit: Evelyn Seagbeh
By Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh
SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt – The Global Environment Facility’s chief executive officer and chairperson did not mince his words identifying the role of the media in tracking funds given to combat the global threats posed by climate change.
The media, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez said, is critical in tracking how countries use the monies that are given to them, whether grant monies or loans that are meant for environmental or climate change initiatives in their respective countries.
“We work in countries where the perceptions of corruption are high but that wouldn’t be a limitation for us to work. That is why it is so important for us to have you all journalists doing your work,” Rodriquez told journalists at the margins of the global event.
“Countries come here (at the COP) and they brag about how good they are doing but they have not been totally transparent in what they do at the country level. There are lots of data materials that you need to track from here.”
“The country needs to be reporting to the people how they are doing with their climate commitment, but that is not happening because the journalists are not there yet. I hope this can be the first generation of journalists that do political control on climate action at the country level,” Rodriquez said.
The Global Environment Facility is the world’s largest funder of biodiversity protection, nature restoration, pollution reduction, and climate change response in developing countries with an investment portfolio worth about US$22 billion, and co-financing more than 5,000 national and regional projects. Liberia is one of the benefiting countries.
Article 13 of the Paris Agreement from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) calls for transparency, accountability, and monitoring for countries to report to the convention.
For 30 years, the Global Environment Facility has been a major partner in supporting some of Liberia’s environmental and climate change programs. Its support to Liberia has focused on creating a system of protected areas, working with local communities in land tenure, and sustainable harvesting among other things.
Emphasizing the role of the media in ensuring that there is transparency and that GEF project countries deliver on their deliverables and adequately account for money given for climate and environment programs, Rodriquez added the role of the media was critical.
Rodriguez called on the media to pay close attention to monitoring countries’ implementation of the National Determined Contribution (NDC).
On November 8, 2022, the Liberian delegation at the COP27 launched the country’s revised NDC implementation. Keen among the country’s national goals is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 64 percent by 2030 and prioritize climate actions with a multi-stakeholder engagement approach. NDC is a climate action plan to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts that each party to the Paris Agreement signed. It requires nations to establish an NDC and update it every five years detailing policy actions.
Seven countries jointly pledged added support to the GEF for addressing the most urgent climate action needs of the least developing countries, including the implementation of NDCs.
The new portfolio “The Least Developed Countries Funds (LDCF)” is to the tune of US$105.6 million with Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Walloon Region of Belgium contributing the new funding.
The new commitment from the seven nations now adds to the $413 million that 12 donor countries have pledged to support the Least Developed Countries Funds (LDCF) at COP26 in Glasgow last year.
This story is produced as part of the 2022 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
Top: Rose Yancy and community people lead foreigners into the Kpaytuo Plantation. Photo credit: Facebook/Rose Yancy
By Gerald C. Koinyeneh
KPAYTUO, Nimba County – A Liberian-owned company ships timber from a forest in Nimba County unknown to the rest of the public, except for the Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) Mike Doryen and the other top managers of the agency, who have sanctioned the firm’s illegal operations.
Rosemart Inc. was awarded the Kpaytuo Plantation in the Saclepea District at least six years ago, according to documents withheld secret ever since until a recent investigation by The DayLight prompted the FDA to publish them. The company has illegally shipped US$100,000 worth of teak logs, expensive woods used for construction, shipbuilding and the making of rifles. At the time of Rosemart’s last known shipment in 2020, teaks were selling for US$300 per cubic meter. It has traded between US$1-2.5 million goods on the Trade Key alone, a Saudi Arabia-based e-commerce platform.
But there is no public record of Romsemart’s operations—its contracts with the FDA and the community where it operates—except for three illegal export permits. The company is not captured in the reports of the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI). It has only paid US$664.70 during all its years of operations, with some of its fees going straight to the FDA’s account at the United Bank for Africa (UBA), instead of the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA).
Villagers adjacent to the Kpaytuo Plantation said Rosemart pays them US$15,000 for a certain quantity of logs. They said they have had three transactions, information backed by the permits published so far. The 500-acre Kpaytuo is one of several plantations across the country that were established by the government of Liberia prior to the Liberian civil wars as part of the government’s forest regeneration program.
“The agreement puts Rosemart in charge of the forest. The few pieces [of logs] that remained there, she is responsible for them. I heard that she has found partners and is waiting for the rain to stop coming,” said Adolphus Kpangar, the commissioner of Kpaytuo township. He declined to share a copy of the agreement.
The FDA awarded Rosemart’s its contracts outside of forestry laws and regulations. There are five legal logging permits: forest management contracts (FMC), timber sale contracts (TSC), forest use permits (FUP) or private use permits (PUP) and a community forest management agreement (CFMA). Rosemart contract does not fall under any of the five contracts, known in the sector as forest resource licenses.
Rosemart did not conduct an environmental social impact assessment (ESIA) as mandated by the National Forestry Reform Law. The assessment draws out the environmental and social consequences of a project and proposes measures to mitigate potential negative impacts. Clearing a forest without conducting an ESIA could hurt plants, animals and people, experts say. For instance, Kpaytuo Plantation has swamps, generally important ecosystems that are home to different species.
Also, Rosemart’s export permits were issued outside of the chain of custody or LiberTrace, the system that tracks all logs produced and shipped from Liberia. Its creation was a monumental achievement in Liberia’s drive to trade legal and sustainable logs. It is a crucial component of the country’s Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union signed in 2011.
“I have no idea what [those permits are],” said Gertrude Nyaley, the technical manager for the department in an emailed interview with The DayLight. “What I know is that all woods and wood products must be exported [through] the LiberTrace system. Anything shipment of timber or timber products outside the chain-of-custody system is illegal.” Awarding permits outside the chain of custody amounts to economic sabotage under the law.
Rose Yancy Adikwu, Rosemart’s co-owner and CEO, turned down an interview with The DayLight on her company’s illegal activities.
Rose Yancy Adikwu, Rosemart’s co-owner and CEO with townsmen and her foreign business partners. Facebook/Rose Yancy
The FDA did not initially respond to The DayLight’s inquiry. But in a rebuttal to our investigation that exposed the secret deal, it falsely claimed that Rosemart’s consignment did not meet certain requirements. It also claimed that Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), the Swiss firm that created LiberTrace, declined to enter the teak logs from plantations into the chain of custody.
Contrary to this claim, Rosemart made a number of shipments that are much larger than some of the ones captured by the LEITI. For instance, Rosemart exported 88.625 cubic meters of logs outside the chain of custody in 2020. That same year, Regnals Internationals Inc.—which runs the Cavalla Reforestation Plantation—exported only 62 cubic meters of logs.
SGS also debunked the FDA’s claim it declined to register the logs Rosemart exported into the system.
“SGS has never been informed of any scientific management plantations to be applied in LiberTrace,” Theodore Aime Nna, SGS’ forestry project manager, told The DayLight. “Moreover, SGS does not certify any log in Liberia, but only verifies their history…”
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
