How Logging Benefits Some Communities In Lofa

August 27, 2022

Top: Kpayaquelleh Community Clinic is one of several projects undertaken from logging resources in Salayea District, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

SALAYEA DISTRICT, Lofa County – The Kpayarquelleh Community Clinic sits on a hill in the town whose name it bears. Established in 2018, it caters to nearly 2,000 people here and seven other towns and villages between 10 km and 55.6 km all the way to Gbarpolu County. Its services include maternity, emergency, vaccination and other things. Drugs sold at the clinic are less costly as compared to other clinics, according to its administrators.

But the clinic is not run by the Ministry of Health or a nongovernmental organization. It is supported by community leaders with funds they generate from a logging concession signed between the government of Liberia and Alpha Logging and Wood Processing Company. The 25-year concession was signed in 2009, covering 74,186 hectares of forestland in Salayea and Zorzor.

“The money we get from the company, the community forest leadership purchases drugs,” says Deddeh Momolu, the deputy officer in charge of the clinic, in an interview with The DayLight. A sketch map of the clinic and another poster of communities, their distances and populations adorn a wall of the clinic.

“We are doing this because the funds are logging benefits we get from Alpha. Affected communities own the clinic,” Momolu adds.

By law, towns and villages affected by logging concessions signed between the government and companies are entitled to benefits from their forests. That is a crucial component of forestry reform in a country that marginalized locals for decades. But many communities are yet to receive things like log-harvesting and land rental, scholarship fees and dozens of mandatory projects. The government canceled over seven small-scale contracts in March earlier this year, leaving communities’ arrears unpaid, and promises of roads, schools and clinics unfulfilled by the companies that held those contracts.

Yet the Kpayarquelleh Clinic—and other projects here in the Salayea and Zorzor districts that were built with logging money—is a reminder of how forest resources can benefit rural communities.

Townspeople view a newly constructed teachers’ lodge in Ganglota, Salayea District in 20019, built with logging money. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Apart from the clinic, Salayea and Zorzor have seen a dozen of projects conducted with logging money between 2016 and last year that cost more than US$75,000. You have a guesthouse in Gorlu and another in Beyan Town, a market hall in Gbonyea and a school building in Fassawalazu. Six handpumps have been constructed in towns and villages as well as four toilets. Three hundred homes have received roofing sheets. There is a teachers’ lodge in Ganglota and Kpayarquelleh just next to the clinic. There is a resource center nearby—with forest-related books and development materials—where community meetings are held. And there is one concrete bridge under construction, one of two passages in the concession area.

“In terms of benefits to rural communities, the communities in FMC-A Lofa are benefiting to some extent in terms of the National Forestry Reform Law,” says Andrew Zelemen, the head of the secretariat of the National Union of Community Forestry Development Committees (NUCFDCs). “FMC-A Lofa” is the industry name for the Forest Management Contract Area A of Lofa County. The NUCFDC represents the interest of villagers whose forests are awarded to concessioners countrywide.

“We are appreciative of the work Alpha is doing there and we look forward to other companies doing that,” says Ekema Witherspoon, the head of the secretariat of the Liberia Timber Association (LibTA), which represents the interest of logging companies. “That is what we want.”

Alpha pays the community regularly for logs it harvests compared to other companies. It shares harvesting data with locals for checks and balances, according to Zelemen, who is also a member of the leadership of Salayea and Zorzor. He says the company is also regular with its harvesting payment.

It would have paid more if the coronavirus pandemic had not taken a toll on the company, stifling production and export, according to George Smith, the company’s general supervisor.

The industry’s numbers speak well for Alpha. Between 2009 and December last year, it paid the government of Liberia US$5,457,037, the second-highest in the entire industry, according to official records. Only International Consultant Capital, which operates in River Cess and Nimba, paid more (US$ 9,501,939.46).

“It is commendable when companies fulfill social agreements that are signed with the affected communities and we congratulate Alpha for doing so,” says Roberto Kollie, of the National Benefit Sharing Trust Board (NBSTB). The board is responsible to collect annual land rental fees from the government and oversee their expenditure in communities. Villagers are legally entitled to 30 percent of the land rental fee, which is a product of the total size of the forest and US$2.50. That is US$55,639.50 each year.

Women dance at the dedication of a guesthouse in Gorlu, Salayea District in 2019 that build by villagers themselves with money they obtained from Alpha Logging and Wood Processing Company. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

“We call on all companies to follow the example of Alpha by making sure that social agreements are fully implemented,” Kollie adds.

But all has not been rosy.

Just two years ago, the company and villagers had a frosty relationship over the payment of fees and projects. Villagers set up roadblocks and stopped the company from working. The protest was quelled only after the company made a commitment to pay some of its debt and promised to pave roads and erect bridges in the area.

The quality of some of the projects is poor, including the market hall in Gbonyea and guesthouses in Gorlu and Beyen Town, according to Kollie. “The National Benefit Sharing Trust Board has put in mechanisms that will ensure that greater value for money is achieved and the quality of projects improved during future implementation,” he tells The DayLight via email.

And Alpha still owes the communities here and in Gbarpolu over US$2 million in land-related fees, according to official records.

Witherspoon says there is still much to celebrate.

“One clear message it sends to the forestry sector, in general, is that there is a possibility for companies and communities to work together in a win-win situation,” says Witherspoon whose group conducted alternative dispute resolution (ADR) meetings with the parties that same year.

Payment Issues

By law, companies are to pay land rental fees to the government, which must pay communities 30 percent of that amount every year but that has not been the case. Between 2007 and 2019, the government paid communities US$2.6 million, seven times less than the legal amount, according to a 2020 report by Forest Trends. a 2020 report by Forest Trends, a U.S.-based NGO that promotes the sustainable management of forests, and conservation. The government reduced that amount by US$200,000 last year, after a string of protests at the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning in Monrovia.

To put that into context, out of the US$5.4 million Alpha has paid to the government, villagers in Salayea and Zorzor should have received US$1.6 million. That is more than half the amount the government has remitted to all the 23 communities that host forest concessions.

“The Benefit Sharing Trust Board continues to remain engaged with the government in ensuring that communities receive their fair shares of land rental fees,” Says Kollie. He tells me the institution is securing the payment of US$500,000 of the US$2.7 million allotted in the National Budget, with barely four months left in this year.

Zelemen calls for a long-term solution to the problem.

“We want to see an amendment to the law that will say that the 30 percent the law provides for the community should go directly to the Benefit Sharing Trust Board to avoid the bottleneck issues,” Zelemen says.

“I want to also see that the companies are paying on an annual basis,” he adds. The law provides that logging firms must pay their land rental fees before the date of the award of the concession each year. Moreover, payment of forest-related fees is a requirement for harvesting, export and new forest contracts. But that has not been enforced. Companies’ indebtedness to communities is the most common irregularity in the forestry sector.

A boy washes clothes next to a concrete bridge in Kpayarquelleh, Lofa County, which was constructed with funds raised from logging operations in that area. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

For Momolu at the Kpayarquelleh Clinic, it will be a relief for her and the 20 to 25 patients treated there daily when the concrete bridge on the road to the facility is completed. The road is impassable during the rainy season for vehicles. Cars bringing women in labor and emergency cases had to take a farther route in order to bypass the bridge.

“That bridge will really be helpful to us,” Momolu says. “Let the company give what it has for the community so that we can continue our services, and continue to buy drugs.”

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

Viktor Bout: How A Russian Arms Dealer Matters to Liberia

August 19, 2022

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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

August 18, 2022

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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.

Company Abandons Some 2,500 Logs

July 24, 2022

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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.

Opinion: ‘We’re excited to be among the first cohort of 49 Legal Empowerment Fund grantees’

July 22, 2022

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Top: Members of the National Union of Community Forest Development Committee. The DayLight/Harry Browne

By the National Union of Community Forest Development Committees

“Around the world, more than 5 billion people lack meaningful access to justice. The Legal Empowerment Fund (LEF) is the first initiative dedicated solely to closing the global justice gap by investing in locally driven solutions and bringing community-level strategies to scale.

In January 2022, the LEF initiated its inaugural funding cycle with a month-long open call for proposals. We invited grassroots activists and organizations doing legal empowerment work anywhere in the world to apply for flexible funding.

The response was staggering. We received more than 4,800 applications from 153 countries. In all, groups requested more than $233 million in funding—a true testament to the overwhelming need for greater investment at the grassroots level.

After a comprehensive review and participatory selection process, 49 groups were chosen to make up the LEF’s first-ever cohort of grantees” (Funds for Global Human Rights – July 11, 2022).

The National Union of Community Forestry Development Committees is happy to be one of the 47 organizations to benefit from this fund. A grant totaling Forty thousand United States Dollars (US$40,000.00) will be provided to NUCFDCs in two installments. The first twenty thousand United States Dollars is already being provided to the NUCFDCs since the signing of the grant agreement in June 2022. This first installment is to cover June 2022 to May 2023 while the second installment will be provided once the first report is satisfied.

The fund provided to the NUCFDCs is a portion of a little over one hundred thousand United States Dollars project that the NUCFDCs has initiated with a focus on creating more awareness and strengthening the capacity of communities within the former Timber Sale Contract (TSC) Areas to acquire their Customary Land title.

The NUCFDCs is grateful to the Global Funds for Human Rights (GFHRs) for selecting the organization among thousands of organizations to be the amount the first grantees of the Legal Fund for Empowerment.

Though the fund provided is not the total funds the NUCFDCs needs to fully implement it desired project, which focuses on communities within the former Timber Sale Contract Areas by increasing their knowledge of Customary Land Acquisition and are able to initiate the processes leading to acquiring their customary land titles.

The NUCFDCs is appreciating GFHRs for this support and calling on other donors and partners to help/collaborate with the NUCFDCs to get the additional funds for a successful implementation of the project.

The project is targeting 101 communities within 11 Timber Sale Contract Areas in Gbarpolu, Grand Cape Mount, and Grand Bassa.

Minister Breaks Laws With Shares In Mining and Logging Company

June 29, 2022

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Top: Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Cooper Kruah illegally holds a five percent stake in a mining and logging company. Illustration by Leslie Lumeh

By James Harding Giahyue

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a three-part series on Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Cooper Kruah’s conflict of interest as a shareholder in Universal Forestry Corporation, a mining and logging company operating in Grand Bassa and Nimba.

MONROVIA – Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Cooper Kruah holds shares in a company actively mining and logging in Liberia, a violation of laws governing the two industries as well as a breach of the Liberian Constitution and the Code of Conduct for Public Officials, an investigation by The DayLight has found.

Kruah holds five percent of the shares in Universal Forestry Corporation (UFC), according to the firm’s legal document. UFC has had 11 mining licenses since his appointment in February 2018, records of the Ministry of Mines and Energy show. The company had held a few logging concessions prior to Kruah becoming a cabinet minister. However, it began to acquire a flurry of mining licenses after he became the Postmaster General. The company currently has a logging agreement.

Of the nearly one dozen UFC mining licenses, 10 are for semi-industrial-scale gold mining, prospecting, and dealer licenses, and the other is a diamond broker license. Four of these permits are still active. The company operates the mines and dealerships in Montserrado, Grand Bassa and Nimba. One of its goldmines in Nimba had been the setting of a 2019 mine accident, which killed at least five people, according to the BBC.

The company produced 16.85 kilograms of gold, valued at US$313,525 in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, according to the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI), one of the biggest contributors in the sector that year. From that period to last year, it paid the government US$99,545, according to the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA).

His equity in UFC is a violation of the Minerals and Mining Law of 2000. The statute debars “the President of Liberia, the Vice President of Liberia, any member of the National Legislature, Justices of the Supreme Court and Judges of the subordinate courts of records, cabinet ministers, managing directors of public corporations during their tenure in office.”

Kruah had established UFC in 1986 with an initial 25 percent shares, which reduced to five percent when the company amended its article of incorporation in 2007, the document shows. Its other shareholders include Edward Slangar, former advisor to the late President Samuel Doe, and B.J. Kim and Jin Kyung, two foreign nationals. Kruah also serves as the secretary of the company’s board of directors and has been cited in official communications, seen by The DayLight, as its lawyer.

To prevent a conflict of interest, the law mandates a government official to either “dispose of such mineral right or place such mineral right in a blind trust,” a business that takes care of private investment interests without the interference of the owner. There are no records that Kruah, who has been fighting cybercrimes, has done either of those things.

Kruah faces a US$2,000 fine, a 24-month prison term, or both penalties if convicted in a court, according to the mining law.

A mine in Nimba County operated by Universal Forestry Corporation, one of whose shareholders is Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Cooper Kruah. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

The Ministry of Mines and Energy did not respond to The DayLight’s queries for comments on the matter up to press time. We will update this report once it does.

UFC also has a logging agreement with Sehzueplay Community Forest in Tappita District, Nimba County, the same region the company operates the majority of its goldmines. The agreement for the 8,690-hectare rocky woodland was signed on January 30, 2020, nearly two years after Kruah’s appointment.

That, again, breaks the National Forestry Reform Law, which rules out public officials from holding any logging permit above one percent. Like the mining statute, the forestry law compels an official of government to transfer ownership of the “entity outside the person’s influence and control, such as an unrelated individual or a blind trust…” There are no records that Kruah has done that as well.

The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) approving UFC’s agreement with Sehzueplay with Kruah one of the company’s shareholders also breaches the FDA Ten Core Regulations, a set of dos and don’ts of the logging sector. Regulation 103-07 in particular disqualifies companies whose shareholders are members of the government from being prequalified for logging licenses.

The Managing Director of the FDA Mike Doryen told The DayLight in a mobile phone interview that the agency was investigating the matter. “Rest assured, we will take the appropriate action,” Doryen said. “I will not protect any official of government who breaks the law.”

Conflict of interest carries a fine between US$10,000 and US$25,000, up to three times the sum Kruah has received from his equity in UFC, or a prison term of up to 12 months, according to the National Forestry Reform Law.

It is not the first time that UFC has violated forestry legal frameworks. It was involved in the notorious Private Use Permit (PUP) Scandal, in which an estimated 2.5 million hectares of forests—or 23 percent of the country’s landmass—was illegally awarded to logging companies. A government-backed inquest found the company broke the law in different instances while logging in Geetroh, Butaw District of Sinoe County between 2010 and 2012. That investigation found that UFC did not have an environmental permit or a certificate to harvest trees and that it paid community benefits into a personal account. UFC’s PUP and 62 others were canceled and a moratorium remains in place on the permit.

Kruah’s stakes in UFC are also a breach of the Code of Conduct, which defines conflict of interest as “when a public official, contrary to official obligations and duties to act for the benefit of the public, exploits a relationship for personal benefit.” Under this law, he faces a fine, suspension and dismissal, among other penalties.

The Code of Conduct has its roots in the Liberian Constitution, which says, “No person, whether elected or appointed to any public office, shall engage in any other activity which shall be against public policy, or constitute [a] conflict of interest.”

Jin Kyung, UFC’s general manager, denied Kruah is a shareholder in the company. Kyung said the copy of the company’s legal documents The DayLight has was not genuine but refused to share his copy, claiming it was a private document. That claim is wrong as a company’s article of incorporation is a public record under the Business Corporation Act and the Freedom of Information Act as well as the logging law.

Kruah did not grant The DayLight an interview on his violations, asking us to “publish anything you want to” in November last year. He had accepted our request for an interview but insisted we did not record the conversation.

The news comes barely a week after the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) called for the prosecution of several officials of government, including Minister of Agriculture Jeanine Cooper, for alleged conflict of interest.

Some of the logs Universal Forestry Corporation illegally felled in the Sehzueplay Community Forest in Nimba County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

This story was a collaboration with the Center for Transparency and Accountability of Liberia (CENTAL), with funding from the Swedish Development Agency (SIDA). It is an activity under the CENTAL’s ongoing National Integrity Building and Anti-Corruption (NIBA) program.

Gbarpolu Clans Sign Agreements To Manage Their Forests

May 14, 2021

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Banner Image: A forest in Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

BY Wiliam Q. Harmon

PAYNESVILLE – For five years Tonglay and Normon craved to obtain the right to manage swathes of forest in the Kongbor District of Gbarpolu County.

Earlier this month, they achieved that dream.

Their signing of separate community forest agreements (CFMA) means they can now control what goes on in the combined 29,000 hectares of muggy, dense woodland.

“We are happy that the government has agreed to allow us to take care of our own forest and we will make sure that we do our best so that our people can enjoy the resources that are in their forests,” said Karimu Fofanah, the head of the body charged to conduct forest business for Tonglay, known in the forestry sector as of the community forestry management body (CFMB). “Our people have suffered a lot and with this initiative, we will ensure we bring development to our people.”

Boakai Kanneh, Fofana’s counterpart in Normon could not be reached.

Both communities had to complete a nine-step process in order to gain authorized forest community status. It includes a nonrefundable registration of US$250, harmonize boundaries with neighbors and prepare a forest management plan. The European Union (EU) and Rainforest Trust provided funding for the process.

Michael Garbo, the executive director of Society for Conservation of Nature Liberia (SCNL)—the nongovernmental organization that helped the community complete the process—termed the signing of the agreement a “dream come true.

“It is a great day today and it’s a great honor as well for donors who have been supporting us throughout the stages of this process,” Garbo told the signing ceremony at the FDA headquarters in Whein Town, Paynesville.

FDA’s managing director Mike Doryen admonished the communities to hold together and avoid confusion—urging them to also remain law-abiding and stop shielding people, especially elites, who want to use their community forests for self-aggrandizement.

Doryen warned anyone violating the forestry land will be prosecuted.

No contract yet

As authorized forest communities, Tonglay and Normon will now manage their forests for the next 15 years, with the FDA to review the agreement fifth and tenth year. They must give their consent to any person or company wanting to enter the forest under the Community Rights Law of 2009 with Respect to Forest Lands. The law was a crucial part of the forest reform in postwar Liberia, giving locals their share of forest resources.

Fofana noted that no agreement has been reached with any company but the community was doing all it could to attract investors to the area. Tonglay and Norman are underdeveloped communities without roads up to date clinics and schools.

“We want to do first thing first and don’t want to jump the gun before we encounter problems ahead. We want to finish with all the required necessary steps before we start to invite investors,” Fofana said. “When we sign third party… we intend to prioritize infrastructural development, especially bridges, clinics and schools.”

Tag: logging

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