Top: (R-L) Hasan Uzan and Umit Gungor at the police station in Nimba on Thursday. Picture Credit: Forestry Development Authority
By Mark B. Newa
Police have arrested two Turkish nationals for alleged illegal logging between Ganta and Sanniquellie, Nimba County.
Hasan Uzan and Umit Gungor are undergoing preliminary investigation, while authorities are in pursuit of two other Turkish nationals
There is still no action against Assistant Minister of Trade Peter Somah and another Liberian who helped the company smuggle timber
MONROVIA – Police in Nimba County have arrested two of a number of Turkish loggers for illegal logging activities, forestry authorities said.
Hasan Uzan and Umit Gungor of Askon Liberia General Trading Inc. are in police custody following their arrest last night, according to Cllr. Yanquoi Dolo, the head of the Forestry Development Authority’s legal team.
“Two of the Turkish guys were arrested last night by FDA rangers,” Dolo told The DayLight via WhatsApp. “They are currently in police custody.”
Forest rangers had been in pursuit of the men and other Turks for illegal logging operations between Ganta and Sanniquellie. They abused the terms of their sawmill license by harvesting timber in some of Nimba County’s vast rainforests, the FDA said in a press release on Tuesday.
The FDA has also banned Askon from forestry activities and barred Hasan Uzan, Faith Uzan and Yeter Uzan.
Authorities are still looking for Yeter Uzan and Faith Uzan, Askon’s two other shareholders. Hasan Uzan holds the majority of the company’s shares (80 percent) of Askon, a company he cofounded in November 2017, according to it’s legal documents. Yeter Uzan holds 10 percent and Faith Uzan five percent. The other five percent of shares are outstanding. Hasan Uzan and Gungor did not respond to WhatsApp messages. Efforts to talk to Yeter and Faith Uzan did not materialize.
Askon`s campsite with block wood seen piled up TheDayLight/Gerald Koinyenneh
Umit Gungor, the man arrested alongside Hasan Uzan, works for Askon. Gungor arrived in Liberia in 2020, according to Askon’s tax payment record.
The two men are undergoing a preliminary investigation in Saclepea, according to Dolo.
“This is a criminal offense, so the police are investigating them,” Dolo said. “They were arrested last night, and tomorrow being Friday, by Monday, they will be arraigned for the court.”
In March, an investigation by The DayLight brought Askon’s illegal activities to light. The investigation showed Askon harvested timber from Nimba in huge volumes and smuggled them via containers.
Analyzing Hasan Uzan’s social media accounts, online business platforms, and an illegal export permit, the story proved Askon trafficked timber outside of Liberia’s legal system.
For instance, in October 2020, Askon smuggled two containers of first-class, expensive timber to India. Hasan Uzan declined to comment on the operation for that story.
Tax payment record shows that Askon did not obtain resident and work permits for its foreign workers.
Felling trees without a contract is an offense under the Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timber and Timber Products. The Turkish nationals face a six-month prison term, a fine of three times the price of timber they harvested, or both, according to the regulation.
No Action Against Assistant Minister
The FDA has not taken any actions against Assistant Minister of Trade Peter Somah, who assisted Askon to smuggle timber, and Sylvester Suah, another Liberian accomplice.
It was Somah who issued a permit to Askon to export timber to India. He collected US$19,800 for the two containers, the permit shows. Akson’s tax payment record also shows that the money did not go to the Liberian government. That was a violation of forestry legal frameworks, which require all payments made to the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA). Somah did not respond to WhatsApp messages. He had not spoken directly to questions posed to him during the course of The DayLight’s investigation.
The permit issued to Askon by the assistant minister of commerce, Peter SomahPeter Somah, Assistant Minister for Trade at the Ministry of Commerce awarded an illegal permit to Askon leading the Turkish company to ship two containers of timber to India in 2020. Picture credit: Facebook/Peter D. Somah
Suah, on the other hand, helped establish Askon. He made a number of trips to Istanbul between November 2015 and December 2016, according to his Facebook account. Pictures he posted on Facebook show him taking selfies and having dinner with his would-be business associates. Not long after, Askon was established.
Suah did not reply to WhatsApp messages. “When I am ready, I will write my own story,” Suah said in March when quizzed on his connection with Askon.
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: The headquarters of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) in Paynesville. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
MONROVIA – The Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has banned a Turkish logging company and barred its shareholders for illegal logging activities in Liberia, the agency said in a press release on Tuesday.
The FDA said Askon Liberia General Trading Limited abused its sawmill license and extracted and exported timber. The agency said it would recommend prosecution for its owners: Hassan, Yetar and Faith Uzan.
“The permit issued required Askon to source logs from legal sources and not engage in the informal harvesting of logs,” the FDA said. “The investigation into the whereabouts of these individuals will progress, and subsequent actions will be recommended or referred to the justice system of Liberia.”
Askon Illegal operation campsite between Ganta and Sanniquellie, Nimba County. The DayLight/Gerald C. Koinyeneh
Askon’s illegal operations were exposed by The DayLight in March. The report said Askon ran an illegal operation in Nimba County in which it harvested and smuggled timber in containers. It named Assistant Minister of Trade Peter Somah as an accomplice. The FDA said it took the report “seriously.”
Hasan Uzan, Askon’s majority shareholder, did not immediately respond to questions for comment on this story.
The FDA also said it took action against logging companies for stockpiling logs across the country. Companies abandon logs when they do not attend to the woods between three weeks and six months, depending on their location, according to the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products.
The agency announced it has suspended the harvesting certificates of Mandra Forestry, Ruby Light Forestry and Atlantic Resources. A recent report by The DayLight found Mandra abandoned some 7,000 logs from its contract with the Sewacajua Community Forest. Ruby Light Forestry, which operates in a large concession that extends to Grand Gedeh, has perhaps the largest field of abandoned logs in the country. Holding a logging concession covering Maryland, River Gee and Grand Kru, Atlantic Resources has abandoned a host of logs, including decayed ones in an open field in Greenville, Sinoe County.
This drone photo shows some of Mandra’s abandoned logs outside Greenville, Sinoe County
“This decision is prompted by the failure of these companies to honor the mandate from the FDA to enroll all logs harvested in LiberTrace,” the FDA said. LiberTrace is the system to tracks logs from their sources to final destinations.
Companies that have abandoned logs but do not have harvesting certificates will not be allowed to fell any trees until they export the wood, the FDA said.
The agency said it had initiated actions to confiscate abandoned logs. According to it, the action will deter companies from further harvesting logs without exporting them, one of the most common forestry violations today. Under the law, the FDA must petition a court to confiscate and auction abandoned logs.
“Companies in both categories, suspended certificates and otherwise, may be subject to further [penalties]…,” the FDA said.
Representatives of the three companies did not return WhatsApp messages for their sides of the story. However, in April, Augustine Johnson, Mandra’s manager, falsely argued the logs were not abandoned because they were durable, and that he had already paid the royalties on them. “Before you talk about abandonment. I am expecting a ship to come to Greenville by the second week in next month to get the logs out,” Johnson told The DayLight in a phone interview at the time.
A screenshot of pictures showing decayed logs Atlantic Resources Limited harvested and kept in a log yard in Greenville, Sinoe County. The DayLight/Eric Opa Doue
In January, Massaquoi Robert, a transport supervisor of Ruby Light, too, wrongly argued that the company had abandoned no logs.
“We’re defacing the logs you see there. We have sales contracts right now,” Robert said at the time. “My logs are not rotten. You are not a logger, I say my logs are useful.”
Top: A truck offloads Askon Liberian General Trading Inc.’s planks on Gompa Wood Field in Ganta on November 11, 2022. The DayLight/Gabriel M. Dixon
By Mark B. Newa
Askon Liberia General Trading Inc., a Turkish-owned forestry company, runs at least one illegal logging operation between Ganta and Sanniquellie in Nimba County. It smuggles timber out of Liberia in containers, making use of online business platforms and social media
Assistant Minister for Trade Peter Somah aided the company in smuggling expensive wood to India that cost over US$19,000, according to an illegal export permit The DayLight obtained. The money did not go into the Liberian government coffers, according to official records
Askon also trades planks on the local market in Ganta, a business meant solely for Liberians
Local Authorities shut down Askon’s operation in November 2022 over community benefits
The rangers of the Forestry Development Authority not far from Askon’s worksite claimed they were not aware of its operations
ZULUYEE, Nimba – Last November, local authorities ordered a Turkish company to halt its logging operations in a forest between Ganta and Sanniquellie.
The Office of the Superintendent in Sanniquellie said Askon Liberia General Trading Incorporated did not have a logging contract and did not pay benefits to communities adjacent to the Garr-Mongbain Community Forest. Askon had come to Zuluyee in 2020, harvesting valuable redwood. The decision of county authorities followed some two years of residents’ anger over the company’s operations and suspicion it was illegally harvesting.
“The company did not come to us here,” said Faliku Kromah, a liaison and political affairs officer in the Superintendent’s office. “They passed the other way and went to do their thing in the forest.”
The local authorities were right. Askon does not have a legitimate contract to log in Liberia. It runs an illegal logging cabal that involves four Turkish nationals and several Liberians, including an official of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. That is according to Askon’s legal documents, official tax payment records, an illegal export permit and pictures from social media.
In addition to breaking forestry laws and regulations, Askon violated immigration and labor statutes, depriving Liberia of much-needed revenue, the tax records show.
‘See you soon… Turkey’
Askon began with a series of visits by a Liberian named Sylvester Suah to Turkey between November 2015 and December 2016, based on Suah’s Facebook page. Suah, a native of Nimba, held several meetings with his hosts and returned to Liberia. “See you soon, Istanbul, Turkey. Monrovia Liberia here we come…,” a December 1, 2015 post reads. “This is our own way of saying goodbye to each other my friend and business partner.”
By November 2017, Askon was established. It is owned by three Turks of the same family—Hasan Uzan (80 percent), Yeter Uzan (10 percent), and Faith Uzan (five percent)— according to the company’s article of incorporation. The remaining five percent of its shares are outstanding. The document was amended on September 14, 2020, but has not been enrolled at the Liberian Business Registry, a breach of the Business Association Act.
In a WhatsApp message to The DayLight late last year, Suah appeared to justify Askon’s illegal dealings. “I brought those people to Liberia for us to do bigger business but our country people in authority have their own way of delaying people’s progress,” Suah said while in Ghana to get a visa for another visit to Turkey. “That’s [why] you see it is starting that local way… to see how we will be treated before we can… expand.”
Sylvester Suah takes a selfie with four Turkish men in Istanbul, Turkey on November 24, 2015. That was Suah’s first trip that was instrumental to the establishment of Askon Liberia General Trading Inc., a company conducting illegal logging activities in Nimba. Photo credit: Facebook/Sylvester Suah
Askon’s operations in Nimba go back to 2019 when it signed an agreement with the Gba Community Forest in the Sanniquellie area. Askon agreed to pay US$35 per cubic meter of the logs it harvested on a 45-acre plot of land in that area, according to the agreement. It was unclear what happened thereafter, as there are no official records of it, except for a USAID report.
Today, Askon operates in Zuluyee, in the Yarpea and Garr-Mongbain forest region between Ganta and Sanniquellie. At its campsite, our reporter saw chainsaws, mobile sawmills, a 30-horsepower diesel tractor, several trucks and a bulldozer. Its workforce is between 10 and 50 workers, according to Lesprom, a Russia-based wood-trading platform on which the company trades. The region and the rest of Nimba account for 315,000 hectares of tree cover loss between 2001 and 2021. Only Bong County lost more (363,000 hectares), according to Global Forest Watch, which monitors forests across the world.
“The company is using a mobile saw that clears a large portion of bush and trees in seconds,” one chainsaw operator said, asking not to be named.
“The company is cutting trees all over here. All the trees will soon finish from here,” a community leader added under the same condition.
Five other people buttressed the operator and community leader. Photographs our reporter took show planks and thick, sawn timbers, commonly called “Kpokolo” at Askon’s campsite. Also called block wood, the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) recently banned kpokolo, as it became synonymous with illegal exports.
Pictures Hasan Uzan posted to his WhatsApp profile suggest kpokolo activities. One picture showcases squared timbers made from expensive wood stacked in containers and on wooden platforms. Another picture shows men uploading timber into a container truck. And one shows a variety of tree species with different colors. The profile reads: “Tropical timber center Askon sawmill, Monrovia, Liberia.”
Askon has exported different species of processed timber that are shipped to Asia and Europe, according to Global Wood Trade Network, a leading marketplace for timber and wood products. Askon’s LinkedIn account also identifies it as an export and import company, and it trades on other online marketplaces.
Peter Somah, Assistant Minister for Trade at the Ministry of Commerce awarded an illegal permit to Askon leading the Turkish company to ship two containers of timber to India in 2020. Picture credit: Facebook/Peter D. Somah
Illegal Permit
A permit The DayLight obtained shows Askon exported two 20-foot containers of ekki wood in October 2020 at US$9,900 each. Ekki wood or Azobe is a durable redwood used in shipbuilding and outdoor construction. It sold for US$293 a cubic meter on the international market that year, according to the International Timber Trade Organization. Askon sold the consignment to Green Wood, a firm in India, according to the document. Efforts to get comments from the company were unsuccessful.
There are other legality woes. Hasan Uzan is a resident of the Police Academy in Paynesville, according to Askon’s legal documents. However, Askon’s tax payment records show that he and Umit Gungor, a fellow Turkish national, have never obtained a resident or work permit. (Gungor came to Liberia on January 25, last year) That is a violation of the Aliens and Nationality Law and the Decent Work Act. Work and resident permits are prerequisites to conducting commercial logging in Liberia.
Assistant Minister for Trade at the Ministry of Commerce Peter Somah, signed the illegal document. Somah awarded the permit outside of Liberia’s timber-tracking system called LiberTrace. National Forestry Reform Law and Regulation on the Establishment of a Chain of Custody System bars trading timber outside LiberTrace. A pillar of Liberia’s forestry reform, the system tracks timbers from their sources to their final destinations, verifying legal requirements. It is a foothold of the country’s international timber trade, following decades of civil wars and mismanagement.
“No person shall import, transport, process, or export unless the timber is accurately enrolled in the chain of custody,” the law provides.
“Holders of forest resource licenses comply with all legal requirements facilitating the accurate assessment and remittance of forest charges and keeping illegal logs of the domestic and illegal markets,” according to the regulation.
Furthermore, the US$19,800 Askon paid for the two containers did not go to the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) as required by law, according to Askon’s tax payment record.
The Somah-issued Askon permit is unlawful, as it lacks features legal permits contain. It has no tracking barcodes and is not signed by the FDA’s legality verification department (LVD) and SGS, a Swiss firm that created the system. And it is not rubberstamped by the Managing Director of the FDA Mike Doryen.
In an interview with The DayLight, Somah sidestepped questions about the illegality of the permit, providing a lecture on trade instead. Then he displayed a file of papers he said were permits he had approved. Similarly, efforts to have him address a set of emailed follow-up questions four months later proved unsuccessful.
A screenshot of a container of sawn timber or kpokolo from the WhatsApp profile of Hasan Uzan, an illegal Turkish logger.Assistant Minister of Commerce Peter Somah awarded an illegal export permit to Askon Liberia General Trading
Illicit activities have rocked the forestry sector in the last three years or so. A recent Associated Press investigation found that Liberian officials appeared to collude with illegal loggers to export timber. Citing diplomatic documents, the report said Liberia may have a “parallel system” to the legal channel for timber exports. In January, a court indicted a former police chief, a customs officer, and three rangers over an illegal export deal. The policeman had been dismissed before the indictment.
FDA rangers—George Gaye, a ranger assigned at the Ganta checkpoint, and Bah Kromah assigned at the Guinea border—said they were not aware of Askon’s operations.
“The lack of mobility is hindering my operation as I am not able to patrol or visit nearby forest communities,” Bah Kromah told The DayLight in September last year. However, Askon’s operation site is just a 15-minute drive from Ganta and is an open secret in that region.
‘I need my money’
The villagers, too, said they were initially not aware of Askon’s harvesting their trees. “When we heard about this, we quickly called them to bring their equipment back to town,” recalled James Tokpah, an elder in Garr-Mongbain.
Thereafter, the villagers demanded Askon sign an agreement with them, according to several townspeople The DayLight interviewed. In the end, the illegal loggers promised to pay the community US$1,500 for every 1,000 pieces of timber, which Askon did not pay. That sparked anger, leaving local authorities to shut down its operations late last year.
By November, Askon’s world was crumbling down. In addition to the villagers, it owed its workers and petroleum dealers, according to Hasan Uzan. One of the workers said, “I need my money to pay my school fees and rent.”
Suah declined to make further comments on the story, despite accepting an interview months earlier. He lunged into The DayLight for protecting the interest of the international community, and not companies. “When I am ready, I will write my own story,” he said at his home in Ganta.
A mobile sawmilling machine producing illegal block wood in the forest. The DayLight/Gerald KoiyennehAskon’s campsite and some of its sawn timber or kpokolo. The DayLight/ Gerald Koiyenneh
Hasan Uzan, Askon’s majority shareholder, denied exporting timbers with the permit when The DayLight tracked him down in Zuluyee. He refused to make further comments, referring our reporter to Suah, who he claimed was Askon’s owner.
On November 11, last year, The DayLight witnessed a truck Askon owns or hired offload planks for sale on the Gompa Wood Field in Ganta. One of the dealers, who preferred anonymity, said that the company frequently sold planks there. That breaks the Chainsaw Milling Regulation, which prohibits foreign nationals from selling planks in Liberia.
[Gerald C. Koinyeneh contributed to this story.]
The story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
Top: The Tiah Town Clinic was funded by benefits affected communities received from a logging concession between the Liberian government and International Capital Consultant (ICC). Construction works have been completed but the lack of furniture supplies means the clinic cannot serve its people. The DayLight/Eric Opa Doue
By Eric Opa Doue for The DayLight
TIAH TOWN, Nimba County – Fifty-two-year-old Elizabeth Zialue traveled 55 kilometers from Tiah Town in Nimba to Boegeezay Town in River Cess County to seek treatment for her two-year-old grandson. Medical services in the Boegeezay community are free but Zialue has to pay LD3,500 for a motorcycle taxi to get there, and the same amount to get back.
Zialue had lost her daughter, the boy’s mother, two years ago. “My daughter was sick when she delivered. There was no money to go to the hospital in Boegeezay or Tappita so she died,” she recalled.
But Zialue’s daughter could have survived if a clinic in Tiah Town was operational. In 2017, communities around here received US$125,000 to construct a clinic here in Tiah Town. The money was a portion of their benefits from a logging concession between the Liberian government and a logging company called International Capital Consultant (ICC). The concession, known in the forestry sector as Forest Management Contract Area K, covers 266,910 hectares in both River Cess and Nimba. The community’s leadership added another US30,000 for other utilities such as water towers and an insinuator.
The clinic’s construction started in April 2017 and was expected to be completed, dedicated for full operation in March 2018. The Nimba County Health Team was supposed to provide the workforce and medical and non-medical supplies for the running of the facility. Due to its strategic location, it was supposed to serve both River Cess and Nimba Counties when completed.
Healthcare workers’ resident at the proposed Tiah Town Clinic. The DayLight/Eric Opa DoueThe Tiah Town Clinic project was funded by logging funds. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Five years after its completion, nothing has happened according to plan. The National Benefit Sharing Trust Board, a watchdog that manages communities’ funds from forest concessions disbursed US$10,225.25 plus L$5.3 million to purchase furniture and drugs for the clinic. The fees come from logging-affected communities’ share of land rental fees companies pay to the Liberian government. However, the community’s forest leadership used the fund to build a guesthouse instead.
Jerry Gbaye, the head of the leadership at the time, told The DayLight his decision to divert the fund was backed by all affected towns and villages in Gbi, Gbiagloh and Doru chiefdom, where the clinic is located. The clinic is meant to provide thousands of people access to healthcare in one of the remotest places in Liberia.
“It was not the CFDC’s decision to use the money for a guesthouse,” Gbaye said. CFDC means community forest development committee, a body of villagers that co-manages a certain logging concession alongside the Forestry Development Authority (FDA).
“The people of Gbiagloh and Gbi said the people of Doru already had the clinic in their area so that money should be used to construct a guesthouse for them to benefit, too,” he added.
Alfred Zelee, an elder responsible for Tiah Town’s development matters, refutes that claim. “If a decision was reached to use the money on the guesthouse, I don’t know,” said Zelee.” “All I know is that Gbaye took the money and used it on the guesthouse.
“We are suffering here because few people decided to use the money from the land rental fees that they were supposed to use to put medicine in the clinic,” he added.
The National Union of Community Forest Development Committee (NUCFDC), a group that advocates for the benefits for villagers affected by logging concessions, is investigating the matter.
Gbi-Doru District is one of Nimba’s remotest communities, with no access to healthcare. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
“We are now investigating whether the project was identified by the citizens and, and the project was awarded to a competent company,” said Andrew Zelemen, the national facilitator for the group in an interview with The DayLight. “Since it is established that the money was diverted, the NUCFDC is now contemplating what punishment awaits the [community’s leadership.”
The Trust Board has also said it would not give the community’s leadership any more money unless it accounted for the furniture fund for the clinic, the most expensive of 53 projects it has funded countrywide since 2015.
“The board has the intent to release additional funding for the Tiah Town project and all other uncompleted projects across the country, under conditions,” said Roberto Kollie, the head of the secretariat. “The first criterion is the [community’s leadership] must be able to present an assessment report to the board.
“The Assessment report will include the project that was approved, the cost of the project, and the total amount that was disbursed for the implementation of the project and they must be able to provide a reason to the board why those projects were not completed.”
Zialue in Tiah Town is unaware of the unfolding. Her grandchild was treated but she had to spend additional days in Boegeezay before going back to Tiah Town.
“Ever since the people talked about the hospital to build, everybody was happy, but today no head, no tail,” Zialue said. “We [are] still doing the same thing.”
Top: Emmanuel Gongor poses before a stockpile of illegal block wood, commonly called “kpokolo.” Photo credit: Facebook/ Emmanuel Gongor
Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part report on the operations of an infamous illegal logger, based in Nimba County. It is also a part of a broader series on a criminal logging activity commonly called “Kpokolo.”
By Mark B. Newa
GANTA, Nimba County – On one sunny day in Karnwee late last year, forest rangers and police officers seized a truck with 80 pieces of boxlike timber, ending an hourlong chase all the way from Bahn, where the woods had been harvested.
Emmanuel Gongor, a middle-height man, arrived on the scene shortly on a motorcycle taxi, appearing shocked. This was not the first time Gongor had transported block wood, commonly called “Kpokolo” in the logging industry. For years he passed checkpoints without any problems. Sometimes he sold the wood to other companies or individuals in Liberia. Other times, he exported them.
Things had suddenly changed. Gongor learned that the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) had banned Kpokolo, derived from the sound the wood makes when it falls or “thick and heavy” in the Kpelle language. His woods were dumped by a roadside.
“We have been so committed, but if we cannot understand, we will seek the legal process by taking the FDA to the circuit court,” a furious Gongor told The DayLight in a phone interview days after the incident. He expected to get US$7,000 from the consignment and settle all of his holiday expenses.
Gongor does not have a logging contract and his timber surpass the dimension defined in the Chainsaw Milling Regulation. His woods are between five and 10 inches thick, up to five times the required measurement of two inches. In photos posted to Gongor’s Facebook page, several men can be seen trying to lift the timber.
But interviews and documents show that the FDA has been aware of Gongor’s illegal logging activities for half of a decade. In fact, the agency has unlawfully received fees from him. Some of his waybills seen by The DayLight amounted to over US$1,500.
Those payments sanctioned the 48-year-old to rip off forests from central Nimba to the Cote d’Ivoire border. Nimba lost 315,000 hectares of tree cover between 2001 and 2021. That makes it second only to Bong County (363,000 hectares), according to Global Forest Watch, a tool that monitors the state of forests across the world.
‘Emmanuel, The Investor’
Gongor was an accomplished miner. He panned and sieved for gold on a number of goldfields in Gbarpolu, Grand Kru and Grand Gedeh.
He started up in the logging industry in 2017 as a chainsaw miller, pit-sawyers or plank producer. Soon he saw that he could make more money from harvesting kpokolo.
“Block wood is preferable because for normal sawing at times, we take 500 pieces of timber to be a truckload, but for block wood, some are just 150-200 pieces,” Gongor explained. “For the past six years now, I have been on that operation.”
Gongor was hired by a Turkish-owned firm called Tropical Wood Group of Companies, which obtained a one-year permit from the FDA to buy and sell. The permit was issued by Darlington Tuargben, the FDA Managing Director at the time. The legality verification department (LVD), a unit of the FDA that manages its log-tracking system called the chain of custody, said it has no record of the company. Efforts to contact Abdulla Aklan, the company’s owner, were not successful. Tuargben did not respond to queries.
Emmanuel Gongor’s 80 illegal block woods, commonly called “Kpokolo” were arrested in Karnwee, near Saclepea. Picture credit: Emmanuel Gongor
Gongor conquered the kpokolo black market. He broke out with his employer and established Tropical Wood Group of Investment. Though he is yet to register it as a legal entity, he continues his criminal deals with the new firm.
His network spans four of the nine districts in Nimba: Zoe-Gbao, Zoe-Geh, Bu-Yao and Gbelay-Geh in the central and eastern regions of the county. He boasts of a workforce of 25 people and a host of villagers and disadvantaged youth or “zogoes.” They do everything from locating forested communities to finding trees and from negotiating with local landowners, to harvesting, hauling and transporting. With 30 chainsaws, they have built wooden bridges, and town halls and have repaired schools and clinics in forested towns and villages.
Videos recorded by Gongor show him taking stock of trees he had negotiated with villagers to harvest in Tahnplay, and celebrating the completion of projects. “We finally completed the bridge connecting Kanhplay to Sehyi Town in Gbelay-Geh Statutory District,” Gongor can be heard saying in one video. “Together with the youth, elders, and chiefs, we were able to complete the first phase of operation.”
Townspeople in the areas Gongor works revere him. His name goes beyond the reach of logging companies in that region, many of whom have failed to fulfill their social agreements with communities.
“We call him Emmanuel The Investor,”Arkey Vasiee, town chief of Zortapa.
In March last year, James Zuorpeawon, Gbehlay-Geh’s development superintendent, issued him a permit to operate in the area. It authorizes Gongor to present the document “for awareness and protection during his operation within the district.”
Gongar and villagers pose for a picture following the construction of a bridge in Karnplay, Nimba.
Other kpokolo loggers across the country also respect Gongor.
“This place is small for him, he can’t even come here again,” said a plank producer from Gompa Wood Field in Ganta, who preferred not to be named. Gongor had milled planks there prior to venturing into kpokolo.
“Gongor is one of the most skillful kpokolo operators,” said James Kelley, a kpokolo logger in Gbaryama in Gbarpolu’s Bopolu District. Kelley said he had worked with him in Kinjor, Grand Cape Mount County.
Gongor does not depend on his fame—or notoriety—to run his business. He advertises on Facebook. “[If you are] interested in this Iroko table, you can WhatsApp me on this number,” a November 27, 2020 post reads, featuring a flat piece of log on a stick like a table. “If anyone is interested in buying teak wood, just contact me on my contact number,” reads a March 10, 2021 post. Both Iroko and teak logs are durable woods used for outdoor purposes. His accounts also showcase selfie pictures of him with men loading giant-sized block wood onto trucks.
But Gongor would not have been this successful without the FDA. Receipts of their transactions show he has paid the FDA tens of thousands of United States Dollars in waybill, fees imposed on transported timber. One September 2017 receipt shows that he paid the FDA L$18,000 for 300 pieces of kpokolo. Another in May last year reveals he paid US$424 for 121 pieces.
One document shows Gongor’s invoice to a firm in Hong Kong to export 125 cubic meters of sawn timber with a height and width of 50 centimeters (approximately 20 inches) and length of seven feet. He had a deal to export timber from the Freeport of Monrovia to the Port of Chittagong in Bangladesh, according to one invoice.
“The FDA agents are always informed when we are going to bring wood from the bush,” Gongor told The DayLight.
“We make more money for forestry. Our own percentage to the FDA is different from the normal [pit-sawing].” He was speaking in reference to the US$0.60 toll on a plank compared to US$2 on kpokolo, according to waybills FDA issued him, seen by The DayLight.
Emmanuel Gongor takes a selfie with men loading block wood in a truck. Facebook/Emmanuel Gongor
The fees the FDA received from Gongor are illegal in a number of ways. First, the payments he has made to the FDA do not go to the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA), the company’s tax-payments record shows. In addition to possessing no contract, the villages where he operates do not have any legal rights to engage in logging deals. And the timber he harvests or exports does not pass through the legal channel, as mandated in the National Forestry Reform Law and the Regulation on Establishing a Chain of Custody System.
Gongor’s kpokolo waybills have also shined a light on FDA’s shady plank tolls system. Fees the agency collects from planks dealers are not made public as required by forestry’s legal frameworks, including Liberia’s Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union. They are neither paid to the LRA nor captured in the reports of the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI). The FDA has retained these fees for years, a breach of the financial provision of the reform law.
FrontPage Africa reported in 2020 that the Klay checkpoint in Bomi collected over L$500,000 in just one month. It said that there was a wrangle within the FDA over the management of the funds, adding that the fees went into a mobile money account belonging to Edward Kamara, FDA’s forest product marketing manager. Kamara coordinates fees collected at checkpoints countrywide.
Nimba, Region III FDA agent in Ganta issued a waybill for 212 pieces of Kpokolo on July 5, 2022 Emmanuel Gongor of Tropical Wood Group of Investment paid the FDA US$226 to transport 113 block wood on May 11, 2022One of Emmanuel Gongor’s earliest receipts from the FDA for block wood, shows he paid L$9,485 to transport 55 pieces of the illegal timber on October 28, 2017.This latest FDA receipt shows Gongor paid the agency US$80 for 40 pieces of kpokolo on May 11, 2022.One of Tropical Wood Group of Companies’ illegal export documents obtained by The DayLight
Ironically, while the FDA secretly collects fees from Gongor, it has asked the public to assist it to combat illegal logging activities. The FDA said in a release last November that it had intercepted four container trucks trafficking timber from western Liberia. That statement followed a similar one three months earlier after rangers in Bomi and Gbarpolu arrested three trucks with logs illegally harvested.
Earlier this month, the Monrovia City Court issued an arrest warrant for a former police commander, an ex-envoy and eight people in the Bomi-Gbarpolu incident. The FDA is seeking court orders in the counties to auction the logs, the first such step since the formulation of Regulation on Confiscated Logs, Timber and Timber Products.
‘I am over hurt’
Gongor feels betrayed in all of this, believing he is a victim rather than the villain he actually is. For the last six years, the FDA has sanctioned his operations and accepted his payments like a typical chainsaw miller. He finds nothing wrong with producing Kpokolo.
“It would have been good for the FDA to formally inform those involved in the business before ordering us to stop the harvest and sale of block wood in the country,” Gongor said.
“I am over hurt. We have been issued hundreds of waybills. We always pay a huge sum of money to these guys,” he added.
In December, nearly a month after his consignment of timber was seized, Gongor transported them to Ganta. They were again seized and are being kept at the Gompa Wood Field.
The FDA is yet to take the required legal actions to confiscate Gongor’s timber. Under the confiscated timber regulation, The FDA should petition the circuit court in Sanniquellie to auction the wood. Both Arthur Gweh, the commander of Nimba County police detachment in Bahn, and Emmanuel Gbeh, the FDA ranger who arrested the wood, declined to comment.
By law, Gongor should face a lawsuit for his illicit activities, and if convicted he could pay a fine, serve a prison term, or both. It is a crime for a non-contract holder to harvest timber, punishable under the Penal Code as economic sabotage.
The FDA’s Managing Director Mike Doryen did not respond to emailed queries.
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: The headquarters of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) in Whein Town, Paynesville. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
WHEIN TOWN, Paynesville – The Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) Mike Doryen and top managers of the agency award export permits to logging companies outside of the legal channel for the exportation of timber, documents obtained by The DayLight have revealed.
By the National Forestry Reform Law, all export permits and certificates of origin must be “accurately enrolled” in a log-tracking or chain-of-custody system known as LiberTrace. Under the law, granting access to forest resources that breaks any provision of the law constitutes economic sabotage.
But Doryen and other top managers awarded Rosemart Inc., a Liberian-owned company, and Porgal Enterprise Inc., an Ivorian-owned firm, a certificate of origin and export permits that are not registered in the official log-tracking system.
Rosemart used the illegal permit and sold 520 teak logs, expensive, durable woods used for construction, shipbuilding and the making of AK-47 rifles. Rosemart was selling the logs for US$26,588, according to the illegal document.
Porgal’s illegal papers were tracked down in Cote d’Ivoire.
The other managers who signed the illegal permits are Joseph Tally, Doryen’s deputy for operations; Edward Kamara, the manager for forest products marketing and revenue forecast; and Jerry Yonmah, the former technical manager for the agency’s commercial department.
FDA’s legality verification department confirmed it did not issue the documents, which, of course, do not match the ones generated by the chain of custody system. Permits issued by the system carry barcodes and other markings absent on the ones awarded to Rosemart and Porgal, and are free of human errors. That standard is a crucial part of Liberia’s Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union (EU) for the trade of legal and sustainable timber.
“I have no idea what [those permits are],” said Gertrude Nyaley, the technical manager for the department. “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.”
Receipts of the transactions and review of official payment records of both companies show Rosemart and Porgal did not pay the fees for the permits to the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA), as mandated by law.
The permits undermine the forestry objectives of the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development to increase the sector’s contribution to the Liberian economy. It aims to increase forestry revenue from nine to 12 percent by next year. However, logging contributed US$9.2 million to revenues in the 2020-2021 fiscal year—when the illegal permits were awarded—the LEITI reported. That was only a tenth of the country’s revenue from extractive industries for that period.
Mike Doryen has issued export permits for companies to ship logs outside of the legal system. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Porgal denied any wrongdoing, and Rosemart refused to comment on the matter.
Doryen, Kamara and Yonmah did not respond to our emailed questions posed to them.
Talley claimed he and the other officials acted in line with forestry legal frameworks.
Errors and Inconsistencies
Rosemart’s permits were issued in quick succession. It paid the so-called export fees on December 23, 2020. That same day Doryen acknowledged the payment of US$1,430 for “abandoned” teak logs with a total volume of 88.625 cubic meters from a forest in Kpatuo, Nimba County. The company then received a certificate of origin, which tells a prospective buyer where the logs come from. Then later that day, it was awarded the export permit.
“This export permit is valid upon attestation by the Managing Director/FDA or his designate and is for a single shipment,” Doryen’s letter read.
“You are further requested to work closely with the relevant government agencies, including FDA forest law enforcement, Liberia Revenue Authority/Customs & Excise, [National Port Authority] and [Ministry of Finance and Development Planning] agents who will monitor and supervise the process,” it added.
Rosemart’s illegal export permit
Rosemart’s illegal certificate of origin
Chain-of-custody legality aside, Doryen’s awarding of Rosemart a permit to export the supposed abandoned logs was also unlawful. Unattended logs can be exported only if the FDA publicly declares them abandoned and seeks a court order for an auction. There has been no such petition at the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court in Sanniquillie or anywhere since the Regulation on Abandoned Logs, Timber and Timber Products was created in 2017. Up to press time, local radio stations had no records of notices of abandoned logs and auctions as mandated by the regulation.
Doryen’s claim in the certificate of origin that the woods were “sourced from several community suppliers, especially farmers around the country and as such there is no specific origin of production/collection” is not factual. Pictures we obtained from a source familiar with the illegal harvesting show some of the teak logs and their stumps in Kpaytuo Plantation deep in the Saclepea region. A stump is the portion of the tree that remains in the ground after harvesting.
There were also a number of inconsistencies in Rosemart’s documents.
Doryen’s letter to the company and the certificate of origin listed Turkey as the destination of the logs but that changed to India on the export permit, despite all documents being written on the same day. Indusina Exim LLP, the Indian firm named on the export permit, did not return queries for comments on the deal.
It appeared the permit, certificate and letter were copied and pasted from old ones, with the authorities retaining previous validity periods in new ones. The actual export permit was issued on December 23, 2020, but reversely valid up to February 21, 2020. Doryen’s letter to Rosemart—meant to reinforce the permit—was backwardly valid from January 30 to March 15, 2019. The validity period of the letter was 45 days and the permit 60.
The documents misspelled Jerry Yonmah’s Surname as “Yormah” yet he signed them. Yonmah alongside other staff was suspended earlier this year over his alleged role in granting some logging companies trees above their annual harvesting limits. He was subsequently replaced as technical manager of the commercial department.
It was unclear where the money Rosemart paid the FDA went. The so-called permit fees went to the FDA’s account at the United Bank for Africa, according to Doryen’s letter. Rosemart paid another US$1,335 for export and another wood-related fee. But its tax history only reflects a US$664.70 payment for forest products, which was made on February 20 last year. It was also blurry whether the company paid land rental and other fees as mandated by law.
Teak woods Rosemart illegally harvested in Nimba
A stump of a tree Rosemart illegally harvested in Nimba
There were indications Rosemart had traded illegally sourced logs more than once. The firm is not named in any of the reports of the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI). It was established in 2014, and villagers adjacent to the Kpatuo plantation said it had operated the forest before 2020. The Commissioner of Kpaytuo Township Adolphus Kpangar, said Rosemart has an agreement with locals wherein it pays US$15,000 for a certain quantity of logs, adding they had had three transactions. Rosemart has transacted between US$1 million and US$2.5 million annual sales volume on the Trade Key alone, according to the Saudi Arabia-based e-commerce platform. The company also deals in general merchandise, though.
The FDA did not grant our request for Rosemart’s logging contract, a violation of our right of access to such public information, guaranteed under the National Forest Reform Law and the Freedom of Information Act.
Rose Yancy Adikwu, Rosemart’s co-owner and CEO, turned down an interview with The DayLight. Adikwu had promised to grant us the interview but backed off as soon as we shared copies of the permits. Further efforts to persuade her proved futile.
Porgal’s Permit in Cote d’Ivoire
On January 11 this year, Doryen and Kamara awarded Porgal Enterprise Inc. a one-year permit to purchase and export timber and timber products. This time around, only Doryen and Kamara signed the permit.
“This is to confirm that Porgal enterprise Inc. has met the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) annual timber buying and exporting registration requirements as a non-contract holder…,” the permit read.
The illegal permit was awarded to an Ivorian wood company, Porgal Enterprise Inc.
Porgal paid US$1,000 for the permit but, like Rosemart, the disbursement was not made to the LRA. Rather, it was paid to the FDA’s account at the Liberia Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI), a receipt of the payment shows. The company’s taxpayment history also corroborates this. It only reflects disbursements for business registration, resident permit and other fees, not the export permit.
Earlier this year, Ivoirian authorities reached out to the FDA to inquire about Porgal’s permit and other documents relating to timber presumed destined for Burkina Faso or Mali, according to a communication between forestry personnel of the two countries, seen by The DayLight.
Amadou Barry, the Ivorian national who owns Porgal denied any wrongdoing, blaming apparent imposters. “I don’t know anything about fraud,” Barry said in a WhatsApp chat. He said he had been quizzed by FDA rangers on this issue.
“We did not buy wood from Liberia, so we are not related to this case,” added Hamado Ouedraogo, a representative of Wend-Noura International, Porgal’s Ivorian partner. Both companies had signed a contract to export timber from Liberia barely a week before the FDA awarded Porgal the illegal permit, the contract seen by The DayLight shows.
Tally, FDA’s deputy managing director for operations, falsely claimed that the permits did not have to be awarded through the chain of custody system.
“Within the next few weeks, all necessary information to have the public adequately knowledgeable on the issuance of [the] export permit will be published,” Tally said in an emailed reply to The DayLight. “We will inform the general public on a regular or periodic basis… for better understanding as relating to your concerns.”
Gerald Koinyeneh contributed to this report.
The story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
