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Lawmaker Allegedly Bribes Locals for Dirty Logging Contract

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Top: Representative Thomas Romeo Quioh whispers to an African Finch Logging Limited executive at a program in Numopoh District, Sinoe County. File picture/Anonymous


By Varney Kamara


Editor’s Note: This is the first of a series on Representative Thomas Romeo Quioh’s involvement with a Sinoe County community forest contract.

NUMOPOH – Sinoe County Representative Thomas Romeo Quioh allegedly bribed locals in Sinoe County to sign a community forest contract with a UAE-based company he appears to co-own. A DayLight investigation also found that the forest was unlawfully extended amid Quioh’s decades-long friendship with the FDA’s Managing Director Rudolph Merab.

Several residents and local officials said Quioh gave thousands of Liberian dollars to Numopoh Community Forest’s leaders, who then distributed the money to community members to endorse African Finch Logging Limited. One person alleged they received the money directly from the lawmaker.

“After the people refused to sign the MoU, then, he (Quioh) carried the [the community forest leaders] behind the house, and we saw them coming back with a black plastic bag filled with money,” said Numopoh’s Commissioner Alfred Harwood. “From this point, the chiefs and other people started signing the document.

“I was sick and did not attend the meeting that day, but afterward, Quioh visited my house and gave me LD5,000, and said I should buy soap,” said Christiana Neoh, Paramount chief of Doboe Chiefdom.

“He also encouraged me to support the company’s entry into our community [forest],” added Neoh.

The residents signed the document the same day it was introduced without making any input. Emmanuel Dapoe, a resident of Kilo Town, said he had to leave the signing ceremony due to his dissent. 

Others said Quioh had promised to bring African Finch to the Numopoh when he campaigned for the district’s seat in 2023, which Quioh would clinch after defeating eight other candidates.   

“This whole thing is part of that big promise he made to the community during the campaign,” said Alex Sanwon, a prominent Numopoh citizen, in Johnny Town.

The allegations were confirmed by Darius Nagbe, the Superintendent of Kpayan District, where Numopoh falls. In February, Nagbe wrote the Ministry of Internal Affairs, complaining Quioh.

“Representative Thomas Romeo Quioh… singularly took a logging company to the district…,” Nagbe said. He said he was unaware of the company’s presence, and asked Minister of Internal Affairs Sakila Nyumalin to investigate.     

A statutory member of Numuoph’s community forest leadership, a representative scrutinizes a logging company wanting to operate there, not negotiate on its behalf. Also, a representative has oversight over the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), which enforces the sector’s laws and regulations.

An official’s involvement with a company or in bribery violates the  Code of Conduct for Public Officials, which prohibits inducement and conflict of interest. The code defines bribery as anything promised, offered, given, accepted, or received by a public official for favors in the execution of official duties, including “cold water” or “eating.” It 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.”

Paramount Chief Christiana Neoh of Doboe Chiefdom, Numoph District, said she received L$5,000 from Representative Thomas Romeo Quioh to sign a logging MoU. The DayLight/Varney Kamara

Moreover, any inducement or intimidation violates the locals’ right to consent, guaranteed in several national and international laws, including the Land Rights Act and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. These instruments provide that local people must be free to accept or reject a contract.  

Quioh did not respond to the bribery claim and other allegations. In a phone interview, he appeared to accuse The DayLight of blackmail while ranting at this reporter.

“You cannot teach me forestry. You don’t know me. I am one of the longest-serving foresters in this country,” said Quioh.

“I know my rights, I know what I did. I’m not a kid.”

“Publish your story in the sky,” he added, hanging up the phone.

Sam Kandie, Numopoh’s chairman, who had celebrated the African Finch deal in a previous interview, did not respond to The DayLight queries.

‘Speak to the Hon.’

The allegation that Quioh led African Finch’s negotiation with Numopoh appears to be backed by photographs of the signing ceremony. In one photograph, the lawmaker is seen whispering to an African Finch representative sitting next to him. Another shows the two men sitting and watching as the ceremony unfolded.

Due to his alleged involvement with African Finch, locals believe Quioh co-owns African Finch. Kwadjo Asabre, African Finch’s CEO, appeared to corroborate that claim when he recommended that The DayLight contact Quioh on company matters. “Speak to [the] Hon..,” Asabre wrote in a WhatsApp interview.

Meanwhile, African Finch’s legal documents do not rule out the possibility that Quoih is its owner. Established last year, African Finch is a subsidiary of Finch General Trading FZE, located in Ajman, UAE, according to its article of incorporation. Finch General Trading primarily focuses on mining, engineering, and agricultural products.. However, the Liberia Business Registry has no record of African Finch’s beneficial owners.

Such a shady ownership structure violates Liberia’s Beneficial Ownership Regulation and renders African Finch ineligible to do business in Liberia. The 2023 regulation requires Liberia-registered businesses to declare their beneficial owners—the person or people who own them. This rule safeguards against transnational crimes such as money laundering, terrorist financing, and tax evasion.

The DayLight has written the Ministry of Commerce & Industry and the Liberia Business Registry about African Finch’s unlawful registration. The Registry is obligated to reject companies with hidden shareholders, while the Ministry supervises the Registry’s functions.

A forest in Sinoe County, southeastern Liberia. The DayLight/Derick Snyder
 

‘Rudolph is my friend’

But the hidden ownership is not the only violation associated with the African Finch deal.

July last year, Numopoh asked the FDA to cancel its agreement with Delta Timber Corporation, which had previously illegally operated in the forest. About two months later, the FDA granted the request and advised the community to select a new investor.

Numopoh did, but this time, the FDA expanded its size from 7,220 hectares to over 18,000 hectares without the participation of neighboring communities. The company has even started checking trees for possible harvesting. 

“I only got to know about the expansion from the signed MoU when somebody posted it on social media,” said Kwankon Saytue of Tartweh-Drapoh Community Forest.

The  2017 Community Rights Regulation guarantees neighboring communities the right to participate in the demarcation and mapping of community forests. There is even a handbook that the USAID funded for that.

Land and forest rights campaigners criticized the extension.

“These are forest communities that were already created by metes and bounds. Their exclusion is not only impractical but also illegal,” said Borwen Sayon of The Nature Compact, a Montserrado-based NGO involved with natural resource management and development.

The illegal expansion could heighten tension in that area. Numopoh and the Do-Wolee township currently have an unresolved boundary dispute that has stalled Golden Veroleum Liberia’s palm plantation there for years.

In all, it appears African Finch is exploiting Quioh’s relationship with the FDA Managing Director, Rudolph Merab.  Quioh and Merab have been friends for decades. “When I come to the FDA, I feel at home away from home. FDA is my baby,” Quioh said at Merab’s induction in February last year. Rudolph and myself have 36 years of relationship. I am happy to be here as a friend of Rudolph.”

Not just the Liberia Business Registry, the FDA is also under legal obligation to check a forestry company’s eligibility. The Regulation on Bidder Qualifications requires the agency to reject any company whose owner is a lawmaker. This cannot be done with a company whose owners are unknown.

The FDA did not answer questions on the Numopoh extension and the African Finch’s owners. Last month, The DayLight asked the FDA for information on the Numopoh-African Finch contract, as the information was not on the FDA’s website as required by law.  However, that request was denied.


CORRECTION: This version of the story corrects a previous version that named African Finch as Africa Finch.

Community Forest Cancels Contract with Wartime Logger

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Top: By Varney Kamara


JOHNNY TOWN, Sinoe County — A community forest in Sinoe County has canceled a contract with a logging company owned by a wartime logger.

Last August, the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) approved the Numopoh Community Forest’s request to terminate the contract with Delta Timber Corporation. The move marked the end of a years-long dispute over unfulfilled promises to local people, and wasted logs.

“[The FDA] is pleased to have you informed that it interposes no objection to your request.,” wrote Managing Director Rudolph Merab in an August letter only recently obtained by The DayLight.

“However, you are advised to identify and select a company that has both the financial and technical capabilities to manage the forest,” added Merab.  

Delta signed a Community Forest Management Contract with Numopoh, securing the right to harvest timber from 7,220 hectares of woodland In 2016.

Under the agreement, Delta was required to construct schools and clinics in the district, providing scholarships and creating jobs for citizens.

However, the company failed to honor its commitments. Instead, disputes over unfulfilled obligations and Delta’s abandonment of about 1,387.343 cubic meters of logs and illegal harvesting.

Furthermore, Delta did not renew the contract after five years in 2021, a legal requirement in community forest agreements.

Gabriel Doe, Delta’s owner and CEO, did not respond to queries for comments on the termination.

The termination of the Numopoh-Delta contract is one of the rare occasions where the FDA acted without an arbitration process as the contract requires. However, several forestry legal instruments give the regulator the right to cancel failing contracts.

Wartime Logger

While the FDA eventually granted the community the legal authorization to terminate Delta’s contract, its decision to previously approve the company’s operations was unlawful.  

During the First and Second Liberian Civil Wars, Doe owned Cavalla Timber Corporation, one of 17 logging companies accused of either supporting militias, participating in violence, or facilitating armed conflicts. An estimated 250,000 people died during the wars.

Rotten logs at the Ross Port of Greenville Delta Timber Corporation transferred from Numopoh Community Forest. The DayLight/James Giahyue

In 2001, the United Nations imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on Doe, then-President Charles Taylor, Dutch arms dealer Guss Kowenhoven, and over 100 individuals linked to the Taylor regime.

Two years after the travel ban, the UN sanctioned Liberian logs, aiming to cut the connection between timber revenues and arms smuggling. The sanctions were lifted in 2006, following reforms, leading to the cancellation of  Cavalla’s and other companies’ contracts over irregularities.

Subsequently, reformers formulated the Regulation on Bidder Qualifications, which bars individuals involved in the logging industry before 2006, unless they fully and honestly confessed their past actions before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and worked with the FDA to repay stolen funds. No wartime logger ever did that.

But Doe resurfaced about a decade later with Delta, the FDA ignoring the qualification regulation’s war-accountability provision.  

Numopoh views the termination as a break from the past, and an opportunity to be in line with the law.

“When [Delta] came here, they refused to consult the community on things they did,” said Sam Kandie, Numopoh Community Forest’s chief officer in an interview in Johnny Town.

“Now, we have taken a collective decision to get rid of Delta. We can only hope this will bring the much-needed development and prosperity to our land.”

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