Top: A GVL fieldworker at work in 2023.The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By Esau J. Farr

TARTWEH-DRAPOH, Sinoe County – During a visit to Indonesia in 2015, then-Vice President Joseph Boakai urged Golden Veroleum Liberia to employ qualified Liberians in senior managerial positions. GVL welcomed Boakai’s comments while outlining its assumed employment history.

Nearly 10 years on, and Boakai at the helm of Liberia’s leadership, GVL is yet to fulfill that promise, including to Tartweh-Drapoh, one of its landowning, affected communities.

In 2014, Tartweh-Drapoh Chiefdom signed an MoU with GVL for 8,011 hectares of farmland in the Kpanyan District. The MoU was part of the GVL’s 65-year concession agreement with Liberia, covering 220,000 hectares in southeastern and southcentral Liberia. The agreement requires GVL to train and hire citizens of the landowning communities for top-level employment.

But GVL has failed to live up to the terms of the MoU. Tartweh-Drapoh citizens are only employed as fieldworkers, some of them university graduates.

This led to a protest in May last year. Residents stopped work at the plantation and prevented all GVL’s vehicles from plying routes in the chiefdom.

GVL then scheduled a meeting with citizens to hear their concerns. The parties signed a resolution in which GVL agreed to hire Tartweh-Drapoh citizens in senior positions in a month, among other things.

One document shows that the chiefdom submitted 10 names for as many senior managerial positions as possible. Some of the posts include human resource officer, finance officer, transport manager, safety officer, assistant manager and chief of security.

Two days later, Tartweh-Drapoh submitted five names for the human resource officer job upon the request of GVL.

Gbarngo Quenah, a sustainability officer, requested individuals to apply and present qualification documents. In some cases, university graduates had to present high school papers, which—The DayLight has seen evidence—was done.

However, since then, none of the applicants have been hired, though GVL had said it would fast-track their employment. Earlier this month, GVL failed to open a clinic meant to be staffed by Tartweh-Drapoh residents per the resolution.  

“I feel bad nobody has been hired by GVL,” said Nunu Broh, Chairman of the Tratweh-Drapoh agricultural committee. “Anytime they (GVL) go to management meeting, there can be nobody to represent the community.”

‘Abuse to education’

The DayLight interviewed two Tartweh-Drapoh graduates who, evidence shows, GVL employed as fieldworkers.

One of the graduate fieldworkers, who preferred anonymity due to fear of reprisal, said over a year his job was to clear thick, combative bushes to plant palm trees.

Lawrence Doe, the other graduate fieldworker, performed the same task for about six weeks in 2020. A 2018 general agriculture alumnus of the University of Liberia, Doe had been advised by the elders of Tartweh-Drapoh to accept the job to get a supervisor post. But that never happened, and he left and found another job.

“And for me, knowing myself, I said it was an abuse to education,” Doe said.

“I felt it was useless for me to leave my home in Sinoe to go Monrovia and get a degree, come back and GVL gave me a cutlass to brush,” Doe added. Broh and Odune Dumbar, a prominent Tartweh-Dropoh citizen, corroborated his and the other man’s story.

In an email response to The DayLight’s queries, GVL claims that the Tartweh-Drapoh MoU does not guarantee residents top posts.

But that response contradicts the MoU. The document gives the chiefdom first preference when senior positions are vacant. It says, “In the case, GVL has vacancies for… junior and senior managerial posts in the concession area, the qualified citizens of the communities shall be considered for said employment…”

Furthermore, there is evidence of such vacancies in Tartweh-Drapoh.     In 2020, GVL laid off nearly 450 staff, including  28 in the chiefdom, who have not been reinstated or replaced. And the communication exchanges related to last year’s resolution prove vacancies exist.

Also, in the email, GVL claims it has senior managers from Tartweh-Drapoh. “Some are currently serving in key decision-making positions, ranging from the human resource, agronomy, transport, community affairs, health, etc.,” the company said without presenting evidence.

Like in the case of the MoU, the evidence does not support GVL’s employment comments. Again, the resolution-related exchanges show that there are vacancies in all those areas.

Quenah, the sustainability officer with oversight of the chiefdom, confirmed that in a communication in May last year. “We acknowledge your communication… submitting to the sustainability five [Tartweh-Drapoh] sons for the position of [Human Resource] officer,” her letter read.

Tartweh residents said they would hold a meeting to discuss the chiefdom’s next course of action. Meanwhile, President Boakai did not mention jobs on his visit to Indonesia for the Indonesia-Africa Forum earlier this month, rather investment in Liberia.

Green Livelihoods Alliance provided funding for this story. The DayLight maintained editorial independence over the story’s content.