The Corruption-Loaded Eton And Ebomaf Loan Deals Could Be Revoked By A Future Liberian Government

By: Matthew J. Wesseh, Minnesota, USA.

President George Manneh Weah

There is common Liberian saying that town trap is not for rat alone. Another common Liberian saying is that if you point you finger to someone, four of your fingers are pointed back to you.  The wisdom in these statements are playing themselves out right in our faces in relation to how the government of President George Weah is proceeding with agreements and concessions signed by the past government versus how they are proceeding in concluding new agreements, especially the US$536 million ETON and the US$420 EBOMAF loan deals.

It can be recalled that one of the first major decisions taken by President Weah was to set up a nine-member committee comprising mainly top lawyers to review past agreements/concessions in order to “ensure compliance with the procedural and substantive requirements of Liberian law and to also evaluate the justification including benefits to the Liberian people and the nation for the tax and other incentives granted.”

Consequently, after the Review Committee presented its preliminary report, President George Weah on May 7, 2018, wrote the National Legislature withdrawing five concession agreements including the Dankote Cement and the Nimba Rubber Incorporated (NRI) agreements because they were not consistent with the laws of Liberia. In his communication to the Legislature, the President wrote,  “I hereby recall these agreements from the legislature for reassessment by the National Investment Commission (NIC) to enable them to meet fully procedural and substantive requirements, as well as value-for-money test, to assert the benefit of the Liberian people before possible resubmission to the legislature,”President Weah added that the Review Committee had found that “several provisions of the amended Public Procurement and Concession Act of 2010 were violated” in those agreements.

I was one of many Liberians who hailed the President for this great move and felt that the Weah government was proceeding rightly. However, I felt sick and was very angry when the same President Weah who had withdrawn agreements because of their non-adherence to Liberian laws, especially the PPCC law, would himself decide to shamelessly and flagrantly conclude two questionable loan deals that clearly violates the same procurement laws.

In the ETON Finance US$536 million loan deal, the Weah government, without going through any competitive procurement process as required by the PPCC Act, handpicked a subsidiary of ETON Finance, MAEIL Construction Liberia Ltd, as the “Contractor”, who may choose to subcontract Liberian construction companies, without any competitive procurement process.  The other problem here is that by being a subsidiary of the loan giver, ETON,  MAEIL Construction will also be the loan recipient because it will be the one to whom the loan proceeds will go to finance the construction costs. Besides being problematic because of violation of our procurement laws, the ETON deal is problematic because of the potential conflict of interest inherent in having the loan giver serving as the loan recipient. With this situation, the incentive for hiking the cost of construction works in order to unfairly recover loan proceeds is very high.

The EBOMAF loan deal is even more troubling. In blatant violation of the Code of Conduct for Public Officials, the Burkinabe owner of EBOMAF compromised the Liberian President by gifting him a private jet without “any strings attached.” One week later, President Weah sent another loan deal in the amount of US$420 million to enable his Burkinabe friend’s company, EBOMAF, to undertake the construction contracts. Again, the form and manner in which Weah chose his friend’s company openly and shamelessly violated the procurement laws of Liberia.

So here is the contradiction: Weah is withdrawing agreements from the Legislature for violating PPCC laws and is at the same time sending agreements in the whopping amount of US$1 billion, far in excess of the combined dollar value of all the agreements he has withdrawn, in flagrant violation of the same PPCC law. So is Weah saying to us that violation of procurement laws by Ellen Sirleaf is problematic, but a violation of the same procurement law and our Code of Conduct by him is fine? In short, what this proves is that Weah knows that violation of the procurement laws of our country is wrong. So if he is the same one openly violating our procurement laws, it only proves that his actions are willful and deliberate.

As obnoxious as Weah’s contradictory actions may seem, we need to take comfort in the fact that future governments of Liberia can take a page from Weah’s playbook to order a review and possible termination of the corrupt ETON and EBOMAF loan deals because they were concluded and ratified in blatant, willful, and deliberate violation of Liberian laws.  Weah should not think that it is only he and his government that can review, alter or cancel past agreements.

The future governments of Liberia reserve the right to review, alter and possibly cancel these lawless loan deals in order to cut-off the chains of debt slavery that Weah would have put future governments and the people of Liberia in. Weah has already set the precedent for such action. ETON and EBOMAF should beware. The agreements you are today concluding illegally with heavily bribed Liberian officials will be subject to review and possible termination tomorrow! A HINT TO THE WISE …..

What this means is that any future President can push for the termination of these corrupt loan deals because of they willfully and blatantly

Many detractors and critics of President George Manneh Weah continue to openly challenge his government’s political will to fight corruption especially after he took office and pledged to battle Liberia’s Public Enemy Number One. Corruption had become so intractable during the era of Weah’s predecessor Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf that she was forced to promote the nemesis to the rank of the fiendish Romanian impaler, Count Dracula. “Corruption is now a vampire,” Madam Sirleaf had said at one time.

The critics’ conviction that the George Weah-led administration would continue paying lip service to fighting corruption just as his predecessor, is based on what many see as his government’s eagerness to conduct business in the same laissez-faire manner of the Sirleaf administration, which, though credited for establishing many integrity institutions, was, however, notorious for violating the very laws and procedures of those sacred institutions.

Tracking the Vampire
But on May 7, 2018, President Weah took a key policy decision that brought even hardcore critics into check, believing that if President Weah continues his current path with earnest, he just might drive the final stake to shatter the cold heart of Liberia’s horror-in-chief: Corruption.

Addressing a letter to the national legislature, President Weah recalled five agreements from the Sirleaf era, prominent among which was the concession between the Government of Liberia and the Nimba Rubber Incorporated (NRI).

“Honorable Pro-Tempore, I hereby recall these agreements from the legislature for reassessment by the National Investment Commission (NIC) to enable them to meet fully procedural and substantive requirements, as well as value-for-money test, to assert the benefit of the Liberian people before possible resubmission to the legislature,” President Weah said in a communication to the Liberian Senate.

President Weah said his decision to recall those concession agreements was based on findings from the special Presidential concession review committee submitted to him. Upon taking office President Weah had set up a special committee to review all concession agreements in the country to ensure compliance with the procedural and substantive requirements of Liberian law and to also evaluate the justification including benefits to the Liberian people and the nation for the tax and other incentives granted.

The president’s special concession review committee had stated in its report that the legal requirements in those agreements were not fully adhered to. “For example, several provisions of the amended Public Procurement and Concession Act of 2010 were violated,” the President highlighted in his communication to the Liberian Senate.

Cocopa/Nimba Rubber Inc. History
According to diplomatic WIKILEAKS cables, Cocopa, which is now Nimba Rubber Incorporated, was owned by the Liberia Company (LIBCO), an American firm originally owned by Pan Am and Delta Sea Lines in the 1950s when LIBCO managed Liberia’s port, airport, and regional Pan Am operations. Cocopa began as a cocoa plantation but shifted to rubber as being more profitable and suitable for the climate.

“The original concession is 175,000 acres but only 25,000 are planted, and only 7,000 acres are still in production. Cocopa replanted 2,000 new acres of trees since 2002 and has plans to plant 400 acres per year,” says WikiLeaks.

The GOL reaffirmed in 2007 LIBCO’s concession agreement through 2029 based on a stipulation to renegotiate terms in 2009, and LIBCO is pursuing another round of OPIC financing.  Cocopa does not have a processing plant and sells most of its rubber to Firestone.

After OPIC-supported expansion in the 1980s, government forces looking for Charles Taylor ransacked Cocopa in 1990, and the plantation was occupied from 1990-95 by Taylor-allied Nimba Rubber Company. In 1996, LIBCO’s American manager, Charles Trippe, installed Taylor associate Roland Massaquoi as manager, who later ran against Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the 2005 presidential race. After the election, the GOL sought to take over the plantation and install an interim management team. Trippe objected and the Embassy weighed in with President Sirleaf. Eventually, the Supreme Court ordered the Ministry of Agriculture to remove the GOL interim management and return Cocopa to LIBCO. A deal was struck between the GOL and LIBCO at the February 2007 Liberia Investment Conference in Washington. LIBCO arranged for LAC management to temporarily operate the plantation before reinstalling independent management under Harrison Karnwea (former Cavalla plantation manager and Nimba County Superintendent) in 2008.

The Sirleaf-era/Nimba Rubber Black Deal
As President Weah reviews and studies his special committee’s report and recommendations on the recalled concession agreements for remedial actions, independent investigations conducted by The Parrot News have also revealed from documented and unimpeachable sources that former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is the real owner of Nimba Rubber Incorporated.

In July 2016, the Sirleaf government and Nimba Rubber signed a 30-year concession agreement to develop 4,800 hectares of land between Ganta and Saclepea in Nimba County to produce rubber and rubber-related material. Representatives of the government who signed included Finance and Development Planning Minister Boima Kamara and Agriculture Minister Moses Zinnah; while Mr. Solomon Gaigaie signed as Chief Executive Officer and President of the NRI. National Investment Commission’s Etmonia Tarpeh; the President of the Liberia Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI), John B.S. Davies; Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), Harrison Karnwea, Sr., as well as a representative of the Rubber Planters Association, Ben Garnett, all witnessed the signing.

According to the agreement, a copy of which is in possession of the independent Parrot News, the NRI would invest US$9,800,000 (Nine Million Eight Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) during the first 15 years of the agreement. Surprisingly, the draft concession agreement emanating from the national legislature lists former FDA Managing Director, Harrison Karnwea, as chief signatory to the bogus concession agreement. Karnwea’s name and designation would later be scratched out and replaced with NRI CEO Solomon Gaigaie.

But even before the signing of the bogus 2016 agreement, in May 2015 President Sirleaf had already instructed her underlings at the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning to dish out US$100,000 (One Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) to Nimba Rubber. Solomon Gaigaie signed for and collected the very controversial Private Sector Development Initiative (PSDI) loan on behalf of Nimba Rubber. The controversial PSDI loan would come to benefit a significant number of staffers and cronies of the Finance Ministry to venture into startup businesses, leaving the bulk of struggling, established Liberians businesses in the cold.
At the time, Mr. Gaigaie conducted a telephone interview with this writer in 2017, admitting that the Nimba Rubber Incorporated, which is actually an offshoot of the Cocopa Rubber Corporation, was under receivership of the government of Liberia when they got the $100,000 PSDI loan.

“In order for us to keep managing the plantation while the court process was on, and with a decline in rubber price, we took that loan so that we could be able to keep our station stable. Unfortunately, from that time to now, the rubber price has been low so that is why we had not been able to pay the loan,” Gaigaie said.
Quizzed as to whether Nimba Rubber had informed authorities at the LBDI or the Finance Ministry about their peculiar situation, the NRI General Manager responded: “We have been in contact with the authorities and they are informed about the situation of the entire rubber sector. We have engaged with them on a day to day basis trying to find out how the sector can be resuscitated. So they are aware of our situation. Even if they are not aware of other people situation they are aware of our situation.”
Legislative Affront
“Madam Sirleaf had thought that the usual brown envelope was going to work with the 53rd Legislature during the twilight era of her administration, but she was in for a deep shock,” says one of our legislative sources. Three months after the signing of the Sirleaf-era and NRI agreement, the national legislature, through the House of Representative, termed the 30-year concession agreement with NRI as “bogus”.

Brazenly, Sirleaf pushed the NRI Concession Agreement, along with many others, upon the laps of the 53th Legislature, coercing them to ratify or forfeit their salaries and benefits. The legislators opted for the latter and pushed the agreement on to the incoming 54th Legislature.

According to Nimba County District #7 former representative Worlea Saywah Dunah of the Saclepea-Mah Statutory District where the NRI operates, and who also headed the Committee on Agriculture and Judiciary at the time, government’s agreement with the NRI was not only single-sourced, but it was in complete violation of the Public Procurement Concession Commission (PPCC) Act.

Former Rep. Dunah said the NRI had failed to meet legal requirements of the employees and retirees, leading to unrests at the NRI plantation. Some of such labor unrests might have led to the death of the PPCC head Keith Jubba in September 2009.

With the many confusions regarding the Nimba Rubber agreement with Government, the 53rd Legislature gave the incoming administration the responsibility of properly reviewing and ratifying Sirleaf-era concession agreements to the benefit of the Liberian people.

“This government should provide solace to all Liberians who suffered bad governance from 1979 to present. We expect Weah to tread carefully, leaving no stones unturned, so that we don’t go back down that rocky road,” says a veteran grassroots politician who considers himself a stalwart of the progressive movement.
“I am calling on this government to not ratify that bogus agreement with Nimba Rubber. Let the government take control of the concession area or find a suitable investor with the needed capital,” says Henry Mabande, an investment banker, a resident of Lower Virginia.

“What kind of investors will sign an agreement to invest more than US$9 million but is begging the government for money?” wonders Sarah Wreh of Camp Johnson Road.

More revelations pending
This special Parrot News serialized investigative report will delve into how the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration used its long-armed tentacles to kill a special report on June 23, 2017, regarding the bogus Nimba Rubber deal. The report shows how Madam Sirleaf ordered printers to stop the publication of a special report that linked her with FDA Managing Director Harrison Karnwea to the bogus deal. As investigations continue, this paper will disclose account numbers, names and the sordid acts that plunged Liberia into its current messed up state. The report will indicate how “Ma Ellen” used state-owned enterprises during her reign to illegally redirect over millions of United States dollars to the NRI and other organizations, completely violating due transparency processes.

The investigation will strive to convince the Weah-led government as to why it should take control of the bogus Nimba Rubber concession agreement and/or source credible investors to boost the nation’s agriculture sector, not only with initial investment inputs but value addition that will ensure employment and other socio-economic opportunities for rural Liberians.