By Abdoulaye W. Dukulé
The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
Posted: February 5, 2023
There was - or at least it seemed so for a while - noise rising in Bomi County. It was about iron ore and how some officials of the county - they named Senator Edwin Snowed - and the government allegedly entered an agreement with Western Cluster to exploit the ore with no regard for the rights of the people. Somebody replaced the legal document with an MOU, signed by ministers of the Executive. Accusations, denials, and counter-accusations were uttered in all forms of media. And silence...
This issue epitomizes the problems with every concession agreement. The entire process, from the arrival of the investor to the signing of the concession agreement, is wrought with manipulation and corruption. Everyone chops. In the end, by the time the deal is sealed, part of the government either the Executive through NIC or the legislature morphs into a lobbyist for the investor. They “sell” the agreement to the communities and move on. More often than not, the investor does not fulfill the promises. Then starts a game of blame. There are calls for renegotiations. A few more dollars are disbursed and things move on.
Most concession agreements center on agriculture- palm oil, rubber, and coffee/cocoa and minerals- gold, diamond, and iron. Besides signing fees and handouts, the extraction of raw materials provides low-skill and manual jobs. Workers receive just enough to make a living. The most lucrative aspect of the commodity comes at the different levels of transformation, where professionals are needed and where compensation builds wealth.
As the Bomi people - and Nimba as well - fight about a few million dollars, the real wealth will be shipped away. By rail, truck, or sea.
This form of a transaction has put Liberia in systemic poverty. Every concession agreement creates a new group of riches in the government, a few hundred unskilled jobs, and more corruption.
It started with the first big concession in the country, the Firestone deal. The corporation has since changed hands and has made many concessions, with government and workers but the system it set in motion perdures.
In the 1920s, Harvey Firestone, maker of tires, and his friend Ford of Ford motors convinced the US government to support the rubber project in Liberia.
At the time, Marcus Garvey had purchased land in Liberia for his project to “repatriate” thousands of professional diaspora back “home.” He had paid about $200 thousand to the government of Liberia. However, overnight, Garvey was arrested. His Liberian land was turned over to Firestone and he was deported from the US to his native Jamaica.
Harvey Firestone himself drafted the deal, acquiring 1 million acres of land and the guarantee that government would provide labor. All for 100 K. Forced labor started. Firestone “loaned” five million dollars to Liberia - to guarantee its own investment. Liberia did not want the loan but was forced to accept it.
The Firestone deal was not welcome by everyone. The class democracy still worked. When President CDB King was opposed in his second term bid by a vocal J. R. Faulkner who opposed the Firestone deal, he managed to set the record in electoral fraud, getting 244,000 votes against 9,000 for Faulkner. There were only 15,000 registered voters. His victory paved the way for Firestone. This electoral fraud was not about Liberian politics, it was to serve the interest of the investor, who had compromised the political class.
From that date on, there has been complicity between Government officials and investors. After Firestone, more investors came in and soon, being in government became very lucrative. The nascent Liberian private sector died.
It was the colonial mode of exploitation, at its best. Government officials, convince people to hand over community lands to the “government” and then turn them into cheap labor hands.
Chiefs had to provide a quota of young people for labor to clear fields, plant, and harvest, working at times 9 months without pay, according to Graham Greene who had visited Liberia.
The scandal about slavery in the Southeast caught the world’s attention simply because the export of young men and women to Portuguese Guinea deprived Firestone of manpower for in its extension. Representative D. Tweah was chased from the House of Representatives and into exile when he first raised his voice and called for an end to slavery and the deportation of young people to Portuguese Guinea. That was the past. Unfortunately, it is also the present.
Democracy brought political power to a new class of people who had been kept on the sidelines.
They kept the system intact. The Bomi issue is just the tip of the iceberg. There is no such thing as a “natural resources curse,” but there exists the curse of corruption and short-sightedness. Greed.
Natural resources are not wealth. Wealth is created through transformation and consumption or sale of manufactured commodities. Liberians are left standing with little brown envelopes.
Investors bring cash and get what they want.
When looking at reaping a billion dollars, what’s a few million to open the mines and subject the minds? A few million dollars to pay off officials and have unfettered access to resources, with no one monitoring how much is taken out. The buyer brings his scale!
The government asks the investors to make contributions to the counties in the form of “social developments.” They build clinics, schools, and housing, things that government should provide. The community leaders are given a few “big” jobs, most often with no decision-making power.
Once all this is in place, work begins, and the concessions export raw materials.
Bomi is a test case. Unfortunately, the fight is about the crumbs. The real challenge for the future will be to reverse a century-old transactional culture. New holes will be dug in Bomi. From Bomi Hills to Bomi Holes. Over and over again. And life will continue.
One steel mill could create thousands of professional jobs and transform the economy.
There is another aspect of the concession culture. With all young men and women forcibly hired to work in mines and on plantations, nobody was left for farming. The investor found the solution, Cheap, half-broken parboiled rice heavily subsidized by the US and Liberian governments entered the diet. Easy to cook and eat with red oil and dry fish. Thus started the addiction to rice… pussawah.
Liberia is naturally endowed but its people are amongst the poorest in the world. That’s how.
No matter what happens to the case of the Western Cluster, the real issue will remain untouched.
We can’t blame Firestone or Western Cluster. They are not charity organizations. They came to make money and will take whatever they can get.
The system has been going on for 100 years and is now part of Liberia’s political DNA.
Liberians got addicted to half-broken rice, and the government became corrupt, however, the greatest damage the concession culture brought is that Liberians, especially government after government - while seating in gold mines, God-given wealth, look to “foreign investors” to give them crumbs to survive. Even our most farsighted politicians equate foreign investors with “development.”
We insigh ....
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