The Government of Liberia (GoL) through the National Investment Commission (NIC) has admitted errors in some concession agreements it signed with concessionaires. Speaking at a business meeting held between the GoL and the Multi-sectorial Trade Mission from the Netherlands,
the Officer-In-Charge of Concessions Development and Public Private Partnership (PPP), Mr. Othello Z.B. Karr, stated that the government erred in the signing of some concession agreements in the name of creating employment opportunities for Liberians.
"We hurried and in the end, made lot of mistakes in the past in singing some concession agreements. This is simply because government wanted to create employment opportunities for its citizens," said Mr. Karr.
"As you may be aware, the people's anxiety for job was too high, and government on the other hand, wanted to satisfy their desire," he furthered.
Mr. Karr pointed out that some of these agreements signed in the end created problems, especially between the concessionaires and local residents.
According to him, the government failed to conduct what he called proper assessment of available lands and consultation with local citizens before signing and giving out lands for concession purposes.
It can be recalled that sometimes ago, residents of Tawaleta Town, Gbarpolu County, said they were not benefiting any from social agreement promised them by the Bopolu Development Cooperation (BODECO); a logging company operating in their area.
This, they said, was because they were not involved from the initial stage of the agreement.
Also in Sinoe, local residents complained that Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) was taking their farm lands and at the same time destroying their ancestral lands.
At the same time, in River Cess County, local residents cried foul of their community being awarded to logging company by the GoL without their and consent.
But in a bid to avoid the recurrence of these mistakes, Mr. Karr pointed out that the NIC is now in a "restructuring" state.
The restructuring process, he said, will not only benefit Liberians, but concessionaires as well.
"We are putting into place proper mechanism that will stop the recurrence of these mistakes that we have made in the past. Currently, we are doing all we can to restructure the NIC. In so doing, we will put ourselves in the shoes of the investors so that they too, get protected. If we don't treat our investors well, they will rather choose another country to make business," the NIC official added.
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Shut up you crookish murderers of our nation. You call yourselves big men, but you live in a shanty country where millions of dollars donated by the International Community reflects more poverty and despair in the lives of your people; where the place stinks of feaces from lack of public toilets and drainage systems; where you sell the resources that should benefit your own people for "half-pennies" and pocket that money leaving them to starve as they toil hopelessly toward a bleak future; a future that they are being systematically robbed of by you; where the children of this country die from starvation and malnutrition on a daily basis; where there are no roads even though hundreds of millions of dollars have been received "dishonestly" in the name of "develpoment"; indeed! You think that you can make excuses. That by confessing your crimes you can win the trust of the International Community and the people of this country. You believe that you "made mistakes" when you signed those concession agreements? But you do not make mistakes when you rob Liberia and Liberians of a good future as you go about looting state coffers. You make no mistakes when seeing to it that those highways will never be built; that your own people will continue to suffer to death. Do know the meaning of the phrase "Abuse of the Public Trust"? Maybe you don't even know what it means to serve one's own nation. Or maybe you have made another mistake by thinking that you do not have a country to serve? Well you "did not make a mistake". You only buried Liberia and Liberians six feet deeper when you murder our nation for your own "SELFISH AIMS". SHUT UP WITH YOUR "MADE MISTAKES"!
Beware Foreign Investors!!!! The Constitution of the Republic of Liberia prohibits land ownership by NON-Negroes!!! If you're not of Sub-Saharan African descent, you are not allowed to own any land in the Republic of Liberia. That is the law of the land.
My take on this revelation by Mr. Karr is that he along with his cohorts who witnessed or signed these concession agreements must be FIRED because they have shown lack of judgement and incompetency. Also, Robert Sirleaf along with other members of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's immediate family should all be removed from the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf administration because they are all 'Birds of the same feather'. The International Community is reading these stories and we expect them to continue to provide support to Liberia? Liberia needs administrative reform (I did not say political reform) in order to get rid of Corruption, Nepotism, and Unscrupulous Business Practices --- the equivalent of Shady Business Payments.