Liberia: Contrary to Global Witness Allegations -Grand Kru, Sinoe Citizens Say PUP Activities Legal

24 January 2013

One of the striking arguments raised by Global Witness in its September 2012 report captioned: "Signing their Lives away: Liberia's Private Use Permits and the Destruction of Community-Owned Rainforest", was that logging companies operating under the Private Use Permits (PUPs) were fraudulently exploiting community lands for logging purposes, without the knowledge and consent of the communities. But surprisingly, however, and quite to the contrary, the very citizens in whose interest the Global Witness fight was being waged, have resoundingly decried the halt action, and are appealing to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to rethink Government's decision against the PUP operators.

Our special investigation into the whole PUP saga has unearthed another side to the story – the human factor – which seemed to have been overlooked or entirely discarded by architects of the Global Witness Report and Government's own Special Independent Investigation Body (SIIB) Report, both of which served as precursor to the latest halt action.

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