More than a month after the 54th Legislature brought China-Union Investment (Liberia) Bong Mines Co. Ltd to the spotlight for reneging to do the needful, the company has openly admitted to failure to live up to its corporate social responsibilities for about eight years in Liberia, while promising to pay the social development funds owed for the said years.
The company's Public Relations Officer Morris Tate, disclosed over the weekend in Kakata, Margibi County, during a remark at the county's district four lawmaker's yellow machine dedication program.
Representative Emmanuel Yarh invited him to clarify for the public that the machine was made available by the China Union.
Mr. Tate remarked: "As I speak to you guys, China Union, for the past eight years, we have not been working. We have not been doing anything. Even our social corporate responsibility with the countries, we have not been doing that, we have not been giving it, so people coming around here saying that Emmanuel Yarh, China Union, gave him a machine, it can't be true, and it will never be true."
According to him, Margibi County District#4 and Bong County District #7 Lawmakers have been pressurizing China Union to the extent that the company is now going to pay the social development funds meant for eight years.
"Secondly, Hon. Yarh and Hon. Foday have been pushing China Union, and now China Union is talking about giving some social development funds for the people for the past eight years," he added.
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The company has been dormant for so many years that citizens have characterized its actions as abandonment.
China Union signed a mineral development agreement (MDA) with the Government of Liberia on January 19, 2009, to continue a $2.6 billion investment that is expected to help elevate Liberians' living conditions.
In 2023, former Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor, who was so disappointed in the company, described its operations in the country as "no head, no tail, no middle."
She then called on the company to allow other companies to take over the mines and help the citizens if they were unable to do the work they had signed up for.
China-Union Investment (Liberia) Bong Mines Co. Ltd is a part of China-Union (Hong Kong) Mining Co., Ltd., a corporation with head offices in Hong Kong, having the legal entities China Africa Development Fund Co., Ltd as shareholders.
China Union operates the iron ores in Margibi and Bong Counties but transports them through Montserrado County, making them obligated to the three counties yearly. Editing by Jonathan Browne
