On May 26, during a Ministry of Information press briefing, Information Minister Jerolinmek Matthew Piah claimed that the current Bea Mountain concession was put together by the George Weah administration and later inherited by the Unity Party government.
Minister Piah made the statement while refuting allegations by critics of the current administration that President Joseph Nyuma Boakai used a Bea Mountain-operated single-engine aircraft for his trip to Lofa County.
The Claim
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An excerpt of his statement reads: "That's why they can't be strong [tough] on Bea Mountain, because that's the Bea Mountain plane they [the President] can ride. How can those be the same people talking about Bea Mountain, who put together the Bea Mountain Concession? Is it this government? How can a concession you put together and gave out before we came[to power] be something now that you want to run away from?"
Rating Justification
To verify the claim, we reviewed media reports and government records relating to the concession agreement between the Government of Liberia and Bea Mountain Mining Corporation.
Our findings show that the original Bea Mountain Mineral Development Agreement (MDA) did not originate under the Weah administration or the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) government. Records indicate that the agreement was first signed on November 28, 2001, years before Mr. Weah took office in 2018.
The 2001 agreement granted Bea Mountain rights to explore and mine gold in Grand Cape Mount County, with operations initially set to run until 2026.
In September 2013, the Mineral Development Agreement (MDA) was renegotiated, amended, ratified by the Liberian Legislature, and subsequently signed into law by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
However, in 2023, the CDC-led government under former President Weah submitted a restated and amended MDA to the National Legislature for ratification. The amended agreement sought to extend the company's operations to 2051 and introduced revisions to fiscal terms, community benefits, and land-use provisions.
Reports from that period show that the Weah administration signed the amended agreement before leaving office in early 2024.
As a result, this current Unity Party government under President Joseph Boakai inherited the amended version of the concession agreement after assuming office.
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Conclusion
Based on the available evidence, we conclude that Minister Piah's claim is partly correct but lacks important historical context. While the Weah administration negotiated and advanced the amended Bea Mountain agreement, the original concession itself dates back to 2001.
Therefore, the current Bea Mountain concession was "put together" by the Weah government as claimed by the Information Minister, but the agreement dates back to 2001 and was later amended in 2013 by the Johnson-Sirleaf administration.
Editor's Note:
This fact check explainer was produced by Local Voices Liberia with support from the European Union through the Liberia Media Empowerment Program (LMEP). The funder had no say in the editorial decision leading to the production of this fact-check report. Read the original fact-check report here.
