The Executive Mansion said the Executive Order No. 50, signed by the Liberian leader on April 5, is intended to curb the decline in the Liberian rubber sector until policies and frameworks appropriate to the situation are instituted, and to ensure redevelopment, new development, increased production, increased job opportunities and increased revenue to Government. It supersedes Executive Order No. 16, which expired recently.
This news shocked key actors of the country’s rubber section yesterday. When contacted, the Firestone Rubber Plantation Company and the Liberia Agriculture Company (LAC) failed to address themselves to the matter on grounds that it was news to them.
The spokesman of the Firestone, Rufus Karmoh, declined to comment, saying “Management will speak on the matter today.”
Harris Attoh, assistant human resource manager of the Liberia Agriculture Company (LAC), who is also in charge of the company’s public affairs, also failed to state how this latest development would be handled by his company.
The Liberian rubber sector has been a part of Liberia’s economic heritage for over 80 years, providing a high source of annual revenue for the Government and more employment nationwide than any other single economic sector. The country can be counted among top producers of natural rubber in the world. Unfortunately, for decades, the country has continued to export ONLY raw rubber – not even a rubber band has been produced locally. However, it is clear that this measure by government would now compel some of these heavyweights in the country’s rubber sector to establish factories for the processing of rubber.
“The sector has been greatly affected by abuse, misuse, abandonment and theft. This includes illicit tapping and sale of rubber, which is having economic consequences on employment and Government revenue,” the President said in her Executive Order.
She pointed out that “to tackle the situation in the rubber sector, the Government believes that appropriate institutional and regulatory frameworks needed to be established to sustain development of the sector and stimulate growth. It also believes that, in the national interest, urgent action was necessary to stem the current decline in the rubber sector and, as part of remedial measures, put a halt to the exportation of unprocessed natural rubber.”
In the early 1900s, during the administration of President Arthur Barclay, the British established the first rubber plantation in Liberia, located in an area named Mount Barclay, a few miles before Fendall.
But before the 1920s the British stopped tapping the rubber due to the steep drop in the price of the commodity worldwide. The British also left Liberia.
When Harvey Firestone, the American industrialist from Akron, Ohio, came to Liberia in 1926 looking for a place for the United States to grow its own rubber, the King administration gave the company a concession agreement for one million acres of land at eight cents per acre per annum for 99 years.
Meanwhile, Mr. Firestone became attracted to the 99-acre Mount Barclay plantation, and got government to lease it to him. So from the very beginning of his engagement in Liberia (1926) he started shipping rubber from Liberia to the USA and other foreign parts. This means that Firestone has been shipping rubber in its raw, natural state out of the country for 86 years.
No one can explain why this multinational corporation, Firestone, for many decades one of America’s industrial giants, has not thought to introduce one iota of value added to the rubber. It is hard understand that after all these decades of producing rubber, making Liberia Africa’s first rubber producer, the country is not yet able to manufacture even a rubber band!
One plausible (reasonable) explanation is that Harvey Firstone ingeniously won over most of the Liberian elite or power brokers by encouraging them to grow rubber and become rich. As a result, so busy were they making money that they did not bother to challenge Firestone to do anything more than produce and ship his rubber—all of it and theirs—out of the country. In the initial period, all Liberian Presidents—C.D.B. King, Edwin J. Barclay, W.V.S. Tubman and William R. Tolbert—were rubber planters. And so were most government officials.
It is because of their involvement in rubber production that they did not push Firestone to increase the wages of the Firestone tappers and other workers. For if the company increased its wages, they (Liberian officialdom) would have to follow suit or lose their tappers to the rubber giant (Firestone).
The question, then, why it took the Liberian government so long to insist on a modicum (small bit) of value added on its rubber is answered: the involvement of Liberian officialdom in the industry.
How Firestone and LAC, the two leading rubber producers, will react to Executive Order No. 50 remains to be seen. They may beg for time until they can put in place the technological equipment and processes to add value to their exports.
There is, however, one rubber planter that is shipping processed rubber out of Liberia. He is Bill Morris, son and heir of the perennial rubber magnate Harry L. Morris, who for generations has owned and operated the largest single rubber plantation in Liberia besides Firestone. Already in the 1950s Mr. Morris was known as “the rubber king of the world, because he possessed the largest plantation owned by one individual.
His son Bill a few years ago started processing and shipping his own rubber abroad, to the consternation of Firestone.
Last week, President Sirleaf issued Executive Order No. 49, exempting the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) from Customs Duties on Certain Products; and Executive Order No. 51 exempting Selected Entities from Customs Duties on Fuel.
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