Liberia Systematically Breaking Its Own Oil, Forest Laws

Global Witness has welcomed a new audit recommending that the Liberian government take immediate action to address systematic gaps in compliance with laws on how its natural resources are allocated. The report, commissioned by LEITI, Liberia’s groundbreaking transparency initiative, revealed that laws had been broken in virtually every natural resource deal since 2009.

The findings, leaked to the press earlier this week, paint a picture of a country routinely ignoring its own laws in a rush to hand out natural resources to all comers. The audit also underlines the importance of independent oversight of how natural resources deals are made. Global Witness urges the Liberian government to quickly finalize and publish the report and take strong action to fully address its recommendations.

“If the Liberian government is serious about turning the page on the past and using natural resources to improve the lives of its citizens rather than enrich the corrupt, enforcing laws and prosecuting government officials and companies who violate them should be its number one priority; this could make or break the country's future.” said Jon Gant of Global Witness. “The sad truth is that the Liberian government has consistently failed to do this.”

The draft LEITI findings indicate that non-compliance with laws governing how natural resources are allocated is widespread and a problem across all natural resources sectors, including oil, mining, large agricultural concessions and forestry.

Global Witness and Liberian civil society have documented systemic legal violations in the timber sector since the lifting of UNSC timber sanctions in 2006, which was a particular focus of international reform efforts since the end of the country’s timber and diamond fuelled war in 2003.  

The promised jobs and tax revenues from the sector have failed to materialize, while nearly half the countries forests have been allocated through illegal and fraudulent deals since 2010. Despite swift and strong commitments from the President to clean up the sector, the government has been slow to act.

Global Witness said across sectors, the government has so far failed to hold corrupt or negligent officials, politicians and companies accountable, thus undermining its own laws governing natural resource use. The LEITI report reveals the full scope of the problem.

The mandate of the LEITI to publish contracts and review how they are allocated goes beyond that of its international parent initiative, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative or EITI, which requires publication of government revenues from extractive industries. The new findings demonstrate the importance of independent oversight of the process by which natural resource contracts are allocated, the global concession watchdog said.