11/11/2021
LMC/MFGAP STORY
COMMUNITIES COMPLAIN OF SLOWNESS IN BENEFIT PAYMENT BY COMPANIES
BY: AARON W. GEEZAY 0880992716/0770992716/[email protected]
Members of the Zialu and Teekpeh Authorized community forests in River Cess County are complaining of the delay by companies operating in their forests to pay their just benefits.
The Z&T Community Forest lies within Latitude (465090 656758) North of the Equator and Longitude (465090 638608) West of the Greenwich Meridian and located in Central Rivercess District, Rivercess County. It covers a total of 24, 649 hectares or 60, 909 acres of land.
A Community Forest is the forest plantation, for which rights have been granted to the community living in or near it, by the FDA through an Authorized Community Forest Agreement (CFMA), to manage and utilize the forest in a sustainable manner.
The issue of Community Forest was given birth to by the Community Rights Law (CRL) of 2009. The Community Rights Law is a reform document (National Forestry Reform Law of 2006) that is aimed at giving power to communities to have ownership over certain forests lands passing through nine steps.
Said reform and other reforms came as a result of the signing of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) by Liberia following the civil conflict in the country.
Currently there are four community forests in River Cess including the Garwein Community Forest, Gbarsaw&Dorbor Community Forest, Zialu&Teekpeh Community Forest and the Central Monweh Community Forest.
According to representatives of the Z&T community forest, they are yet to get a full benefit of their forest from the companies for the harvesting of logs from their respective forests.
Abraham Whilzard, Chairman of Executive Committee (EC) of the Community Assembly (CA) of the Z&TCF said since his community signed a Third Party Social Agreement with EJ&J Corporation in November of 2018, the company is reneging on fulfilling their portion of the agreement.
Citizens of Kploh (Z&T Community Forest) in November of 2018 signed a third party agreement with EJ&J Investment.
Said agreement gives the EJ&J the rights to give the forest to a company to harvest logs, but with the consent of the community.
In the five years agreement between members of the Z&TCF and the management of the EJ&J investment, the investor agreed to construct hand pumps and pit latrines in the first and second year or before the end of the third year from the day of signing.
“In the agreement for example, the company said it was going to pay $6000USD annually for Scholarship for students of the affected community, $5000USD for support to the Kploh Community clinic in Zammie Town, construction of 16 hand pumps and eight pit latrines and rehabilitation of our community roads. But since then, we are now into the third year and the EJ&J/Brilliant Marjue is yet to complete what they were to do on a a quarterly or yearly basis, as well as things they supposed to do in the first, second and third year”.
“For the toilet and hand pump nothing has been done the people just dug pits in some of the towns and abandoned them”.
“On the side of the scholarship, they only paid half semester and the rest of the money for the scholarship none has been done, which off course they supposed to pay after every six months”. Whilzard added.
‘’The support to clinic, they are to pay $6000USD every year, that is they supposed to pay $3000USD every six month. Frustratingly, they have paid only $3000 for the past three years”.
Besides the scholarship, clinic support, hand pump, latrine and others, the community is entitled to several financial benefits including Land Rental Fees, Royalty Benefit and Cube Miter Fees.
But in reaction to Mr. Abraham Whilzard’s assertion, the General Coordinator of EJ&J, Stanley G. Whilzar denied the allegation of his company refusal but blamed their failure to live up to the agreement on the outbreak of the Corona virus Disease that took place one year four months after the penning of the agreement.
“Well, if community will come up to say majority of the Social Agreement was not met that’s not truth. According to the Forest Reform Law, if you have entered into harvesting is when you pay majority of the social liability.
But while we were into the pre-finance process, the issue of the scholarship and the issue of the clinic benefit was paid, including Land Rental fees”.
Even their cube miter fees are being paid fully as shipment is made we make sure and pay their cube miter fees. Whilzar added.
“So when it comes to the issue of some projects, yes, some of the projects are ongoing and due to the corona virus that hit the entire World that brought some economic setback to the entire country that brought some setback to our company. In that process we informed the Community Forest Management Body (CFMB) who is the direct representative of the community and we also informed FDA that need an extension of our project, mainly because of the corona virus”.
He added “In our contract we have a phrase called “Force Marjue” and the word force marjue is something beyond the control of everybody. So looking at this virus hitting the entire World in fact our partner was greatly affected so that brought a great set back”. However be it, we have started with the project. Have dug the wells and pits and, only waiting for the water table to go down for us to start laying the curvets. Whilzar added.
Giving a scenario of ongoing saga in the Zialu and Teekpeh Community a Chain of Cody Inspector/Forest Ranger of the Forestry Development Authority assigned to the EJ&J/BMI, Blamo Chea admitted the true existence of the conflict between the company and the community.
The role of the Forest Ranger under the FDA is to serve as eye of the government to ensure that the company do the right things such as total adherence to the Reformed National Forestry law and other international laws governing the harvest of logs, ensure environmental safety, and that government revenues are paid without any form of cheating on the part of the company in regards to the scaling of logs and other issues.
According to Mr. Chea the CFMB of the Z&TCF have written the FDA an official complaint against the company over their failure to do what are enstrained in the Social Agreement.
“I will start by saying yes, of late they have officially reached my office and I forwarded that communication, a formal communication from the CFMB complaining the company of not meeting up with their obligation. There are a lot of thing that have not been done on the part of the company rather than the toilet and hand pump, frankly speaking”.
So there is a planned meeting from the region, specifically from the Community Department of FDA that will be joining us to probe the allegation that the company is not doing these things”.
He concluded by recommending a dialogue in the settling the dispute between the community and the company. There are times that the community will put up a road block, although road block is not the way out but it also mean that there are issues that have to be addressed.
