Monrovia – George Soros is widely known as the hedge fund tycoon and renowned philanthropist.
His philanthropic work has been instrumental to Liberia where since the ascendance to office of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the country has benefited from millions in various humanitarian areas.
Mr. Soros, who is worth US$20 billion according to Forbes magazine, and President Sirleaf have been friends for a long-time and even before she became President.
Pres. Sirleaf was among the distinguished guests at the billionaire philanthropist and activist in liberal causes’ wedding to Tamiko Bolton, a health care and education consultant.
His son, Alexander, is the founder of The Alexander Soros Foundation, an organization promoting civil rights, social justice and education.
The younger Soros who visited Liberia sits on the board Global Witness, which exposes and breaks the links between natural resources, conflict and corruption; and the Open Society Foundations, the New York City-based group founded by his dad who works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies.
While both organizations receive strong financial support from the Soros Foundation, it is the former that has been in the thick of exposing lapses in Liberia’s governance, since it started in 1993 and dubbed by many as Soros’ anti-corruption campaigner group.
Over the years, Soros through his organizations, has pledged and delivered millions to various causes in Liberia including a US$5M contribution, in May 2007, to support the education initiatives of the Sirleaf government in a bid to fill in a funding gap under the country’s five-year education that was spearheaded by UNICEF.
Ironically, it is the education sector that has taken the most beating under Sirleaf’s watch.
The President has described the sector as messy amid a new debate regarding the outsourcing of the sector to an American firm.
Under that plan, $20 million United States dollars was being provided by donors toward the first five years of Liberia’s educational programs.
At the time, Mr. Soros said he was pledging $5 million United States dollars to fill in the gap, provided the official donors commit to covering the rest of a five-year funding program based on the assessment of existing needs.
“If you unbundled the global program of Education for all, and look at the individual countries, I know of many private partners who would be eager to participate and make a meaningful contribution,” the American billionaire challenged the participants at the time in Brussels, when he delivered a speech to raise funds for the Roma Education Fund which he supports.
Mr. Soros who has visited Liberia a few times since Sirleaf won the presidency, has been realistic about the daunting challenges required to invest in education.
In May 2007, Mr. Soros and Queen Noor, the widow of Jordan’s King Hussein, headlined a D.C. fund-raiser for Liberia and both and travelled with Mr. Soros to Liberia in February 2006, particularly, the Liberian Education Trust.
Mr. Soros has been a strong advocate for Liberia, stressing in speeches that Liberia needs all the support to develop public-private partnerships that seek to help the President achieve Liberia’s plan for the countries children.
Mr. Soros has also been actively involved through his Open Society Institute (OSI) making a US$1 million grant to World ORT International Cooperation Department (ORT IC) in support of its Liberian Youth Training and Employment project.
The grant was aimed at directly help 1,000 ex-combatants and young men who missed out on school because of nearly 15 years of civil war in six rural districts gain vital practical skills through an apprenticeship program.
Additionally, the project was aimed at improving training and employability throughout the whole country, benefitting countless people. “An educated youth is the key to the future of an open society.
It is my conviction that equipping young people with education and the skills needed to be productive members of their communities will be a crucial step towards a peaceful Liberia,” Mr. Soros was quoted in throwing his weight behind the project.
During the war, schools were closed and teachers were killed. USAID CESLY program currently offers young men a primary education to the 6th grade level.
However vocational education programs require participants to have reached 9th grade.
It was in testament to Mr. Soros many contributions to Liberia that Sirleaf, in February 2007, honoured the billionaire for his humanitarian efforts on behalf of the Liberian people
At the 2007 honour, Sirleaf paid homage to Soros and recognized him not only for his work in Liberia, where he spoke out against the death and destruction that engulfed the West African nation for years as well as the bad governance responsible for much of the chaos, but also for his humanitarian efforts around the world.
Said Sirleaf at the time: “Because of your invaluable contributions to the building of open societies throughout the world, you have distinguished yourself in the service of humanity,” said Sirleaf:
“The magnitude and geographical scope of your philanthropic commitments, coupled with your core principle of fostering open societies, allowed you to transcend the limitations of many national governments and international institutions.”
In recent years though, some of Sirleaf’s critics have suggested that the billionaire’s help to Liberia has been waning amid reports that he may not be too happy with numerous reports of corruption in the country, some refer to as his pet project.
But beyond the accolades, Global Witness has been digging Liberia’s trail. According Jonathan Gant, Lead Campaigner for Liberia, the watchdog group has put out approximately sixty reports; totalling publications, including press statements.
The most high-profile reports have hit Liberia at the core.
Sept. 2011’s Curse or Cure? How oil can boost or break Liberia’s post-war recovery showed that even before a discovery is made, there are deep-seated problems in Liberia’s oil sector: government officials and at least one company have paid bribes, contracts have been awarded illegally and companies with little experience in the oil sector have received concessions.
In 2012, a report detailed how officials and private companies have colluded to secure logging permits and cut down pristine forests.
The report noted that Liberia’s forestry department had been secretly doling out illegal logging permits to large corporations that could result in more than 40% of its pristine forest being chopped down, with little benefit to local communities, a new report by environmental groups alleges.
The report led to criminal indictments against eight former officials for their role in an illegal logging scandal which saw almost a quarter of the country given away in secret forestry concessions.
Global Witness, Save My Future Foundation (SAMFU) and Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) said the indictments represented a huge step forward in the country’s fight against natural resource crime.
On 22 February, the Liberian Ministry of Justice indicted eight ex-government officials for facilitating the award of secretive illegal logging concessions, known as Private Use Permits (PUP).
These permits covered 40% of Liberia’s forests. Included is the former head of the Forestry Development Authority Moses Wogbeh, who was arrested by Liberian authorities and is reportedly now in jail awaiting trial.
These indictments and arrest follow two years of investigations by NGOs, including Global Witness, SAMFU, and SDI, and by the Liberian government, which in December 2012 found all 63 PUPs to be illegal. (1)
The government has cancelled 29 of the illegal logging permits and is in the process of cancelling the remaining concessions.
The Watchdogs Organization maintains that to date, it has been able to obtain only 30 deeds for the reported sixty-six (66) Private User Permits holding-companies in the country. Global Witness observed that “copies of the land deeds are very poor, leaving open the possibility that many additional deeds have been forged.”
In 2013, a damning report in 2013 titled: “The New Snake Oil?
The violence, threats, and false promises driving rapid palm oil expansion in Liberia”, detailed how state officials were said to be helping the palm oil company Golden Veroleum (GVL) harass communities into signing away their land and crush dissent.
The report revealed how GVL accelerated its operations at the peak of Liberia’s 2014 Ebola outbreak, holding meetings with hundreds of people and encouraging illiterate citizens to sign away their land rights when community support groups were staying home for risk of contagion.
At this time GVL almost doubled the size of its plantation. “This behaviour hasn’t discouraged the world’s major banks from offering their services. Standard Chartered, HSBC, and Citibank alone hold shares in GVL’s parent company – Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) – worth nearly US$ 1.5 billion,” GW concluded.
In April 2013, “Logging in the Shadows” unveiled how systemic and targeted abuse of small, poorly regulated logging permits by logging companies is facilitating quick access to forests for commercial logging.
But GW has not always had a few sailing. In 2013, Lawyers for four people connected to a mining conglomerate run by one of the world’s wealthiest men have launched a ground-breaking legal action against the London-based campaign group claiming damages for breaches of data protection rights.
The claim, filed at the high court in London last week, was released on Monday and intensifies a long-running dispute over iron ore rights in the west African state of Guinea.
The action takes a highly unusual legal approach, alleging that Global Witness has refused to comply with a decision of the UK information commissioner.
In 2014 however, Sirleaf raised eyebrows when she dedicated a good portion of her annual message to take aim at some non-government organizations (NGOs) operating in the country.
The President said while some continue to contribute to the reconstruction process of our country, that does not give them the right to go beyond their borders.
The President noted that some NGOs in the above-mentioned sector have sought to become super-national bodies challenging national sovereignty even as they themselves lack national and international governance status and rules in transparency and accessibility.
Providing a statistical analysis of NGOs in the country, President Sirleaf said: “To date, Liberia has a total of 997 NGOs – 874 National and 123 International – operating in the 15 counties of Liberia.
These NGOs had traditionally provided services in wide areas of humanitarian assistance and development.”
But Alex Soros, the billionaire’s son while in Monrovia for a visit a few weeks later, took serious exceptions, telling FrontPageAfrica, in an exclusive interview that President Sirleaf’s utterances were in his words, “very troubling”.
For many political observers, the latest report from GW regarding allegations of bribery involving some high-profile current and former officials of the Sirleaf administration may be the most damning to date.
“If it is found that they broke the law, Liberian government officials should be removed from office and prosecuted, while Sherman should be disbarred and also face criminal charges,” Gant said recently.
The report has not only ruffled feathers but has also triggered an investigation that many say carries a lot of complications and implications for the ruling Unity Party-led government limping into a crucial Presidential and legislative elections in 2017.
As the world await the outcome of the ongoing probe, keen watchers of Liberia political terrain are already beginning to decipher what may likely go down as perhaps one of the biggest scandal in the UP government, that rapidly generating the attention of the international community, particularly the United States of America who has put Liberia on notice, to take the GW report seriously.
Rodney D. Sieh, [email protected]