Monrovia – Professor Willie Belleh, the Chairman of the Board of the Public Procurement Concessions Commission has categorically denied ever taking money from Sable Mining and/or its lawyers, Sherman and Sherman as alleged in The Deceivers, a damning report detailing allegations of bribery by the London-based watchdog group, Global Witness.
“Once the President received the document, it was not me to say what she should do with it or how soon she should transmit it to the Legislature. I am unaware of her management style relative to the handling of important matters or documents in her office.
However, given my brief experience working in the Presidency of the National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL), as Chief of Staff, the President would have had many options.”
In his first response to the report which has taken Liberia by storm and prompted a Special Task Force investigation, Professor Belleh addresses three specific allegations against him in the report regarding allegations that he took a bribe of US $10,000; that he wrote a specified email to Cllr. Sherman; and that he influenced changing the PPCC law in favour of Sable Mining.
‘I Was in the U.S.’
In its report, Global Witness alleges that “on June 24, 2010, as Chairman of the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission (PPCC), received US $10,000 to influence the tender process for mineral concessions and change the Public Procurement Act to benefit Sable Mining Company, a British mining company.”
Professor Belleh explained that on June 24, 2010, the date he says the US$10,000 was paid to him, he was not in Liberia.
“I was in the United States. As an evidence of this fact, here is my passport. Accordingly, could the Task Force please ask Global Witness to provide evidence as to: (i) who received the money; (ii) what is the evidence that the person received the money; and (iii) if it was a bank transfer to me in the United States, what are the details of that wire transfer?”
Professor Belleh says he welcomes the establishment of a Special Task Force to investigate Global Witness’s allegations against some former and present government officials, including him and that he has formally submitted to the authority of the Task Force and promised to fully cooperate with it.
‘Email a Fabrication’
Regarding the email he is alleged to have sent to Cllr. Sherman on August 6, 2010 which states:
“We finally got the revised PPCC Act completed. The Minister of Justice and I met with the President last night and reviewed areas of concern to her. She approved.
The document has been forwarded to the National Legislature. It is expected to be fast tracked,” Professor Belleh said the email is a fabrication.
“It is simply not true. I did not send any such email to Cllr. Sherman. On the face of it, it undermines its own credibility.”
Explained Professor Belleh: “The email suggests that I met with the President on the night of August 5, 2010 along with the then Minister of Justice.
I submit that the then Minister of Justice and I never, ever met with the President on the draft law. Former Minister Christina Tah is still alive to corroborate this fact.
I recommend that you ask her to confirm if she and I ever met the President, at any point in time, to review the then draft amended PPCC Act as alleged by Global Witness.”
Professor Belleh said he could not have met the President the night before and assured Cllr. Sherman the following day that “the document has been forwarded to the National Legislature”.
“Given the nature of the document as I remember it, there would still have been work to do to finalize it.
These would have included: reformatting the document since it had gone through many reviews; meticulously rechecking the many delicate cross-references within the document; a final comprehensive, page-by-page, proof-reading of the document to cross the “T’s and dot the I’s”; and printing, binding and formally submitting the document to the President.
I assure you that given the document that was being processed, particularly the need to exact the cross references, these various activities would have taken at least a full work week.”
‘Could Not Have Known’
Continued Professor Belleh: “Once the President received the document, it was not me to say what she should do with it or how soon she should transmit it to the Legislature. I am unaware of her management style relative to the handling of important matters or documents in her office.
However, given my brief experience working in the Presidency of the National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL), as Chief of Staff, the President would have had many options. She could have chosen to either send it to the Minister of Justice for a final opinion or have another independent lawyer or group of lawyers review it.
Or still possible, she could have chosen to present it to her cabinet for endorsement. Or she could have chosen to socialize it, probably over lunch or dinner, with the Joint Committee of both houses of the Legislature responsible for state-owned enterprises and autonomous agencies.
I submit to you, that a document of this nature, purportedly reviewed overnight, could not likely have been on its way to the Legislature the very next day.”
Professor Belleh says he could not have known and thus could not have informed Cllr. Sherman that the draft law would be fast-tracked in the Legislature because the need for a possible fast-tracking of the document would have been the determination of the President.
“This would have depended on the urgency the President attached to the document; or an advice from her Minister of Mines.
Fast-tracking the document would have depended on her influence with the Legislature, both individually and collectively, and especially her relations with the Speaker of the House, the Pro Temporé of the Senate then, and the Chairpersons of the Committees of both houses of the Legislature responsible for PPCC matters.
Additionally, to implement a fast-tracking directive based on a determination of the President would have depended on the effectiveness and efficiency of her Legislative Liaison Office then.”
Finally, the language of the email is suspect. I usually do not refer to the Legislature as “National Legislature” because this suggests that there are local legislatures in our political architecture.
To the contrary, there is only one Legislature of the Republic of Liberia. Just as is in Britain where both Sable Mining and Global Witness come from, there is only one Parliament: There is no “National Parliament”.
I request the full text of the email from Global Witness to enable me discern other irregularities in it to prove that it was not sent by me.
If it is proven that it came from my then yahoo email account, then I suggest someone may have hacked into it and falsely sent out that mail to make Global Witness allegations look real and legitimate.
‘Someone Hacked into My Yahoo’
Professor Belleh says in January 2010, someone hacked into his yahoo email account and then several weeks ago, someone again hacked into his yahoo email account and sent out an urgent request for help from me to some people around the world stating that my wife was sick in a foreign country and that he was requesting financial help from them. “Of course, this was not true.
Given this experience, I formally closed my yahoo account and moved over to Gmail.”
Professor Belleh denied ever influencing or changing the law in favour of Sable Mining. “In fact, when the process of amending the PPCC law commenced and, for much of its development, I was not the Chairman of the PPCC.”
Professor Belleh went on to explain that decentralization of public procurement was a new experience in Liberia in 2005 and prior to this, public procurement was centralized in the General Services Agency (GSA) with the strategic approach of “bulk purchasing”.
As such, he states that the PPCA law of 2005, which was being implemented in government occasioned many challenges.
“These challenges were identified at a Procurement Forum sponsored by the PPCC on February 27 – 28, 2008. Informed by the outcomes of the forum, the need to review and amend the PPCC law was established in 2008.”
Professor Belleh says the President established an ad hoc Cabinet Sub-Committee on the PPC Act review and according to the 2008 PPCC Annual Report, the Cabinet Committee met on May 30, 2008 and established a Technical Committee.
“The Technical Committee held a one-day retreat on the Campus of the Liberia Baptist Theological seminary on June 6, 2008 to identify specific provisions in the Act that required amendments. This retreat included the participation of Liberia’s development partners who were providing both financial and technical assistance.”
By the end of 2008, Professor Belleh says, the revision of the PPCC law was underway.
“The 2008 Annual Report of the PPCC states that two legal experts funded by the United States Government through the International Business Initiatives (IBI), recruited to harmonize the Minerals and Mining Act (MMA) of Liberia and the Petroleum Laws of Liberia with the PPC Act, had submitted to the Commission:
“The Draft Harmonized Petroleum Laws, a report on the Harmonization of the Minerals and Mining Act, and the Draft proposed Amendments to the PPC Act to be finalized following a stakeholders consultative workshop.”
By 2009, Professor Belleh says a Joint UNDP/International Senior Lawyer Program (ISLP) and World Bank/PPCC Drafting Team, comprising of international advisors, consultants and technical experts, had been established, and the process of reviewing and amending the law was on course.
“The goal was to strengthen the law by addressing the challenges identified. Several technical teams were also appointed to contribute to the work of the mission.
A Working Group, comprising World Bank Consultants, UNDP/ISLP, MOS, MOF, MOJ and PPCC was established to finalize the document. Throughout this period, I was not at the Commission.
The late Ketih Jubah, who passed on November 1, 2009, was Chairman of the Commission then. By the time I was appointed Chairman of the PPCC on April 5, 2010, the process of reviewing and amending the law had far advanced.
With the assistance of the international experts, a substantive draft law, containing the provisions on mineral rights was already available and was being reviewed.
Regrettably, however, for whatever reasons that were, two (2) separate versions of the revised law had emerged: one from the Ministry of State with the assistance of the UNDP/ISLP and the other from the PPCC with the assistance of the World Bank (WB).”
PPCC Misrepresented by GW, Says Belleh
Professor Belleh said, this motivated the need to “harmonize” the two versions of the law.
“The President, I understand, established several cabinet-level sub-committees to undertake this task.
Their efforts, although producing results, had become protracted. So when I became Chairman, the President asked me to work with the then Minister of State for Legal and Economic Affairs to energize the process and finalize the law.”
Professor Belleh said when he got involved at that point, issues on mining had been settled and not in contestation.
“My participation in the whole process was limited to co-chairing two (2) meetings at the PPCC around late July, 2010, to pass on remedial issues, which did not include mining issues.”
Professor Belleh also accused Global Witness of misrepresenting the PPCC role, stating the in contrast to Global Witness claims, submitted in its report that the PPCC is “responsible for all investment agreements with the Liberian Government”, that is not the case.
“The PPCC is not responsible for: (i) the attraction of investments in Liberia (NIC); (ii) the tendering of investments bids (concession entities); (iii) the vetting of investment tenders (concession entities); (iv) the negotiation of investment agreements (IMCC); and (v) the monitoring of investments agreements (NBC).
The role of the PPCC is to implement the PPCC law by regulating public procurement and the granting of concessions. The law defines various processes through which public procurements are made and concessions are awarded.”
Exploration Decision Made in ‘07
Professor went on to explain that the decision to grant exploration licenses without tender was really made in August 2007 in PPCC Regulation 002, Interim Procedures for Issuing Exploration Licenses, long before Sable Mining came to Liberia and says he was not Chair of the Commission then.
But the PPCC chair however noted that there was a legal abnormally: “Regulation 002 contradicted the then PPCC law of 2005 that called for the tendering of all concessions.
Thus, with the advice and consent of international experts, the provision was moved from the regulation into the main law with more controls as the way of legally regularizing the awkward situation.
This was not wrong: First, Regulation 002 was an interim measure and, therefore, could not remain in force forever. Second, because it contradicted the PPCC law, and a regulation should never contradict the law from which it derives its mandate and authority, the situation needed to be appropriately attended. The only way to have done this was to move the provision into the law.”
Professor Belleh adds: “The Global Witness’s report suggests that there was a conspiracy and the law was changed in favor of Sable Mining. As demonstrated supra, the law was never changed in real terms.
The norm of the industry relative to handling mining areas which did not have sufficient quantifiable information and data to inform a meaningful tender process as contained in Regulation 002 (the wrong place) that was being implemented, was simply moved into the amended law (the right place). “
Professor Belleh said that given the number of institutions and persons involved in the amendment of the law, there was no scheme, no conspiracy, and no hidden agenda. Indeed, the process was transparent.
“The amending process was advised by Technical Assistance Experts from our development partners, particularly the UNDP, World Bank and USAID.
To accept Global Witness’s allegation of a conspiracy, is to implicitly accept the involvement of Liberia’s development partners in this conspiracy. This would be a huge mistake. This would be gross ingratitude.”