Monrovia – Cllr. Varney Sherman has all along told the court that he was innocent of charges brought against him by the government of Liberia in the Sable Mining bribery trial which grew out of a Global Witness report alleging that he offered bribes to high-ranking officials of government to tamper with public procurement laws to win mineral agreement right for Sable Mining Africa Limited.
Report by Henry Karmo – [email protected]
Global Witness in 2016 released a report – The Deceivers – accusing Senator Varney G. Sherman of receiving more than US$900,000 from a UK mining company, Sable Mining Africa Limited, to bribe senior government officials in an effort to change Section 75 of the Public Procurement Concession Commission (PPCC) for the sole purpose of granting the company a non-bidding right to the Wologizi Mountain in Lofa County.
Cllr. Sherman’s plead of innocence was to some extent corroborated recently by the testimonies of two former staffs of the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy who were recently re-nominated by President George Weah to the positions of Deputy and Assistant Ministers at the Ministry.
During their confirmation hearing the two nominated officials provided a detailed explanation to the senators on how the controversial Section 75 was inserted into the PPCC Act.
Emmanuel Sherman once served as assistant minister for mineral exploration but resigned May 31, 2012 while Carlton Miller served as deputy minister for research and human resources and also resigned in 2013.
According to Sherman ,the country’s mineral law of 2000 law was old and the key thing for that mining law is that it called for first access for the issuance of mineral licenses which include prospecting, exploration, and class B and C whereas the PPCC Act of 2005 stated that all of the licenses consider everything as concession.
He told lawmakers that having returned from international studies at the time, he flagged that class C mining license should not be considered concession like that of the A and B. This, he said, sparked a debate which led to the intervention of international experts with the help of the European Union.
“We argued it…the same PPCC agreed that we were right and issued regulation 002. I know that very well because I was the chief geologist.
“That regulation allowed us to issue mineral exploration license while we harmonized the Act. In harmonizing the Act, we brought international experts from the GEMAP sponsored by USAID in collaboration with other experts who proposed a new section into the 2005 Act section “75” which was later amended in 2010.”
According to him, the benefit was that all of the green areas that they had in the mining law was captured and briefed in the 2010 Act.
“One significant aspect proposed by USAID and other partners was the one which had to deal with the delineation of biddable and none biddable areas.”
“The law became complicated, people misunderstood it, but that was a very good act because what it did was to safe guard some of our areas.”
“To harmonize the mining law with the 2005 Act section “75” was inserted and then we came out with the 2010 amended act,” Sherman explained.
Miller buttressed his colleague, stating that before the injection of section “75”, the PPCC Act had the propensity of greatly affecting the mineral exploration law adversely because it stated that once an exploration company performs his exploration duties they had the right to apply for a mineral development agreement.
“The fear there was that, once an exploration company had spent millions of dollars on exploration and was still subject to tendering, we taught that it would have caused chaos in the sector that’s why the expert came in and advised that section “75” be inserted.
