MARKET DEVELOPMENT
Liberia: Calm Returns to Palm Bay
Liberia: Calm Returns to Palm Bay
25/09/2013 (AllAfrica.com) - Following months of latent tension between Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) and citizens in district four of Grand Bassa County, government has restored calmed, Justice Minister Christiana Tah has disclosed.
Cllr. Tah said the restoration of calm followed a mass meeting over the weekend in Buchanan City where she and County authorities presided.
Minister Tah said it was agreed during the meeting that the company does a resurvey of their operation area.
Equatorial Palm Oil, a UK publicly-listed crude palm oil (CPO) producer established in 2005 in Grand Bassa, Sinoe and Rivercess counties covering approximately with 169,000 hectares. The company with a 50-year concession agreement had earlier attempted to resurvey its 34,500 acres of land being leased by government when citizens resisted.
The aimed of the resurvey, according to the company, aims at giving EPO an idea of its total land available for operations as well as locating towns and villages, safe drinking water sources, sacred places, graves sites and farm areas in keeping with regulating policies of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).
RSPO is an international acclaimed environmental rights group based in Europe. But Minister Tah observed that the process was 'misunderstood and misinterpreted' as meaning the dispossessing of the citizens of their ancestral land.
Speaking at the close of meeting on Saturday, Cllr. Tah said EPO would now proceed with the survey peacefully assuring them of not being evicted.
"The concession agreement is law," she told citizens, adding: "We as a government are here to protect your rights. This survey is not to hurt you. Government does not sell land and we will not sit and allow foreigners to take our people's land."
She further cautioned citizens to always seek understanding of issues, most especially concession agreements that would positively affect their individually lives. "This company is here for you; and so why will you want to reject it from expending," she retorted. Internal Affairs Minister Morris Dukuly, Grand Bassa Supt Etweda A. Cooper, Deputy Speaker, Hans Barchue and Rep. Baryon Brown also attended the meeting. Though EPO contended that it incurred huge losses due to resistance from local citizens leading to the laying off some 150 workers, the company said it remains committed to its agreement.
"The palm seedlings on our nursery over grew due the unavailability of land to transplant them and we had to laid-off some workers because there wasn't any work to be done by them," a company official complained. an act ratifying the concession agreement between Liberia and LIBNICO Oil Palm Incorporated was signed On 22 May 2008 after an earlier deal signed in 1965 that gave the company 40-year lifespan expired in 2005. EPO focused on becoming a global, sustainable, low-cost production model through the reactivation and development of its existing oil palm estates and land bank in Liberia, West Africa.
Cllr. Tah said the restoration of calm followed a mass meeting over the weekend in Buchanan City where she and County authorities presided.
Minister Tah said it was agreed during the meeting that the company does a resurvey of their operation area.
Equatorial Palm Oil, a UK publicly-listed crude palm oil (CPO) producer established in 2005 in Grand Bassa, Sinoe and Rivercess counties covering approximately with 169,000 hectares. The company with a 50-year concession agreement had earlier attempted to resurvey its 34,500 acres of land being leased by government when citizens resisted.
The aimed of the resurvey, according to the company, aims at giving EPO an idea of its total land available for operations as well as locating towns and villages, safe drinking water sources, sacred places, graves sites and farm areas in keeping with regulating policies of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).
RSPO is an international acclaimed environmental rights group based in Europe. But Minister Tah observed that the process was 'misunderstood and misinterpreted' as meaning the dispossessing of the citizens of their ancestral land.
Speaking at the close of meeting on Saturday, Cllr. Tah said EPO would now proceed with the survey peacefully assuring them of not being evicted.
"The concession agreement is law," she told citizens, adding: "We as a government are here to protect your rights. This survey is not to hurt you. Government does not sell land and we will not sit and allow foreigners to take our people's land."
She further cautioned citizens to always seek understanding of issues, most especially concession agreements that would positively affect their individually lives. "This company is here for you; and so why will you want to reject it from expending," she retorted. Internal Affairs Minister Morris Dukuly, Grand Bassa Supt Etweda A. Cooper, Deputy Speaker, Hans Barchue and Rep. Baryon Brown also attended the meeting. Though EPO contended that it incurred huge losses due to resistance from local citizens leading to the laying off some 150 workers, the company said it remains committed to its agreement.
"The palm seedlings on our nursery over grew due the unavailability of land to transplant them and we had to laid-off some workers because there wasn't any work to be done by them," a company official complained. an act ratifying the concession agreement between Liberia and LIBNICO Oil Palm Incorporated was signed On 22 May 2008 after an earlier deal signed in 1965 that gave the company 40-year lifespan expired in 2005. EPO focused on becoming a global, sustainable, low-cost production model through the reactivation and development of its existing oil palm estates and land bank in Liberia, West Africa.