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Neglecting Due Diligence in Action
The Joint Committee of the House of Representatives on Investment, Judiciary, and Transport, led by Foday Edward Fahnbulleh, held a public session on Tuesday with various government agencies and the leadership of Ivanhoe Liberia Ltd. (HPX/SMFG) to discuss the approval of the Concession and Access Agreement (CAA) between the Liberian government and the company.
Organizations that presented before the Joint Committee were the Minister of Justice (MOJ), Cllr. N. Oswald Tweh, the Deputy Minister of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP), Mr. Anthony Myers, the Chairman of the National Investment Commission (NIC), Jeff B. Blibo, and the Minister of Transport (MOT), Mr. Sirleaf Tyler.
The CEO of HPX was also in attendance but was permitted to leave so that the appropriate government authorities could speak to the Committee regarding the terms of the Agreement.
At the hearing, certain legislators were interested in Guinea's involvement in the agreement, regardless of whether Guinea had given its approval, but the executive officials were unable to confirm this due to significant debate among some committee members.
Several legislators think that, since Guinea has not officially supported Ivanhoe along with its subsidiary SMFG to move ore via, it was wise to hold off on the deal until the Guinean government clarifies its position.
However, the chairman of the Joint Committee on Investment, Judiciary, and Transport, Rep. Fahnbulleh, repeatedly dismissed the issue, especially when his colleague, Dorwon Gleekia, questioned whether the Ivanhoe deal complies with Guinea's approval or the current implementation agreement between the two nations.
The public hearing did not tackle one of the most debated topics in recent times, following the submission of the Ivanhoe deal to the Legislature.
The joint committee ended by noting that they will ask the entities to return for additional justification when necessary, but will then return to the committee room.
With uncertainty surrounding the implementation of the contentious Ivanhoe Liberia rail access agreement, the Liberian Senate, last week during a plenary session, called for documentary proof from the Executive branch regarding the deal and has since put the review of the agreement on hold until proper procedures are followed.
While making the decision, the upper house cautioned the government that Liberia faces the possibility of entering into an undesirable agreement as new evidence emerges showing that Guinea is developing its own railway plan and not responding to Monrovia's call for explanations regarding the use of Liberian infrastructure. This demand highlights increasing legislative worry about the consistency and reliability of Liberia's cross-border rail cooperation strategy.
In October 2019, when Liberia and Guinea signed the Implementation Agreement, it was celebrated as an example of cross-border collaboration, a meticulously designed legal structure intended to ensure that any mining company aiming to use Liberia's rail and port facilities would do so in a transparent, fair manner, and fully consistent with the national interests of both nations. However, with the recent Concession and Access Agreement between Liberia and Ivanhoe Liberia (HPX/SMFG), significant doubts now arise about whether the principles and processes of that bilateral framework were ever truly followed.
The Implementation Agreement was not a symbolic document. It served as a legally binding guideline designed to regulate all access requests made by a Guinean mining company. It outlined, in straightforward and specific language, the procedures that needed to be followed before any foreign company could utilize Liberia's infrastructure. Article 5 introduced a required two-step approval process, starting with a Request for Eligibility, evaluated by the Government of Guinea, followed by a Request for Access submitted to Liberia, jointly examined by the Monitoring Committees of both nations, and concluding only after approval from the Inter-Ministerial Committee. Article 9 officially established these oversight committees to prevent unilateral decisions and ensure that every cross-border infrastructure issue received approval from both governments. Article 7 assigned the Technical Secretariat the task of developing a standardized Access Agreement template to guarantee fair and consistent treatment for all users.
However, when the Ivanhoe CAA emerged, there was no public evidence that these institutional measures had been taken. The processes meant to safeguard the interests of both nations seemed to have been circumvented, leading to renewed questions about how the agreement was developed and whether it complies with the bilateral framework both countries pledged to in 2019.
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