Bong County as soon as once more finds itself on the middle of a nationwide debate, one which goes past politics and strikes on the coronary heart of governance, accountability, and the folks’s proper to improvement.
By Edwin N Khakie
Bong County, November 21, 2025: The continued dispute between Senator Prince Ok. Moye and Consultant Musa Hassan Bility over China Union’s company social duty (CSR) obligations has revealed a deeper structural downside: too many choices that affect bizarre residents are made behind closed doorways.
Former Bong County District #3 lawmaker, Atty. George Sylvester Mulbah has raised a essential alarm, one rooted in each regulation and precept. His considerations elevate a defining query the general public has each proper to ask: Who’s legally answerable for the Social Growth Fund (SDF) owed to Bong County underneath the China Union concession?
Senator Moye on Spoon Speak strongly rejected allegations that he and different caucus members signed a decision waiving Bong County’s rightful profit.
Alternatively, Consultant Bility insists that his firm, Strimex, took over administration of China Union’s storage tank underneath a government-approved association that generated greater than US$150 million in nationwide income.
By Mulbah’s interpretation, supported by long-standing concession rules, whoever assumes China Union’s belongings should additionally assume its liabilities, together with unpaid obligations to affected communities.
What’s most troubling, nevertheless, isn’t the blame sport unfolding in public. It’s the absence of clear, accessible documentation. Liberia’s historical past has been marred by concession agreements negotiated in secrecy, funds unaccounted for, and communities left at the hours of darkness. Statements, regardless of how passionately delivered, can’t substitute for information. The folks deserve documentation, not political theatrics.
If there exists a caucus decision waiving Bong County’s SDF, let or not it’s revealed.
If the storage tank settlement legally transfers CSR obligations to Strimex, then make that doc accessible.
If China Union stays solely liable underneath the Mineral Growth Settlement, then let the federal government state so unambiguously.
The folks of Bong County usually are not bystanders. They’re the supposed beneficiaries of those social improvement funds meant for clinics, faculties, roads, water methods, and youth empowerment. Whereas leaders conflict publicly, these communities proceed to attend for fundamental companies which have been lengthy promised and infrequently delivered.
The Structure and statutory legal guidelines are clear: no caucus or subset of legislators has the authority to droop, repeal, or override a nationwide regulation. Any try to take action by means of casual resolutions isn’t solely illegal but additionally a direct violation of public belief.
Liberia can’t proceed down a path the place concessionaires function with out correct oversight, whereas communities bear the price of underdevelopment. This controversy should function a turning level. Bong County and the nation deserve full transparency, not partial narratives formed by political comfort.
Till each related doc is launched and scrutinized, and till an unbiased overview establishes the place duty actually rests, the Individuals’s Social Growth Fund stays hostage to political maneuvering and administrative opacity.
Transparency isn’t a privilege. It’s a proper, and the folks of Bong County should insist on nothing much less.- Edited by Othello B. Garblah
