Yekepa, Nimba County – A local non-governmental organization, the Committee for Peace and Development Advocacy (COPDA) based in Yekepa, Nimba County has cautioned the leadership and members of the Community Development Management Committee (CDMC) to be proactive in their advocacy.
The Community Development Management Committee comprises women of nine mines-affected communities within the ArcelorMittal operation areas in Nimba County.
COPDA recently conducted a one-day advocacy and capacity development refresher training for members of the CDMC to sharpen their knowledge on constructive advocacy.
Speaking at the opening of the training, COPDA Executive Director Ted Brooks said people who achieve their goals in advocacy are those that are consistent and proactive and never give up easily.
He said with the many challenges faced by communities around the company operation areas in Nimba County, only persistent engagement with responsible stakeholders could help to solve some of the problems.
Although ArcelorMittal remits 1.5Million United Dollars into the account of national government annually as social development funds, those CDMC women intoned that much impact have not been felt by residents of those communities directly affected by the company’s mining activities.
The nine communities that make up the CDMC are Zolowee, Gbapa, Makinto, Sehyi-Geh, Bolo, Lugbeyee, Camp-4, Liagbala and Bonlah.
Mr. Brooks lauded the women for choosing to speak for their people in ensuring that AML effects changes in their communities in line with the Mineral Development Agreement (MDA).
The world giant steel company entered into a 25-year Mineral Mining Agreement with the Liberian government in 2005 to mine iron ore from the Nimba grid formerly operated by the Liberian-American-Swedish Mining Company (LAMCO).
Presenting as one of the facilitators, a prominent son of Gbapa, Edmund Saye Gbah, stressed the need for decisions made on the usage of the social development fund at the district development sitting to be inclusive to have projects intended for the affected communities to be successfully implemented in a timely manner.
Mr. Gbah wants women who are direct victims of some of the major circumstances including little or no participation in decision making to be given more rights/opportunities to participate as delegates to have women issues considered by those major decisions.
He at the same time urged those women playing advocacy role in the district not to rest on their quest for the right things to be done, adding that they should not wait until the date of the district or county sitting but should start their engagement two to three months prior to the sitting if their voices must be considered.
Mr. Gbah praised the women engagement with ArcelorMittal Liberia, but informed them that the company does not make any decision on the usage of the affected community portion of the Social Development funds and that all the decisions are made at the sitting.
The only thing is that AML observes the process because she is the company that suffers damages when wrong decisions are made at those sittings, but the company does not influence any decision, Mr. Gbah asserted. The affected communities’ funds have always been used by the citizens with decision derived from the district and county sittings, he stressed.
For his part, the Executive Director of the local advocacy group, Nimba Education Guide, A-Gobac Selekpoh, informed the women to be persistent and consistent in their advocacy and engagement adding that advocacy in this manner usually produces lasting and tangible results.
Selekpoh claimed that the benefit of advocacy is to see the improvement or livelihood of the community residents and not the individual stressing that most advocacies have failed over the years due to greed and personal interest, something he described as the downfall of most advocates.
“We don’t want you to be like other people, a decent advocate will never seek his own interest but the interest and the greater good of the whole community,” Selekpoh noted.
But the Nimba Education Guide Executive Director encouraged the women not to allow challenges narrow down their advocacy, saying until they achieved their objectives, they should never be proud.
At the same time, A-Gobac Selekpoh has accused local authorities including Town and Paramount chiefs of being corrupt on grounds that they attend workshops and trainings without advert impact on the citizens and the communities they serve, adding that they usually solicit bribes.
The mines affected community women want ArcelorMittal and central government to ensure that the lives of people living within the company’s operation areas in the county are transformed through the provision of jobs and the restoration of basic social services such as safe drinking water, electricity and paved roads.
They also want the local county authority to include them as delegate for districts and county sittings to enable them present their plights for the improvement of livelihoods for people of the affected communities.
They claimed that despite frantic efforts made in time passed, the local county leadership has not granted them the opportunity to fully participate in any of the sitting as recognized delegate.
Speaking recently to Journalists in the Concession area of Yekepa, the Mines affected community women said Companies operating in the extractive industry sector of the country sometimes reneged on implementing their corporate social responsibilities in line with their respective Mineral Development Agreements (MDA).
The Head of the Community Development Management Committee Madam Helen Weanquoi narrated, that in Nimba County, communities around the concession areas of world giant steel company ArcelorMittal Liberia directly affected by the company’s operation are crying due to ArcelorMittal failure to impact the lives of the citizens with money annually allotted in its Social Development Funds for affected communities.
ArcelorMittal paid a fee of 1.5 Million United States Dollars annually to the Liberian government in Social Development Funds, and out of that amount, 20% is solely set aside for projects to be initiated in communities directly affected by the mining company operation.
But Madam Weanquoi expressed disappointment that with the National government in charge of the funds, the affected communities have over the years found it difficult to access the money due to bureaucracies and inconsistences on the part of the government institutions responsible to release such funding. The act is stalling development activities within the mines affected communities, the CDMC Chairperson intoned.
As a civil society organization and advocacy group, Madam Weanquoi and the CDMC Women are also calling on ArcelorMittal to prioritize the employment of residents of the mines affected communities especially women who have skills and vocational training knowledge.
“We have written several letters of applications. Our letters of applications are always rejected. We have sat for interview multiple times. But we are usually turned down,” the CDMC women head told reporters.
The Yekepa-based local Non-governmental organization Committee for Peace and Development Advocacy (COPDA) with funding from the Washington-based organization National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is implementing a project in the mines affected communities in Nimba County titled “Promoting Women Leadership and Accountability”.
