—As Senate Re-scheduled hearing after Justice and Finance Ministers Skipped
IPNEWS: The repeated absence of both ministers of Finance and Justice key to solidifying a national financial instrument has now sent a dark cloud over the feature of the much talked about Ivanhoe, Liberia concession and Access Agreement.
On Monday, the Liberian Senate’s Joint Committee on Transport on Monday abruptly postponed its much-anticipated public hearing into the controversial Ivanhoe Liberia Concession and Access Agreement after two key cabinet ministers again failed to appear.
Committee chairman Senator Saah H. Joseph announced the postponement to next Thursday following a brief closed-door discussion among committee members that lasted less than ten minutes.
The hearing was expected to probe the recent Concession and Access Agreement between Liberia and Ivanhoe Liberia, the company operating under the HPX and SMFG framework, and to address outstanding questions about whether the procedures set out under the Implementation Agreement between Liberia and Guinea were ever followed.
When proceedings opened, Nimba County Senator Samuel Kogar immediately raised concern over the absence of the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Augustine Ngafuan, and the Minister of Justice, Oswald Tweah. Both ministers signed the Ivanhoe agreement on behalf of Liberia yet have repeatedly skipped legislative hearings related to the deal.
Senator Kogar told the committee that moving forward in the absence of the two officials would undermine the integrity of the inquiry since their signatures are key to the document now under review.
Legislators had planned to examine whether the Ivanhoe arrangement respected the Implementation Agreement that serves as the governing instrument for all cross border rail and port access between Liberia and Guinea. The agreement was crafted to ensure transparency and mutual oversight in mineral transport decisions and was never intended to be treated as a ceremonial formality. It clearly set out how requests from Guinean mining operators should be handled.
Under Article 5, all Guinean operators were required to go through a two stage process. The first step involved Guinea vetting a Request for Eligibility. The second step required the company to submit a Request for Access to Liberia. That request had to be reviewed by a joint Monitoring Committee and later endorsed by Liberia’s Inter Ministerial Committee.
Article 9 formalized the Monitoring Committee and IMC to prevent any government from taking unilateral action on shared transport assets.
Article 7 instructed the Technical Secretariat to prepare a standard Access Agreement template for all users in order to maintain fairness and consistency.
But when the Ivanhoe Concession and Access Agreement surfaced, there was no public record indicating that these institutional processes had been triggered. The absence of documentation has heightened concern among lawmakers and created doubt over whether Liberia’s legal obligations under the Implementation Agreement were respected.
Senators had hoped the Justice Minister, as the government’s chief legal adviser, would clarify which steps were taken and which were not. His presence was considered vital since the Implementation Agreement has clear legal requirements that guide all access arrangements.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that the Justice Minister’s close association with Cllr Gerald Padmore, counsel for Ivanhoe, may have influenced his repeated absence from Ivanhoe related hearings. Last week, the Ministry of Justice sent its Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs, Cllr Charles D. F. Karmo, II, to represent the ministry at a House Joint Committee session.
Also appearing before lawmakers last week was Gabriel Salee, Deputy Minister for Administration at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Salee told the House committee that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no knowledge of the Ivanhoe negotiations and was not involved in any of the discussions that led to the signing of the agreement.
The House of Representatives, which had also convened a separate inquiry into the Ivanhoe deal, was forced to reschedule its own hearing for this Tuesday. Several members of the House committee expressed surprise that the Government of Guinea had not been formally informed of the deal and has not commented on it, even though the agreement is based on cross border rail use from Guinea through Liberia.
The repeated absence of key signatories from legislative oversight sessions has deepened suspicion surrounding the Ivanhoe arrangement and fueled concern over Liberia’s adherence to its commitments under the Implementation Agreement. As both chambers resume their inquiries later this week, lawmakers say they expect clear explanations from the Justice and Finance Ministers about how the Concession and Access Agreement came into force and whether Liberia acted within the treaty framework.
