MONROVIA April 1 (LINA) – Five former employees of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) are facing trial at the Criminal Court “C” in Monrovia on charges of economic sabotage, criminal conspiracy, forgery and counterfeiting, robbing government of US$6 million.
The defendants are Moses Wogbeh, former managing director of FDA, John Kantor, former technical manager, Jangar Kamara, former manager for commercial forestry, David Blayee, former surveyor for Grand Bassa County of the Lands, Mines and Energy Ministry and Maxwell Gwee, former director of cartography at the ministry.
They were indicted by the Grand Jury for knowingly conspiring to defraud the Government of Liberia of just revenue.
They are accused of facilitating the wrongful and illegal issuance of sixty-one Private Use Permits (PUPS) that authorized commercial logging operations on nearly 2.5 million hectares of land.
The indictment indicates that because of the defendants' blatant abuse of their offices and violation of several provisions of the National Forestry Reform Law (NFRL) 2006 and the Community Rights Law 2009, the government suffered a loss in revenue of over US$6 million.
According to the indictment, from August 2012 defendants Wogbeh and Kamara, with the intent to defraud the Government and make an opportunity for the PUP holders to defraud government, disregarded the moratorium the President of Liberia placed on all PUPs.
LINA