By Wlemongar J. Benson, Freelance Writer
Introduction
Let me draw myself into the firing line of apologists, emboldeners, and catapults for one of Liberia’s largest transnational companies, ArcelorMittal Liberia, which in 2005 cascaded its almighty blades on the Northern Region our motherland, including Nimba County. ArcelorMittal Ltd. owns 85% of ArcelorMittal Liberia, while the remaining 15% is owned the Liberian Government, with its headquarters in Cyprus.
This article is an unambiguous call to action—action intended to provoke calls for strengthened transparency from ArcelorMittal. It is becoming clear that the company is surpassing, if not has already surpassed, all concessionaires known in the corporate history of Liberia for being grossly negligent, practically emboldened, and left exceedingly wild in the country’s economic space. This article will take a snapshot of its economic impact, environmental woes, and social shortcomings.
Evidence of Corporate Excesses
For 20 years under the company’s Mineral Development Agreement (MDA), AML has been its own official evaluator and reporter on developments— its gains and achievements. One can see that things have been hefty, lucrative, and smooth sailing for them—a situation clearly accounted for by the fact that Liberia has provided a safe operational environment, including 15 years of tax stabilization on imports and fuel, with a flat annual payment of $800,000 ‘in lieu of all import duties, taxes, and fees.’
The company’s own records show that annual production and shipments from Liberia have significantly increased, a key driver of its rising stock price. According to its report, “Record quarterly iron ore production and shipments from Liberia”: 8.5 metric tonnes in Quarter One of 2025; 8.3 metric tonnes in Q2 2025; 8.5 in Quarter Three compared to 6.6 in 2024—all due to its expansion activities that don’t match royalties and social responsibility to the country due to the opaque nature of its operations. Liberia almost finds it impossible to gauge how much the country itself has been gaining financially.
Meanwhile, AML continues to fall foul of regular derailments and inability to regularly refurbish the rail, as well as pollution, amongst other excesses. Several fines, including US$125,000 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2022 for polluting water in Bonla Town, were traced to the company’s mines. In 2022, ArcelorMittal was also fined for failing to restore a degraded wetland in Yekepa, and another EPA fine for dumping raw sewage into wetlands. While facing the Legislature in July 2025, AML reportedly admitted to multiple violations of its MDA, including the refusal to appoint Liberians to top executive positions and exporting ore without fulfilling local value-addition requirements.
These criticisms underscore a widespread belief that ArcelorMittal has consistently failed to meet its obligations and ensure that Liberia’s natural resources generate equitable benefits for its people.
Twenty-Years On: Where is the Economic Impact?
How has Liberia benefited? The figures are dim, lying in twilight if not in darkness. What does one expects when the company is a “lord” unto itself, masking its actual operational profits.
What one sees with the AML deal in real-time is, in terms of practical actions and deeds, a woeful failure, economically for the country, particularly for the host communities that are enduring the negative environmental, economic, and social impact—unfortunately by a company celebrated, and which prides itself, with novel corporate promises and deeds.
What was intended to directly lift the dominantly poor affected communities of poverty, and transform them, the Community Development Fund or County Social Development Fund, is seemingly not working or continuously problematic. The proof here is that a multitude of international and national integrity organizations and activities have reported quite shamefully and visibly that the deal has become a radical far cry from what is found on the ground. Checkout for instance the 2011Sustainable Development Institute report, which found that ArcelorMittal’s contributions were mismanaged, as projects were abandoned or incomplete. It reports scholarship of up to $200,000 for young people which not only came five years late but were paid irregularly.
Almost 15 years since this report, poor people and communities lining the rail and those nearby continue to complain about neglect and keep waiting in vain for the transformation AML has promised. Roaming journalists and social media influencers have brought to the global information superhighway countless audios and visuals of testimonies from the impoverished people and their shanty communities—crying and begging for safe drinking water, better health, if not health centers, good schools for their children, and an end to rail accidents and pollution. The refrain is loud in Nimba as it is in Grand Bassa and Bong.
Call to Action: Greater Transparency
Transparency is key. The government must enforce oversight and consider sourcing the responsibility to some of the credible national integrity organizations such as the Liberia Transparency Initiative, IREED, Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), or all of them under a special coalition—a coalition that would monitor the company, evaluate Liberia’s fair share and report to the public.
There is a huge urgency for AML, which prides itself for doing all the good things on the Planet, to be faithful to the ideals of the investment: to make full disclosure of its real profits and stop minimizing its tax obligations to Liberia. The government, sector institutions and civil society must push AML to deliver value to Liberia.
