Your Excellency!
The Senate’s passage of the Third Amendment to the Mineral Development Agreement (MDA) between the Government of Liberia and ArcelorMittal Liberia has been greeted in official quarters as a breakthrough. Yet Liberia’s long and painful history with extractive concessions counsels caution. In the extractive sector, progress is not measured by legislative votes or celebratory headlines, but by what ordinary people experience long after the ink has dried.
Several unresolved concerns deserve your direct and principled attention.
To begin with, questions persist about value addition. The processing machinery reportedly constructed to upgrade Liberia’s iron ore into higher-value products has not begun operations. Instead, raw ore continues to be hauled out of Liberian soil. This pattern reinforces the old extractive logic: export fast, process elsewhere, and leave Liberia with little industrial transformation. Any agreement that does not decisively break this cycle risks repeating past failures.
Mr. President, equally troubling are the voices of host communities. While government and company revenues are highlighted in impressive figures, many communities closest to the mines report receiving marginal benefits. Their grievances—often fragmented and poorly amplified—are drowned out by ArcelorMittal’s sophisticated public relations operations and elite networks. The optics are damaging: abundance at the center, scarcity at the periphery.
There is also a growing public perception, whether fully substantiated or not, that powerful political actors benefit disproportionately from the company’s largesse while ordinary citizens shoulder the environmental and social costs. In governance, perception can be as corrosive as reality. When people believe that political insiders prosper while communities suffer, trust in both government and leadership erodes.
Your Excellency, you are not only the chief executive of government; you are the elected national leader and moral custodian of the Republic. You are looked up to—by law, by expectation, and by history—to defend the people and the state from exploitative arrangements, whether foreign or domestic.
Natural resources are finite. Iron ore will be exhausted. The people must remain. That simple truth should be the compass guiding every decision related to the MDA. If, when the ore is gone, communities are left poorer, degraded, and disempowered, no amendment—however detailed—will be judged a success.
For this reason, the Third MDA must not be treated as a political win or a scorecard achievement. It is not an instrument for partisan bragging rights. It is a solemn responsibility that demands strict enforcement, transparent monitoring, and the courage to confront both corporate pressure and internal complicity.
This moment calls for you to stand clearly and publicly with ordinary Liberians—not with the company, not with cronies feeding at the edges of corporate generosity, and not with lawmakers or officials tempted by pecuniary gain. Extractive governance is a test of leadership character. It rewards firmness, selflessness, and people-centered resolve.
Signing deals with powerful intercontinental corporations has never been easy for poor countries. It is a struggle in itself. But the harder struggle begins after signing—ensuring that the deal serves the people. That struggle demands bold leadership.
History will not remember how loudly this agreement was applauded. It will remember whether you defended Liberia’s future when it mattered most.