Summary: Liberian activist Martin K. N. Kollie recently claimed in a Facebook post that Western Cluster mining company shipped out of Liberia 438,415 metric tons of iron ore from Bomi County. He cited the LEITI 2023 report. We have fact-checked and found his claim to be correct.
On Monday, June 10, political activist Martin K. N. Kollie claimed that Western Cluster shipped 438,415 metric tons of iron ore from Bomi County. He made the claim in a Facebook post, calling on President Joseph Boakai “to revoke the company’s permit”. Mr. Kollie cited the LEITI 2023 report as his reliance.
The Claim
An excerpt of Martin’s claim reads: “Western Cluster alone shipped 438,415 metric tons of iron ore out of Bomi County (LEITI, 2023).”
Rating Justification
To fact-check this claim, we searched the LEITI report. LEITI is the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and is part of the EITI – a global Standard to promote the open and accountable management of extractive resources.
LEITI works through a Secretariat guided by a multi-stakeholder arrangement comprising the Government, civil society organizations, and private companies to improve the governance of the extractive sector in Liberia.
In the 15th LEITI report published December 2023 covering the period between July 2021 to 31 December 2022, it is established under section 4.14 [Production and exports data in the extractive sector] that the Western Cluster Iron Ore Company shipped out of Liberia a total of 438,415 metric tons out of Bomi County during that period.
Conclusion
Based on our findings, we conclude that the claim made by Martin K. N. Kollie that the Western Cluster Company shipped 438,415 metric tons of iron ore out of Bomi in 2022 is correct.
According to the 15th LEITI report, Western Cluster produced 438,415mt of iron ore in between 2021 and 2022.
This report is produced with funding from the USAID Media Activity. The funder has No say in the editorial decisions leading to the production of this content