PHOTO: The Author
By Joe Noutoua Wandah/Media Advocate/Contributing Writer
Counting from 1847 to this day in 2026, the Nation called Liberia has been in existence as black Africa’s first independent Republic for nearly 179 years with all of what it takes to live beyond poverty. In all facets, this nation should by now be developed beyond expectations as a result of the Almighty God’s bountiful blessings in term of natural resources!
Taking all things into consideration from the formation of this Nation that was never colonize, she has been sitting on trillions of dollars-worth of minerals deposited which have and continue to be stolen from her just beneficiaries by sons and daughters in cohort with stranger’s!
In 2025 a notable news outlet based in California United States of America conducted a research work on Liberia’s natural resources and came out with findings of discovering approximately 13 trillion dollars-worth of gold alone in the midst of countless natural resources buried under the Republic of Liberia! The research also indicated that about US $ 1.4 billion worth of gold are smuggled out of Liberia yearly with the help of Liberian citizens and foreigners pretending to do businesses in Liberia!
From where I sit, putting pen to paper tears running down my eyes at the results of those extreme poverty that has and continues to engulf Liberians from the 1800s even in this so-called democracy era. Here, all citizens should be benefitting the huge natural resources no matter your status or so-called political affiliations!
The painful truth remains as this Nation Liberia rich in natural resources can only boast of having been blessed with these precious resources in name. But her rightful beneficiaries are walloping in abject extreme poverty with the criminal privilege few living in their ill-gotten wealth at the expense and detriments of the poor masses, and when the M is removed, you know its pronunciation!
Taking the recent editorial in the FrontpageAfrica newspaper “LIBERIA. CANNOT AFFORD TO LOOK AWAY FROM ITS $ 2.7 BILLION MONING DISCREPANCY”
Frustratingly, the latest narrations from the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives exposes why May have been one of the most troubling economic contradictions in the history of the Nation’s existence, with a staggering US 2.7 billion discrepancy between what Liberia report as minerals exports, and what would those pretending to do businesses in the Liberian extractive industries report to the frustrated citizens of Liberia!
Accordingly, if the wealth meant for the masses survivability and transformation of the Country’s infrastructure’s development from the foundation of Liberia, which regime will ever gather the courage to directly engage these pretenders within the Country’s doing businesses!
As indicated, in the FrontpageAfrica editorial what exactly Liberia is gaining from its mining sector’s? When the rightful revenues boost the Country’s economy leaving communities neglected and forests are destroyed, then the current model is not development it is depletion!
Researchers, has also come to realization that some officials of government are allegedly having their own gold and diamond mines in sharp contrast to the mineral’s laws, which prohibits officials of government from mining in the Country.
The Nation Liberia needs to rise up to the occasion in telling the government of Liberia to act and act decisively as silence or half-measures will only deepen public mistrust and embolden those who are pretending to do businesses in the mining industry and exploiting the Nation out of trillions of dollars daily!
Discouragingly, this country is down a path where its wealth disappears into the shadows while its people bears the cost. Or it can choose transparency, accountability, and a new social contract-one where natural resources truly benefit her Nation.
The amount in question US $2.7 billion which was stolen from the Liberians people through dubious criminalities with the help of some Liberians went, but will the political elite’s muster the courage in having the political will to ensure it never happens again!