President Joseph Boakai brought a message to international investors on his first US foray since taking office in January – Liberia is open for business, but only on its own terms.

“I want to be clear that it’s not going to be business as usual,” the 79-year-old president tells The Africa Report.

“We live in a country where several such investments have been made, and this time around, we want to make sure we treat each other fairly. We want to ensure when you take the resources, you leave behind something that will help build our society. That’s our reward for giving you those resources.”

In Texas for the Corporate Council on Africa’s annual US-Africa Business Summit last week, Boakai welcomed us for a wide-ranging interview at the majestic Anatole Hotel near downtown Dallas before heading to Atlanta for meetings with the diaspora and business leaders.

Throughout his trip, he touted Liberia’s democratic values and smooth transfer of power, its commitment to ending impunity for corruption and human rights abuses, and its eagerness to engage with America’s estimated 95,000 Liberian-born diaspora.

ArcelorMittal to relinquish control

Among the new president’s priorities is an effort to get ArcelorMittal to relinquish some control over the Indian steel giant’s 155-mile rail line connecting the iron ore deposits of the Nimba mountain range in the northeast to the port of Buchanan south of Monrovia.

While former President George Weah granted ArcelorMittal exclusive use of the railway, Boakai appears unafraid to throw down with his country’s largest foreign investor.

“ArcelorMittal has said they are open to multi-use, but they want to have some measure of control,” Boakai says. “Now, I do have a problem with that.”

Boakai defeated Weah in November by a razor-thin margin of fewer than 21,000 votes out of 1.6 million ballots cast. A former minister of agriculture from 1983 to 1985 and longtime vice president under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from 2006 to 2018, Boakai campaigned on a promise to tackle the endemic corruption in the West African nation of 5.5 million people.

The Africa Report: Fighting corruption was a central theme of your campaign. Were you able to convince investors?

President Boakai: I don’t do things in Liberia or say things to please people. I do them to make sure Liberians know we’re going to build our country. We’ll be a place where people are encouraged to go for investment and they’re going to work in a decent environment.

US-registered High-Power Exploration (HPX) says it’s ready to build its own $5bn railway if ArcelorMittal won’t carry its ore from Guinea. You’ve met with HPX founder Robert Friedland. What’s the latest?

There might [be] other potential users of ArcelorMittal’s railway, other companies we’re negotiating with. ArcelorMittal has said they are open to multi-use, but they want to have some measure of control. Now, I do have a problem with that, because a measure of control should be regulated, because all persons who are coming to invest in the country need the enabling environment that the government can create.

If ArcelorMittal says they want to have control, we know they will be competitors and rivals. We can almost suspect to what extent that control will be – meaning, on [their] terms. We’ll be convening a roundtable where we may have to insist that the government become a significant player.

Besides that, I have asked for research on what we call best practices, anywhere where there’s such an arrangement and how it’s working, because this is not a unique situation. I know there are best practices in Australia and other places where mining is going on. We want to learn from that to see how we can all agree to the multi-use of the railway.

What is the timeline?

We just took over the government and have been trying to get settled down, to appoint ministers.

Apart from ArcelorMittal, all other entities so far are still in the making. They have given us letters of intent and put up proposals, and we [are] looking at them. When we finally decide … we will call the parties to understand how we will have this multi-use.

I have spoken to some consultants about how they work in this or that country, and those reports will soon be in.

Why is it so important to Liberia that other users be able to share the railway?

Several players will want to be involved in mining. Building a railway is expensive. It might be a saving from both sides – from the investor side and our side – because these things have to be amortised over a certain period.

By multi-use, I don’t mean wholly and solely for mining purposes. We also will have to ensure there are other users in other areas, like agriculture and transportation.

Liberians should be able to move and use those trains to transport goods. Multi-use will be significant for the economy and also avoiding wasteful duplication.

The US has sanctioned several former Liberian officials for their alleged corruption. Do you think that’s the right approach? What are you doing to tackle the problem of bad actors?

The Americans did it their way, according to their laws. However, we can only come in when we conduct an audit to prove that when one worked in this place they did bad things. That’s the only time we can weed out these corrupt people and bring them to justice.

Following action by the legislative branch, you signed an executive order on 2 May creating a War and Economic Crimes Court to seek justice for victims of Liberia’s civil wars. How serious is that effort when alleged perpetrators have signed on?

We know that many people serving in government were among those [accused]. The fact of the matter is that while we are concerned about the people who committed these atrocities, we are also concerned about those who have been hurt in the process, like widows and children. Some are now wayward because they didn’t have anybody to look after them.

Let’s deal with impunity because some of the people who are believed to have been involved have not seen themselves as people who are responsible, and have no sense of remorse. They probably believe what they did was okay.

What about reparations? Who will pay for them? Does the international community have a role to play?

I am not the one to determine that, but I am sure the people who were hurt and experienced losses may want to be given something to make up for it.

Some issues go beyond just Liberia. There are international groupings that wanted to see this happen. I’m sure while they were thinking about it happening, they also had in mind that there would be some resources. We will inform the UN about issuing the executive order. I am sure they have a good idea of how to go about that.

You unveiled your ambitious ARREST (Agriculture, Roads, Rule of Law, Education, Sanitation and Tourism) agenda during your inauguration in January. Is there an aspect that you prioritise over others, or maybe something that you think needs to be dealt with first? 

Some of these things are cross-cutting. We are an agrarian economy. We have vast land, water, and good soil. There’s no reason why we cannot produce food for ourselves.

You talk about roads: That has been one of the most critical problems in Liberia – access. It cuts across so many things, including health conditions. It also speaks to the price of commodities and how they get to the end user.

Without the rule of law, you’re not going to attract investors and you’re not going to have a society that is fair or democratic.

On education, I know several countries that don’t have the kind of resources that we do but they are doing very well. The reason is because they have an educated society. We need to educate our children to prepare them for the country’s future.

Then we go to sanitation. If we keep our environment clean, we observe sanitation as an important contribution to life itself. It goes a long way toward our health.

Finally, tourism. About 46% of the West African forest area is in Liberia. We have good fishing in our ocean. We are green year-round, everywhere you go, and we also have parks that tourists can visit. Tourism will create jobs for young people. When you set up a hospitality industry, and build hotels, you give young people job opportunities. Therefore ARREST cuts across almost all the areas of development.

Liberia reportedly overtook Panama as the world’s largest ship registry last year. How have allegations of deceptive maritime practices and disruptions to navigation around the world – particularly in the Red Sea – affected an industry that contributes tens of millions of dollars in revenue to Liberia every year?

This is an international crisis, but Liberia loses revenue when we have problems with shipping. Liberia also bears some ill-reputation when shipping lines [run into issues]. We must put in place some regulatory measures for ships carrying our flag so they understand they are carrying our name, and put in place a code of conduct that will protect our reputation.

Liberia has been involved [in shipping] for quite a long time. It’s a source of revenue, so we are under obligation to protect that. We have to deal with credible shipping lines that abide by the laws.