Published: April 15, 2026
MONROVIA — While extracting roughly 900 kilograms of gold every month from the impoverished communities of Grand Cape Mount County, Bea Mountain Mining Corporation was simultaneously importing nearly everything its workers consumed, from eggs, chicken and honey to soap, detergents and toilet tissue, goods that sit on shelves in markets across Liberia, documents obtained by The Liberian Investigator reveal.
The documents, including an official letter from the former Minister of Commerce and Industry, show that close to 90 percent of the company’s consumables were being shipped into the country under import permits, bypassing the Liberian businesses and farmers that the company’s own concession agreement was designed to support.
The disclosures come days after Bea Mountain disclosed publicly last weekend the scale of its gold extraction, a figure that has sharpened public debate about how much of the country’s mineral wealth is actually benefiting Liberians.
Importing the Basics While Mining the Country’s Gold
Former Minister of Commerce and Industry Amin Modad, whose official correspondence was leaked to this paper by a source inside Bea Mountain, confirmed the imports in a detailed Facebook post that amplified what the documents already showed.
“Nearly 90 percent of their consumables were being imported, including basic goods that were readily available in Liberia,” Modad wrote, listing eggs, soap, detergents, oils, honey, meat products and building materials among the items the company was bringing in rather than buying locally.
The imports were processed through Import Permit Declarations filed with the Ministry of Commerce, giving the government a direct paper trail of what the company was sourcing from abroad. Modad said his ministry moved to shut it down.
“These concessions and incentives were granted to help overcome perceived risks, such as instability or high initial capital costs,” he wrote. “But the intentions are not only to support their operations. The government hopes that their investments would have trickledown impact such as fair revenue share, creating jobs, fostering infrastructure development, stimulating the domestic economy, and empowering Liberian businesses, particularly within concession communities.”
Modad told Bea Mountain directly that it was counterproductive to import goods that Liberian farmers and traders were already producing and selling. After months of pressure and what he described as sustained attempts to influence his position, the company eventually conceded and began sourcing more goods locally.
“After sustained resistance, they complied, and we saw measurable positive impacts on domestic trade,” he wrote.
The Water Factory That Pushed Out a Liberian Business
The groceries were only part of the story. A source familiar with the matter told this paper that the owner of Ducor Water, a Liberian water supply company, traveled to the Ministry of Commerce to report that Bea Mountain had abruptly canceled its supply contract with him. He had learned, through his own inquiries, that the mining company had quietly constructed a water bottling plant inside its concession and intended to produce its own water.
When Bea Mountain subsequently filed for import permits to bring in raw materials for water production, Modad refused and summoned the company to a formal conference.
Modad confirmed the sequence of events in his Facebook post, writing that the company’s move into bottled water was directly displacing an existing Liberian supplier. His ministry’s response was that if equipment already in the country was going to be used at all, a genuine Liberian-owned company, not Bea Mountain, had to own and run the operation.
“We insisted on genuine partnerships with Liberian-owned companies and even offered to mediate on pricing and quality to support local suppliers,” he wrote.
Then Came the Cement Factory
Before the water dispute was fully resolved, the Ministry of Commerce received a new round of import permit requests, this time for clinker, the primary raw material used in cement production. Bea Mountain, it emerged, had also constructed a cement manufacturing facility and had already imported the equipment and raw materials to run it.
In a formal letter dated Oct. 4, 2024, Modad ordered Bea Mountain to immediately halt operations at both its water bottling plant and its cement manufacturing facility. The letter cited the company’s violation of its own Mineral Development Agreement and repeated government directives.
“Many of these business activities are outside the core operations of Bea Mountain Corporation as a mining company,” the letter states. “An integral part of the mandate of the Ministry is to create the enabling environment for the growth and development of local industries by encouraging the use of local content that would lead to the growth of Liberian enterprises and job creation.”
The letter noted that three companies were already producing cement in Liberia, with a fourth underway, and that numerous water bottling companies had operated in the market for years. Bea Mountain was cited to a meeting Oct. 8, 2024, at the Ministry’s conference room to discuss the way forward.
In a separate communication, Modad was direct with company management: “We will not allow you to get into manufacturing, especially when there are several other manufacturers of cement and foodstuffs that you could purchase from.” He added that the ministry stood ready to mediate directly with existing local suppliers on pricing and product specifications if that was the company’s concern.
The Letter, Then the Allegations
Modad did not move on quietly after sending the Oct. 4 letter. In his Facebook post, he drew an explicit connection between that communication and what followed.
“Shortly thereafter, coupled with my attempt to open the market for various products, the well-oiled smear campaign and false allegations emerged,” he wrote. He subsequently resigned from the Cabinet, though he did not elaborate publicly on the specific allegations made against him.
“My position is predicated upon the President’s clear goals as enshrined in the ARREST Agenda, to empower Liberian business and stimulate growth of the domestic economy,” Modad wrote in the letter, grounding his ministry’s entire stance in President Joseph Boakai’s flagship development program.
900 Kilograms a Month, and a Bigger Question
Bea Mountain’s weekend disclosure that it extracts approximately 900 kilograms of gold monthly from Grand Cape Mount has given the broader dispute fresh urgency. Modad addressed the gap between what the company produces and what Liberians receive in blunt terms.
“The inequitable contributions to the government and people are just inconceivably mind-boggling,” he wrote, pointing to public concerns about the disparity between the company’s net profits and the percentage paid to the government as compounding the local sourcing failures.
He called for a fundamental shift in how Liberia structures its relationship with large-scale mining companies, arguing that a royalty-based model is no longer adequate.
“It’s high time that we moved from this royalty-based model to a well-structured shareholding model based on physical gold,” he wrote.
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