Bea Mountain Paid Nothing on 16.4 Million Gallons of Diesel, Senate Probe Finds

MONROVIA — Bea Mountain Mining Corp. lifted 16.4 million gallons of diesel over nine months without paying any of the petroleum levies that fund county equipment and community development, Gbarpolu County Sen. Amara M. Konneh said Tuesday. He said the company accounts for more than half of the money importers failed to pay.

By Lennart Dodoo

Sen. Konneh chairs the Special Senate Committee to Review Petroleum Levies to Fund Counties’ Equipment and Communities’ Social Development. He told the Senate that the committee’s preliminary reconciliation found 21 of 25 importers underpaid. The review compared Liberia Petroleum Refining Co. lifting records with Liberia Revenue Authority collections from October to December 2025 and from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2026, a period in which importers lifted about 107 million gallons.

“The largest single variance is Bea Mountain Mining Corporation: 16.4 million gallons of AGO lifted, zero dollars paid,” Konneh said in a statement delivered on the Senate floor after the legislative break. He said the company owes $1.8 million, or 55% of the total gap.

Sen. Konneh said Bea Mountain claims a duty-free exemption. He said the Senate will ask the minister of finance to produce the legal basis for that exemption within 72 hours.

“Until then, no company is above the law this Senate has made that funds our counties,” he said.

The committee met with the LRA, the LPRC and every petroleum importer except Bea Mountain, Konneh said. He said the final report will recommend a “No Pay, No Lift” rule, under which the LPRC could not release fuel without real-time LRA confirmation of payment through a digital system backed by a commercial bank.

Konneh also warned colleagues against building the fiscal 2027 budget on what he called a windfall. He said fiscal 2026 revenue was lifted by a one-off US$200 million concession bonus. Without it, he said, structural revenue is US$1.1 billion, not the US$1.3 billion headline. The fiscal 2026 budget was approved at US$1.249 billion and rose to US$1.303 billion with a supplementary budget.

“We must not treat windfall as permanent space and plan expenditures around it,” he said. He warned that keeping spending at US$1.3 billion would create a structural deficit of US$100 million to US$150 million.

He said citizens are not feeling the country’s growth because inflation has outpaced it every year. In fiscal 2026, by his figures, growth was 5.5% and inflation 5.9%. He said growth is concentrated in mining, which expanded 16.6% but employs few Liberians, while agriculture grew 1.3%. He said execution of the Public Sector Investment Program in health and education stands at about 4%.

Konneh said diesel prices rose from L$840 to L$1,235 a gallon between October 2024 and September 2026, a 47% increase, while gasoline rose from L$775 to L$985. He said an earlier Senate investigation he co-chaired with Sen. Nuquay found consumers were overcharged L$131 million because the wrong exchange rate was used.

He proposed that the LPRC be required to publish its full pricing formula every week. He also proposed that, if the US$3.24 million in levy leakage is recovered, gasoline prices be cut by 5 cents for six months for keke and motorbike operators.

Sen. Konneh closed by asking the Senate to summon the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Youth and Sports to a joint hearing on drug abuse before budget debate begins. He said the LDEA received less than US$2 million for operations in fiscal 2026, and that no public rehabilitation center exists outside Monrovia.

“Let us fund prevention, not just funerals,” he said.

He said elders and mothers in Gbarpolu raised drugs with him before roads or schools during his constituency visits to Nguowolala and Gbarma districts.