The_Open_Door_deel1

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for further details of the 1958 agreement with N.I.O.C. But
whereas the shortcomings of the 1945 agreement had been partly
corrected in the 1953 Collateral Agreement and the 1965
Amendatory and Tax Agreement, the agreement with N.I.O.C. was
never amended, with the exception of an insignificant change in
1973 when through an addendum to the concession agreement of
1958 N.I.O.C. was granted an additional 300 acres of land for the
disposal of the company's tailings.
One of the major areas in which the concession agreement fails
to provide any provisions concerns the matter of financial accountability.
It is therefore impossible to determine whether
the company's financial statements were drawn up in accordance
with the spirit and letter of the concession agreement although
an examination of the company's accounts in 1977 revealed various
deviations from generally accepted accounting principles.
The financial and fiscal consequences of these accounting practices,
however, were limited and, if corrected, would not have
turned N.I.O.C.'s losses (in the 1970's) into profits and would
not have generated any revenue for the Government (99).
Following the disappearance of L.M.C in 1977 and the revision of
the concession agreements with the two other iron ore mining
companies (LAMCO J.V. and B.M.C.) in 1974, N.I.O.C. has become
the sole concessionaire in Liberia with the right to exploit not
only iron ore but also other (not specified) ores, metals,
minerals and precious stones, and with a concession agreement for
80 years which has also become an exception (100). One wonders
why the anachronism which constitutes the N.I.0.C-concession was
not eliminated and why the undesirable situation resulting from a
concession agreement which was signed twenty years ago, has .
remained unchanged. As early as September 1970 recommendations
had been made in favour of certain amendments by the Government -
commissioned auditing firm of Whinnay, Murray & Company but.in
its May 1977 report the company had to report the same
"inequities, anomalies and ambiguities" as it had been seven
years earlier (101). With the ownership of fifty percent of
N.I.O.C's shares the Government certainly is in a better position
to modernize the agreement with N.I.O.C. than it was during
the discussions with Firestone, LAMCO, and Bong Mining Company -
which even so resulted in the revision of their concession agreements.
One wonders what the role of the Liberian participants in the
mining company might have been. Though the owners of Liberian
Enterprises Ltd. are not known, except the Christie Estate, there
are indications that the list of Liberian shareholders - who
together hold about 57? of the shares of this company - includes
a large number of small investors but also reflects the political
top of the 195O's which, apparently, was put under pressure by
Tubman to invest in the Mano River mine (102). The list of
N.I.O.C. "s senior officials for the 196O's .shows the names of
Charles D. Sherman, President, William Tolbert Jr., Treasurer,