The Liberia Land Authority (LLA) has released an Investigative survey report indicting the Bea Mountain Mining Company (BMMC) of illegally encroaching on 11.5 acres of land owned by the people of Ngojah Town in Grand Cape Mount County.
Lawyers representing the people of Ngojah Town filed a writ of prohibition earlier this month, at the Supreme Court of Liberia against the BMMC, which accused the company of encroaching on its land without reference to the inhabitants.
Following a hearing by the Chamber Justice of the Supreme Court, the matter has been forwarded pending hearing by the full bench of the Supreme Court of Liberia, according to Lawyers.
The LLA investigative survey report done at the request of BMMC disputes the earlier claim by the Ngojah people that the company had encroached on 25 acres of their land.
The citizens accused the company of destroying cash crops, polluting sources of water, and damaging cultural and traditional shrines on the 11.5 acres of land.
Reports said BMMC earth-moving equipment ripped off their cash crops and ravaged the land during a special night operation, while inhabitants were indoors.
Momo Galafaley told Journalists who visited the site last week that years of planting ground peas, yams, eddoes, cassava, pepper, and potatoes on their land went in vain due to a one-night operation by the BMMC.
In January this year Rural inhabitants of Ngojah, through their Lawyers, filed a complaint to the Minister of Justice, which accused the BMMC of causing massive damage to their houses and buildings as a result of explosives used for the mining of gold and diamonds in the operating areas of the company in Grand Cape Mount County.
Disappointed by the Justice Ministry’s failure to intervene and halt the damages caused to their properties, the citizens hired Lawyers to intervene and to stop the company and relieve them.
The citizens claimed to be the legitimate owners of the land, surveyed by the Liberia Land Authority, and a formal land deed was issued to them covering over 1,500 acres of land.
They accused the BMMC of conducting several prospections of gold and diamond, ravaging the land using the areas to dump waste products containing dangerous chemical.
Journalists who visited the site made several attempts to speak to authorities of the BMMC but proved futile.
