Associates of Liberia’s ex-president, Charles Taylor, are selling off that country’s stately ambassadorial residence in Pretoria — but there are questions about whether the revenue will reach Liberian government coffers.
The residence, in upmarket St Patrick’s Road, Muckleneuk, has been vacant for about two years. It was put on the market last week at an asking price of R1,7-million. This coincides with Taylor stepping down from his country’s presidency under international pressure and leaving for exile in Nigeria.
There is speculation that Taylor, whose personal funds have been frozen, may be looking for quick cash from Liberian government property he controls.
Estate agents handling the sale this week refused to say who had put the house on the market, citing client confidentiality. The Liberian chargé d’affaires in South Africa, Antoinette Nimely, would not elaborate.
Regardless of who had ordered the sale, however, ownership records make it clear that Nimely and two associates of Taylor are likely to be involved. Both associates — Benoni Urey and Gerald Cooper — have featured prominently in United Nations investigations into “off-budget” expenditure by Taylor’s government to fund illicit weapons purchases.
Deeds office records show that the house was bought for R1,1-million in 1998 by an offshore entity named “St Paul Company Inc Liberia”.
The mirror local registration of St Paul Company cites Nimely, Urey and Cooper as directors — in other words, they are likely to have control over the property.
Urey, Liberia’s Commissioner for Maritime Affairs, has come in for particularly scathing criticism from the UN. A panel of experts, appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to monitor compliance with UN sanctions, reported in October 2001: “[Urey] and his Maritime Affairs Bureau are little more than a cash extraction operation and cover from which to fund and organise opaque off-budget expenditures, including for sanctions-busting.”
The UN report says between 25% and 50% of the Liberian official budget is derived from Liberia’s status as a “flag of convenience” for international shipping operators. In 2001 roughly a third of the world’s oil tankers, by tonnage, flew the Liberian flag. The Liberian shipping registry, which reports to Urey’s Maritime Affairs Bureau, collects fees and taxes from shipping operators.
The report found that, among other things, in 2000 Urey had ordered the registry to pay $525 000 and $400 000 directly — in other words before it could reach the Liberian public purse — to a United Arab Emirates company. “These two payments were for arms and transportation in violation of Security Council resolutions.”
The recipient company, San Air General Trading, was part of the network of international air cargo kingpin-cum-weapons dealer Victor Bout, a Russian citizen once resident in South Africa and since alleged to have armed terrorists.
Cooper, the third director of the St Paul Company, is similarly implicated. After being caught facilitating an embargo-busting armoured vehicle transaction between the United States and Liberia, he was expelled from Britain in 1999. He had served there as Liberia’s permanent representative to the UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
According to the UN report, part of the payment in the armoured vehicle deal had come from a bank account of Cooper’s mission to the IMO. It seems to be this same mechanism — Liberian government funds, but off-budget — that was used in 1998 to buy the ambassador’s residence in Pretoria.
Documentation obtained by the Mail & Guardian shows that the house would originally have been bought by Lorenzo Witherspoon and his wife in early 1998. Witherspoon was accredited as Liberia’s ambassador to South Africa that year.
But in March 1998 the Witherspoons were substituted as buyers by St Paul Company. About the same time $300 000 was wired by Cooper’s IMO mission in London to pay for the house.
The structure of the deal suggests that though the money used to buy the residence was likely to have been from Liberian government funds, it may well have been off-budget — not formally accounted in Liberia. And the private registration of the house to St Paul Company — associates of Taylor’s — as well as the timing of the sale, raises the question whether the revenue from the sale is destined for Liberian state coffers.
A source with knowledge of the deal this week said it appeared that the house had fallen into private hands though government funds had been used.
Witherspoon’s accreditation as Liberian ambassador was withdrawn in late 2000 and he later vacated the residence. Nimely, as his chargé d’affaires, has since then been the most senior Liberian diplomat stationed in South Africa.
Taylor himself may earlier have considered using the Pretoria residence as a bolthole. While he was still weighing his options last month about going into exile, there were reports that his son, Chucky Taylor, had left for South Africa. These reports were quickly denied, but a diplomatic source confirmed them this week. He said, however, that Taylor Jnr had been deported from South Africa within 24 hours.
Former ambassador Witherspoon, who now runs a consultancy in Pretoria serving among others the World Bank and United Nations, refused to comment on the sale of the ambassadorial residence, saying: “Even in exile, Charles Taylor’s reach is long. He can get at anyone anywhere.”
Nimely on Thursday denied having anything to do with St Paul Company and argued it was not accountable. “Whatever the company [St Paul] does with it [revenue from the sale] is their business; it is nothing to do with you or me.”