Butaw District, Sinoe: Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) Inc believes that recent articles published by The DayLight and republished in FrontPage Africa, “GVL Fails to Build Hand Pumps, Allegedly Dirties Creeks” and “Over Land Grab, GVL Defies Watchdog with Impunity” contain inaccuracies that present a misleading view of the company’s work to support local communities.

GVL is committed to fulfilling the obligations contained in our Concession Agreement and the Principles and Criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Oil Palm (RSPO). This includes protecting water sources and ensuring that communities have access to clean and safe drinking water.

GVL has complied with the RSPO’s recommendations and the complaint against GVL is currently closed for monitoring https://rspo.my.site.com/…/case/50090000028ErzuAAC/detail]

We supply regular publicly available updates detailing progress on resolving this complaint.

Construction of hand pumps

GVL’s commitments to the communities around our plantations are listed in the Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) agreed with these groups. The MoUs include an agreement to build hand pumps for each population between 25 and 150 people affected by our operations.

GVL has worked with communities to fulfil its MoU commitments and over the past 10 years has constructed over 40 hand pumps and rehabilitated more than 70 existing hand pumps in six communities in Sinoe County, including Du-Wolee Nyennue Township. We believe we have gone beyond our MoU obligation, in some cases building hand pumps for areas below the population threshold outlined in these agreements.

GVL acknowledges feedback from communities that some hand pumps that it has constructed are not operating properly and require maintenance. We also recognize more clarity is needed to define who is responsible for maintaining pumps built by GVL and by other parties. This is an ongoing process. GVL is negotiating revised MoUs with communities, which will include improvements to this process in future.

Ensuring water quality

GVL is committed to protecting the environment around our estates and takes reports of water pollution seriously. We are committed to the agreements signed with communities that require us to provide safe drinking water where water sources are affected by GVL’s operations

All water sources including creeks have been documented during the participatory mapping process and GVL has established buffer zones between its operations and these water sources, as required.

We also ensure that water testing is done annually by an independent party as required by EPA regulations. Recent assessments conducted in 2023 and 2024 did not identify any issues. The results are available to the public

GVL remains committed to engaging with communities to understand and address their concerns, and encourages communities to channel any grievances to the company through the Community Representative Committees (CRC). GVL guarantees that all grievances are investigated and we will work with communities to address valid concerns.