ArcelorMittal Accused of Shortchanging Liberia $1.4 Billion in Taxes — Experts Dispute the Real Figure
- Michael T
- Oct 8
- 2 min read
MONROVIA, Liberia, Oct 8 — Senator Nyan Twayen of Nimba County has leveled sweeping accusations against ArcelorMittal Liberia, charging the mining giant with depriving the country of as much as $1.4 billion in alleged unpaid taxes and “undeclared profits” amid a multibillion-dollar mining boom.
Armed with numbers paraphrased from independent analyst findings, Twayen charged that ArcelorMittal has raked in $8 billion in total revenue off a $3 billion investment, pocketing net profits up to $5 billion while not giving Liberia its dues. “Thirty percent of this profit, about $1.5 billion, remains unaccounted for,” the Senator insisted, warning that no fresh negotiations should happen until the Inter-Ministerial Committee and the Presidency confront what he calls a glaring gap in government revenue.
But ArcelorMittal’s defenders are pushing back, calling the headline-grabbing figure nothing more than financial fiction. Dr. James Kollie, former head of Liberia’s maritime authority, slammed the simplified math as “an interesting conversation but much more complicated than a back-of-the-envelope calculation.” Kollie flagged that the Senator’s model erases operating expenses, transport, and quality penalties—key costs that must be diced from revenue before calculating real profits.
Boakai Jalieba, once inside ArcelorMittal Liberia’s ranks and now a deputy director at the national oil company, labeled the huge tax claim “built on a fundamental misunderstanding of mining finance and maybe for the lack of better description, tax accounting.” He argued the accusation wrongly subtracts the entire $3 billion capital investment from revenue, instead of spreading it out via depreciation—as proper financial analysis demands. “Your conclusion of a $1.4 billion unpaid tax bill is incorrect due to several critical errors,” Jalieba wrote, highlighting real-world iron mining costs of $40–$70 per ton and slashed sales value once freight and quality deductions are applied.
The standoff has thrown Liberia’s largest foreign investor into the political crosshairs, fueling urgent calls for forensic audits and sharper government oversight. Still, as lawmakers and experts wrangle over spreadsheets and mineral royalties, the only certainty is that when it comes to mining profits in Liberia, the simple math is anything but simple.
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