Those on the list include Rivercess Senior Senator Jonathan Banney. Senator Banney would initially face his peers for "appropriate action", after which he would be scraped of immunity, in case of wrongdoing, and released to the government to be forwarded to the Justice Ministry for further probe, according to a special statement from the presidency.

From the ministry findings, the government would make the determination to prosecute the lawmaker for what role he may have played in the deal.

In keeping with a special committee's recommendation, the President has also immediately dismissed and forwarded to the Ministry of Justice for further investigation and possible prosecution FDA CIS Manager Augustine Johnson, technical advisor Joseph Neufville, and director of public procurement and concession commission, Mrs. Peggy Varflay Meres.
According to the special statement, President Sirleaf has also reprimanded and sent former FDA managing director John Woods, legal officer Cllr. Benedict Sorgbeh, and Planning Ministry chief of staff Edward Eesieh, to the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LAC) for further investigation, in keeping with the special committee's recommendation.

Also reprimanded for issuing blanket concession certificate covering forest management contracts without exercising required due diligence, was Planning Minister Amara Mohamed Konneh, according to the Analyst newspaper of Liberia.

The special statement did not say what the President did or intended to do to Minister Konneh, who heads the nerve center of the administration's recover efforts.

Restrictions

But it noted that the government has directed the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice to start the process of extraditing CHC manager, Michael Foster, to the UK. Concomitantly, the recommendation said the government should prosecute Mr. George Antwi under the "Bribery Laws" of Liberia. Mr. Antwi is a Liberian who represents CHC as its Liberia agent.

Also, the President has forwarded former Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. Ambulai Johnson, to the Ministry of Justice for possible prosecution. The President has meanwhile mandated the Ministry of State to "deepen, expand, and strictly enforce the existing restriction" on visits to the President.

The restriction, the statement said, covers visits requested by investors, business people, legislators, government officials, relatives, and political and personal associates of the President.

The President described the mandate for tightening the knot on public visitation as an "additional step not covered by the report", but she came short of saying why it was necessary to take the action.

The President's "move to prosecute" actions were based on the recommendations of the Special Presidential Committee she set up in June this year to investigate a Global Witness report that a British citizen was prosecuted in Britain for obtaining 400,000 hectares of forest in Liberia, through fraud and misrepresentation, to harvest "carbon credits".

Incidentally, a carbon credit is a common term for any tradable certificate or permit representing the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide.

Puzzle

What that actually means vis-à-vis the size of the forest acquired by CHC and why that claimed the attention of the British government to the extent of taking action without reference or recourse to the government of Liberia, remains a puzzle to most Liberians.
But President Sirleaf said the committee's report would be made available to the public, to throw light on its doubts, after it was reproduced and distributed to those linked in the fraud and misrepresentation.

Observers recall that barely two weeks after the world's investment watchdog, Global Witness, reported that Liberia was being robbed of tax revenues and railroaded into something its government may not be able to regulate for lack of appropriate technology, President Sirleaf set up the Special Presidential Committee with Cllr. T. Negbalee Warner in charge.

President Sirleaf said protocol demands that the findings and recommendations of the report should first be released to the accused and then to the public prior to any presidential action, but that she has been forced to reverse the process for important reasons.

"This disclosure on action taken represents a departure from previous practice because our justice system is long in enforcing judgment," she noted, prompting observers to suspect that she was hopping mad.

Hopping mad or not, the President said the government would respect the "principle of our constitution and laws which say that all of those accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty by due process in the courts".

Analysts say while the President action represented a twist in the combat of corruption, whether it represented a change for the better would be determined by what happened at the Justice Ministry and beyond in coming weeks and months.

“Identifying and forwarding suspected felons to the Justice Ministry for further investigation and possible prosecution may be part of the constitutional due process, but the Justice Ministry has become the graveyard for corruption cases. Until it ceases to be that, the public will see the President's announcement as a déjá vu," they said.

According to them, combating corruption by the practice of accusation without prosecution is not only counterproductive, but it also justifies claims that the government may secretly be trading corruption for political support.

President Sirleaf has been rejecting speculations that her administration may be pampering known perpetrators of acts of corruption, but the strength of that rejection, analysts say, will be measured by what happened to the ten officials linked to the CHC fraud.