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the town of Weahla in the Central Province, near the location of
the factory. Liberian owned rubber processing plants (though nonexistent
before 1977) and rubber processing plants of other
plantations which were already engaged in such activities were
excluded from this guarantee and Liberian farmers were not
obliged to sell their products to the Alan Grant Company.
The full details of Alan Grant's financial contribution to the
Liberian Treasury have not been traced but what is known is e.g.
that the company started to pay import duties after the
expiration of an extra 2g years' exemption from import duties,
personally granted by President Tubman on May 11, 1970 (34).
The amounts paid yearly on import duties varied between $ 29,000
and $ 44,000 in the 1972 - 1977 period.
The greater part of the investments in the rubber processing
plant, actually located in the extreme southern part of Bong
County (after the administrative reform of 1964) was financed
with loans which were provided by the parent company. Because of
these and other large amounts of outstanding loans, owed to the
parent company and affiliated subsidiaries, but also because of
improper management and embezzlement by persons in the topmanagement,
the company reported large financial losses (35).
As a result the company did not start to pay corporate income
taxes until 1976: $ 117,432 in that year, and | 168,578 in the
following year (1977). The establishment of a Government-owned
rubber processing plant in Gbarnga, a mere 60 miles from Alan
Grant's factory, is bound to affect the company's future
operations and financial results. Thus it will also affect the
company's' fi-nancial contribution to the Treasury. It is very
regrettable that research on the performance of the Alan Grant
Company was severely hampered by the lack of co-operation of
this company's management as well as by the virtual absence of
any information on this company in the files of the Concession
Secretariat or elsewhere in the Ministry of Finance.
CONCLUSION
As Chapters 3, 4 and 5 made clear, to cope with these agricultural
companies, the Government would need a fully staffed office
or agency and qualified civil servants. However, the Concession
Secretariat of the Ministry of Finance was only created
in 1972 for this purpose and did not fulfill this role in 1978.
In that year there was only one person employed with an undergraduate
degree in the section that dealt with all foreign rubber
and other agricultural concessions with the exception of
logging companies. In September of that year he left to pursue
further studies abroad. His unqualified successor was only appointed
after some time and inherited the incomplete files of
the companies discussed in the preceeding three chapters. Vir-