The_Open_Door_deel1

-238-
a railroad from the Bong Range to the Free Port of Monrovia
already required a considerable outlay of capital.
The construction of the mine, which began in 1962, was completed
in 1965. A total of $ 76.1 million had been invested, the major
investments representing the construction of the railroad
($ 18.3 million) and a concentrator ($ 22.0 million) (87). On
November 12, 1965 the formal opening of the Bong mine took place.
On this occasion President William Tubman, then over 21 years in
power, made some statements about his policy of economic development
:
"The Open Door Policy has benefitted many Liberians and
Liberia itself, but until now it had perhaps benefitted
more greatly those of our foreign partners whose pockets
are too deep for us to plump. However, we are not in the
position to contest this issue,"
He contradicted, however, the tendency of these remarks by cont
inuing
"Ue can only rely on tho^e concessions which have preceded
you, for they have established a tradidion of
which both of us are equally staisfied and proud". (88)
This statement of William Tubman is one of his most critical
evaluations of his own policy of "equal sharing" and "mutual
benefits" with respect to the distribution of the benefits of
private foreign investments. By admitting that he was not in a
position to contest this issue he may have intended to refer to
his powerlessness to have this situation of unequal sharing
changed. This acknowledgement implies that he needed the support
of the foreign investors to remain in power. For, against the
background of Liberia's historical fight to remain an
independent and sovereign nation, it is highly probable that a
dependency on foreigners was only implicitly accepted with a
view to deriving short-term political advantages. In other
words, the aim was to continue the control of the domestic political
affairs of the country and to gain strength as a nation
by using the nation's untapped natural resourses.
Fiscal aspects of B.M.C
The contribution of the Bong mine to the Treasury was
considerable in absolute amounts though in relative terms it
represented only about 2 per cent of the Government's total
income in each of the years 1965 - 1977, with the exception of
1975 when Bong contributed nearly 10 per cent of Total Revenue
of the Treasury (see Table 15). In 1968 the Gross Profit of
B.M.C. which was transferred to DELIMCO was - after deducting the
latter company's administrative and other costs - for the first
time sufficiently large to have the Liberian Government share in
these net profits, which yielded tax payments amounting to
$ 1,158,000.00 (89). In previous years Article 12 of the
Agreement had applied resulting in royalty payments to the
Government. Total tax and royalty payments to the Government in