Monrovia, Sept. 23 -- Grand Kru County has not had a working cattle herd in a generation. Its old county ranch is mostly memory now - cleared pasture reclaiming itself, pens that haven't held an animal in years. So, when the Ministry of Agriculture said 200 Muturu cows were coming, and that this southeastern county would be first in line, it read to many there as more than a delivery of livestock. It read as a promise that the ranch, and the income it once supported, might come back to life.

Rodney D. Sieh, rodney.sieh@rodney.sieh@frontpageafricaonline.com

That promise is now tangled in a dispute over money - one playing out not between the ministry and its critics on the ground, but between the Ministry of Agriculture and the national ...