Sierra Leone minister of mines’ secret ‘licences’ to Chinese goldmining companies

James Fallah-Williams: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 8 July 2021:

Following the exposure of the illegal Chinese goldmining operations in Penguia Chiefdom, Kailahun District, the minister of mines and mineral resources, Mr Timothy Kabbah (Photo above), has secretly awarded mining licences to a company called Metals and Minerals Trading (SL) Limited – one of the illegal Chinese mining companies operating in Penguia Chiefdom – without due process.

The ministry has granted two licences to the company. The first was the Environment Impact Assessment Licence, which was granted by the Government of Sierra Leone’s Environment Protection Agency (under the auspices of the ministry) for a period of 12 months.

The licence is dated 14th June 2021, but it was secretly granted after the publication of our investigative article in the United Kingdom on 20th June 2021, which exposed the minister and his involvement in the illegal goldmining taking place in Penguia Chiefdom. The licence was backdated in an attempt to indicate that it predated the investigative article.

The second licence, titled Small-Scale Mining License No SML 8/2021, was granted on 22nd June 2021, two days after the investigative article was published. The minister of mines and mineral resources secretly granted these operating licences without due process to Metals and Minerals Trading (SL) Limited to mine gold in Penguia Chiefdom.

Before the licences were granted, a handwritten document purporting to be a notice of consent was signed by local chiefs in Kono-Bendu (one of the villages where the illegal mining is taking place) and Metals and Minerals Trading (SL) Limited. It is dated 13th June 2021, and we consider it to be highly likely that it was signed after our investigative article was published and was then backdated.

The agreement states that the local chiefs have agreed to host Metals and Minerals Trading (SL) Limited and have allowed them to build a camp on their land. It also states that the chiefs will work “peacefully with the company as nobody force them on us” (sic). The chiefs, who are illiterate, signed the document using thumbprints. The only people who could sign with a pen were the company secretary, Anthony B. Gogra, and the witnesses, who were also associated with the company.

A single page ‘agreement’ called ‘Consent Note’ shows signatures of two chiefs (in thumbprints) and signatures of company-associated people acting as representative and witnesses (Photo above).

The minister of mines and mineral resources is the key overseer of the devastating illegal mining going on in Penguia Chiefdom. After having his actions exposed, he has gone out to secretly award mining licences without due process.

The investigative article clearly highlighted the catastrophic environmental and health problems resulting from deadly chemicals percolating into the streams that are the main sources of drinking water for the villages within and beyond the mining areas. Two of the illiterate chiefs who signed the documents have medical issues caused by polluted drinking water – but they cannot say this publicly.

The people of Kono-Bendu, Saalu and all the other towns and villages, including Sandaru, are experiencing health problems because of polluted water systems. The number of first-trimester miscarriages is higher here than in the chiefdoms in the district where mining is not taking place, as is the number of children being born with disabilities, including neurological conditions – but culturally, talking about these things is a taboo. Young men who work in the mines or drink from polluted rivers are suffering with dizziness, weakness and low libido. The miners are subject to prolonged exposure to cyanide and heavy metals. This carries a high risk of developing cancer, but the people here are not informed about this risk.

The environmental impact assessment, which has apparently been completed and signed off in a couple of days, tramples upon the lives of the people of Penguia, who are getting ill or are dying as a result of the mining. Most of the communities here rely on fish from the rivers to feed their families. The fish consume cyanide and heavy metals which enter the water from the mines, and they pass these on directly to the people who eat them.

The signing and awarding of the licences just two days after the publication of the investigative article is a frightening illustration of ineptness by the minister and shows the seriously entrenched corruption that is sweeping this country to its death.

Can the minister answer the following questions?

Did the ministry publish any environmental impact assessment carried out by the company in Penguia Chiefdom?  If so, when was this assessment carried out, and by which approved national body?

Did the ministry carry out its own assessment, including testing the rivers for pollutants, determining the impact of any pollutants on the lives of the communities, and investigating whether the rivers are suitable for human use and for wildlife?

Since the minister granted these licences to the company just a few days ago, to whom have the company been paying their taxes in the past three years?

A well-placed chiefdom individual told me that they were never consulted by the minister about the mining licences. He said: ‘He never consulted us, the chiefdom people, or the landowners.’

When the article was published on 20th June, the first thing the minister should have done was to order the suspension of all mining activities in the chiefdom, and then carry out a thorough investigation in consultation with the community. Instead, the minister circumvented this process by secretly granting state licences to the illegal miners; basically granting the companies licences to kill.

We have acquired several videos, including a footage from Kono-Bendu where, last week, the company used bulldozers and excavators to clear local landowners’ plantations at night! The shocked plantation owners discovered in the morning that their livelihoods had been destroyed. The company had paid gangs and given them bikes to go round to intimidate and attack landowners.

As a local youth filmed the activities, one of the paid gang members attempted to wrestle the equipment from him, which resulted in a scuffle. Local landowners watch helplessly as the excavators linger in the background of a devastated plantation; seeing them lamenting their loss is a harrowing sight.

This is a grim situation, especially in a community where, according to a World Food Programme (WFP) report published just over four weeks ago, 93% of people are food-insecure; they rely on their plantations to buy food for their families.

In another village, Kongo-nannie, a group of youths filmed the community river, Mongayee, which is polluted beyond use. As the voiceover in the film explains, this is where they used to get drinking water from, and where they used to fish, bathe, and wash their clothes.

Evidence collected from field activities is now being submitted in a report to the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. The report asks the UK Foreign Office to intervene.

A UK rights group involved in the process is also proposing an investigation into the killing of a youth in Gbongboma village, which the Sierra Leone Government has so far refused to undertake. Both the US Embassy and Amnesty International have also been informed.

As civil society entities lie impotent and seem irrecuperable, what we are witnessing in Sierra Leone is a gradual degeneration of the country into a malignant autocracy powered by baleful corruption and inadequacy at the very heart of the country’s leadership. That is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

9 Comments

  1. These true stories can make best sellers in the near future. Please do not delete but keep them for future generations.

  2. Gentlemen – If this is not an outright criminal act then nothing else’s in this regard qualifies as such; These people are corrupt to the bone and marrow; They are worse than harlots that sell their bodies for pocket change to every Mr Ping, Ming, Ling and Ping Pong that comes and goes asking them for weird favors. I challenge this cowardly minister to come on this forum or any other credible forum and answer those few candid,pragmatic questions Mr Williams has asked him above; Mr Minister of Mines its time to put on your Big Boys pants and own up to your responsibilities to our nation; You and the inept crooked old soldier have failed our little fragile country completely through your corrupt, incompetent and thieving backwards attitudes. Seriously, you are unfit to hold that highly esteemed office; How can you justify allowing foreigners to rob the country of your birth and also destroy pristine rivers for their own evil self centered purposes?

    Your bizarre actions have left us no other sensible choice but to label you among the Traitors that have been destroying Africa and Sierra Leone since our Independence; A Traitor and an alligator that kills its own kind that’s who you are; Your hatred towards your people is clearly evident in your dubious, spurious, ridiculous actions; Traitor that you are, look thyself in a mirror and tell me if you and the Chinese exploiters look the same and share the same kinds of genes. Traitor and miserable failure that you are; Is it right for you to enrich your nefarious clumsy soul at the expense of the blind and lame beggar crawling around in the scorching streets of my Sierra Leone? Shameless, corrupt Traitor that you are, your villainous, atrocious soul and your parasitic tendencies are going to cause our struggling nation to collapse and end in total ruin after all the traumatic ordeals she has already been through. SLPP Good for nothings! Traitors that’s who they are!(lol)

  3. I hope Mr Ben Kaifala is following this matter. We must kick out curruption in Sierra Leone to make the country a better place for all of us and children yet unborn. These are some of the issues that make us the young generation to continue suffering and we are tired of this. Please Mr Ben help, so that Sierra Leone will move into another level. From Mohamed F Kargbo in Makeni.

  4. Wow! Our minister of mines is putting Sierra Leoneans lives at risk just because of money? I hope the President is informed about the whole picture of this ugly situation that is causing health issues to our brothers and sisters in that village. Anti corruption must get involved and get deep into this matter. This is a serious criminal act.

    Mr President, most of us have trust and believe in your governance that you love the people of Sierra Leone; and therefore please save the lives of your fellow Sierra Leonean brothers and sisters from the hands of some heartless government officials who puts money first before lives. Punish those who are involved in this evil act – be it minister, Chinese nationals or government officials.

  5. ‘Awarding licences’ to foreign-owned mining companies ‘without due process’ are phrases that sum up neatly the deep-seated corrupt practices typical of the Bio administration’s handling of the extractive industries and other critical areas of our economy. Naturally, these practices go hand in hand with the abject incompetence displayed by those at the very heart of the administration: the head and other officials of the Mines and Natural Resources Ministry as shown make things up as they go, fabricating evidence however clumsily and belatedly in hopes of covering their backs if they are caught with their pants down.

    Mr Fallah-Williams, you have been rendering an enormous service to our nation through your high-quality investigative pieces for which most forumites are grateful. Through the pieces we are beginning to understand the scale of the collusion between so-called Chinese entrepreneurs and our ruling political elite as they connive to make their pile at the expense of our people and environment.

    The gaping environmental wound resulting from on-going illegal mining activities at Kongo-Nannie shown in the video clip is arresting and very concerning. The livelihoods of the local people who are primarily farmers are at great risk here and steps must be taken to stop the madness before it is too late. I salute the defiant tone of some of the village people as they stand up for their rights. They know that there is no government official – local, regional or national – out there to protect them and save their livelihoods. Their very survival is in their own hands. I hope their show of defiance will send out a chilling message to the powers that be, namely that anarchy will be the ultimate outcome if the illegal mining activities and their catastrophic local environmental, health and economic impacts are not held in check.

  6. I was asked by a former patient whether to take the AstraZeneca covid vaccine. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was approved for use after being thoroughly tested on tens of thousands of people. Up to 23 June 2021 over 24.5 million people have now had a first dose of this vaccine in the UK, the overwhelming majority without any serious side effects or reaction.

  7. Thank you very much for these critical newspaper articles from inside your country and not only articles of the world politics. And I hope that not only me as a foreigner or Sierra Leoneans from the diaspora have access to these news.

  8. Terrible, terrible. Sorry that I can not really understand what the people are talking, but the pictures of the environment and the small river are terrifying. Because of destroying the environment, the increase of diseases and deaths, the destroying of livelihoods of the ordinary people, this mining company has immediately shut down their activities, the minister has to step down and may be the people of the involved villages should look for other chiefs.

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