By: Amara Thoronka
Mohamed-Lamin Tarawally Esq., Sierra Leone’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, has said that the much-talked-about termination of contract between the Government of Sierra Leone and ARISE IIP was not an action taken by the Government, but rather, it is something that happened on mutual grounds.
He was speaking at the Ministry of Information and Civic Education press briefing held on Friday, 27thOctober, 2023, at Raddison Blu, Aberdeen, on the widely-discussed Port and Rail Agreement between the Government and ARISE IIP
According to the Justice Minister, the said contract had expressed terms that must be met, noting that, in law, when ‘fundamentally expressed’ terms of a contract are not met, citing the context of ARISE IIP and Government of Sierra Leone, the contract mutually terminates on its own.
“In the agreement that was negotiated and signed by ARISE IIP and the Government of Sierra Leone, the satisfaction date of that agreement to trigger the enforcement of that agreement was the 9th of July of this year; and up to this moment, there has never been any communication between us and ARISE.
The agreement that was signed with ARISE IIP gave the Government certain rights to ensure the effectuality of that agreement. And it proceeded to state that, if those conditions are not met, ARISE IIP can either write to the Government to wave those conditions and continue with the contract. The thing is, if you wrote to Government, you are saying to the Government to forget about those conditions and allow the contract to continue. But up to the 9th of July 2023 to date, we as lawyers of Government have not received or got any information from our client [the Ministry of Mines] to say this is what they want to do,” he explained.
He emphasized that, “Government did not terminate its contract with ARISE IIP. The contract terminated on its own because expressed conditions in the contract were not met.”
Reiterating the submissions of the Justice Minister, Information Minister Chernor Bah clarified that an agreement was indeed signed with ARISE but that the agreement required certain conditions to be met by certain dates to essentially make it fully enforceable.
“Those conditions have not been met and there has not been any indication from them (ARISE)formally to the Government of Sierra Leone for why those conditions were not met.
The expressed provisions of the agreement state that if those conditions are not met by those dates, then the agreement will be terminated by mutual consent. So, in effect, that agreement with ARISE was effectively terminated which gave the Government of Sierra Leone the freedom to pursue a different option with a partner that had already used the facility in question,” the information minister said.
Transport and Aviation Minister, Col. (Rtd) Alhaji FandayTuray, said running the port and rail is a multi-million-dollar project, noting that Government did not have the capability to run the said rail and port, thus the need to have a third party with the required resource and capability to do that.
He however disclosed that the Government is working on setting up an agency that will be providing “effective regulationon such national infrastructure”.
In his statement, Mines Minister, Julius Mattai, said the decision of the Government is in the best interest of the country, adding that it is about time Sierra Leone derived the best from its natural resources.
He said the decision of Government does not in any way indicate a conflict between Kingho Rail and Port and ARISE IIP nor the Government taking side, but rather a decision in the best interest of Sierra Leone.
“The country is struggling financially. We rely on our natural resources. We need to ensure that the economy of this country works, and in doing so, we need to leverage on the resources God has given to us,” he said.
The Mines and Mineral Resources Minister gave a background of the mining sector of Sierra Leone, saying, as a nation, ‘we should learn from our mistakes in the past and make the best use of our resources’.
Before signing agreement with Kingho, he said they went to China to do a fact assessment of Kingho to ensure that they have what it takes to run the facilities.
He continued that, after the fact-finding visit to China, the team returned to Sierra Leone and did similar due diligence with the facilities and capacity of Kingho in Sierra Leone.
“We transferred those assets [Government inherited from Shandong Mining Company] to Kingho in 2020 during the height of Covid-19 pandemic. We transferred the rail and port in the same year while we were negotiating the details of the contract. This was to avoid the ongoing vandalism of the abandoned assets. This was because, when people knew that Kingho was going to take over the rail and port, they started vandalising the assets. It was like free for all. So, Kingho asked for early occupation of the property to stop the vandalism. They took over in October, and in November 2020, they went to work with over 20 sub-contractors from China and many locally trained staff.”
The mines minister reiterated that most of the assets handed over to Kingho were abandoned and dilapidated; a situation he said caused Kingho to spend millions of dollars to fix the facilities.
“They started repairing of the rail and we signed a six-year contract with them in January 2021,” he confirmed.
He stated that, “ARISE came to the picture when we had litigation with SL Mining over Marampa. They expressed interest that, if Government won the litigation, they wanted partnership with the Government of Sierra Leone to run the deposits of mining that was left by London Mining at Marampa.”
Responding to accusation of having vested interest in the mining sector and favouring one mining company over others, he denied the allegations, saying that his job is to ensure that the right thing happens and Sierra Leone benefits better in the extractive industry.
Copy right –Printed in the Expo Times News on Monday 30th October, 2023 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)
