By Dadson A. Musa

The poor conditions of services at Koidu Holdings have got tongues wagging and people like the first lady of the republic of Sierra Leone has ventured unabashedly into the cry for workers to get their due. Appalling conditions of service in work places is not only peculiar to Koidu Holdings. A lot of mining companies in Sierra Leone and several other employers are not paying fair share of wages to workers. And this had gone on for decades which has made the country lose not only the valuable minerals but also our agricultural land and bright human resource. This had causes malaise, inequality and discrimination. Even the local content policy which was passed into law to help and empower Sierra Leoneans is not followed. Sierra Leone and Sierra Leoneans have been losing out big time. Government officials have been privy to it but had either turned blind eyes or compromised the welfare of their compatriots or overseen the exploitation of their God- given land.

In a surprised turn of events, no less a person than the wife of a sitting president, Fatima Jabbie Bio joined the striking workers to vent out their grievances. It was a right move to say the least but it boiled over to the point that she had to use the ” D” word which has not gone down well with some segment of the population. This is what the civil society activist, Solomon Sundu, Executive Director of Biaquay Foundation seeks to address. He is supporting the call for strong action to be taken against the Koidu Holdings mining company for ” not treating workers fairly. Solomon Sundu is calling on human right groups to look into the conditions of service of workers at Koidu Holdings to assess if their human rights are respected. In addition, he is calling on the parliamentary committee on mines to summon the ministries of mineral resources and that of labour to answer questions relating to the issue at hand. He went on that the wages paid workers and their working conditions need to be looked into and addressed. Solomon Sundu is also calling on civil society organizations to join in the call for the workers welfare to be looked into.