By Emma Black
Sierra Leone Mining Week set to unfold from April 8–12, 2025, at the Bintumani International Conference Center, the nation’s mining sector teeters on a knife-edge. Promising transformation yet shadowed by reform demands, this pivotal event aims to confront the industry’s tangled legacy its economic heft, environmental scars, and the unfulfilled hopes of rural communities bearing its weight.
At a government press briefing this week, hosted by Minister of Information Chernor Bah, Mines Minister Julius Mattai laid bare the sector’s fault lines: creaky regulations, lax oversight, simmering community disputes, and a trail of ecological ruin. Joined by Ellah Muchemwa, Executive Director of the African Diamond Producers Association, and Ibrahim Sorie Kamara of Meya/Chamber of Mines, Mattai pitched the conference as a crucible for change luring investors, boosting transparency, and centering locals.
Mining can’t just fill pockets; it must lift lives, he declared, we’re rewriting its storyfor all Sierra Leoneans.
In diamond-rich Kono District, that story rings hollow. Wealth glitters beneath the soil, but poverty clings to the surface. They promised roads, clinics, schools mirages, all of them, said Sia Kallon from Tombodu, her voice edged with weary defiance. Our land’s gutted, our rivers fouled, our youth idle.
The toll is stark: illegal and sloppy mining have razed forests, muddied waterways, and uprooted farmers. Women and children trek miles for clean water as rivers once lifelines turn toxic from industrial runoff. We’re not against mining, said Chief Sahr Koroma of Tankoro Chiefdom. We just want it to honor our land and repay our people.
Mining’s ledger is double-sided. In 2024, it pumped over 20% of export revenue and 10,000 jobs into Sierra Leone’s economy, per the Ministry. Firms like Meya Mining tout scholarships and clinic fixes, but critics call these drops in a bucket dwarfed by ecological wreckage. The math doesn’t add up for those breathing the dust.
The conference could tip the scales. It’ll convene government brass, industry titans, chiefs, investors, and activists to wrestle with climate-smart mining, fair profit splits, and real community buy-in. Muchemwa cast a bold vision Sierra Leone could blaze a trail merging extraction with sustainability and local gain