By Emma Black
For more than sixty years, Sierra Leone’s mineral wealth diamonds, gold, bauxite, iron ore, and rutile has flowed steadily out of the country, from colonial extractors to today’s multinational corporations, one truth has remained unchanged, foreign companies reap the profits, while Sierra Leoneans are left with polluted lands, broken communities, and a deepening sense of betrayal.
At the heart of this injustice is a system that has consistently signed away national resources in exchange for crumbs, successive governments have failed to secure meaningful benefits for the people, Instead, what remains is a legacy of poisoned rivers, decimated farmlands, underpaid labor, and communities still trapped in poverty and hunger.
It began in 1930 with the discovery of diamonds in Kono District. What followed was a parade of companies SLST, SLDMC, OCTÉA, Kingho, and others stripping the land of billions of dollars’ worth of minerals, often without fair compensation, community investment, or environmental accountability, mining towns like Koidu and Tonkolili have become symbolic of what many call resource rape: extraction without restitution.
Today, foreign corporations continue to operate with near-impunity, shielded by glossy corporate social responsibility brochures and legal loopholes. Koidu Holdings, for instance, has long been accused of labor abuses, environmental violations, and financial misreporting. In 2007, two Sierra Leonean workers were shot and killed during a peaceful protest for better working conditions yet no justice has ever been delivered.
Even more disturbing is the control these companies wield over national infrastructure. In some cases, foreign firms not only extract our minerals but also own and control the railways and ports that transport them. This is not merely economic exploitation it is a surrender of national sovereignty.
While efforts like the Local Content Policy (LCP) were designed to empower Sierra Leonean workers and businesses, many companies have found ways around it. Fake “local” subsidiaries are used to win contracts. Sierra Leoneans are routinely excluded from technical and managerial roles. The Local Content Agency, once seen as a watchdog, has become ineffective whether by design or neglect.
When contacted for comment, Ibrahim Turay, Koidu Holdings public relations officer for one of the country’s major mining oversight bodies, declined to speak on the matter, I will not say a word until the board meets and gives me the mandate to speak, he said, his silence, like that of many in positions of authority, speaks volumes.
Meanwhile, CEOs host investor conferences in Zurich and Shanghai while Sierra Leonean children study under leaking roofs, our clinics run out of medicine, our youth wander jobless in towns hollowed out by broken promises, we are still an extraction-based economy with virtually nothing to show for it.
The cost is not only financial, it is generational; we are bleeding a future that we haven’t even had the chance to build, this is not a call for xenophobia. It is a call for justice, equity, and national dignity. Rewrite the mining laws, no foreign company should own Sierra Leone’s strategic resources or infrastructure without enforceable, community-based equity provisions.
Promote Sierra Leonean-owned mining companies. These must be transparent, accountable, and deeply rooted in the communities they serve, Mandate legal community ownership. Mining districts like Kono, Bonthe, and Tonkolili must have formal shares in the companies exploiting their land.
Renegotiate or revoke exploitative contracts, if a company refuses to operate fairly, it should be shown the door, enforce labor and environmental regulations. Abuses, tax evasion, and pollution must be prosecuted swiftly and visibly, these minerals do not belong to a handful of elites or to foreign investors, they belong to the people of Sierra Leone our children, our farmers, our workers, our communities.
Any government unwilling to defend this truth has failed, we are no longer asking, we are demanding, the era of apologies and empty promises is over. The people of Sierra Leone are ready to reclaim what is rightfully theirs not only for today, but for generations to come.
Copy right –Printed in the Expo Times News on Friday, May 26TH, 2025 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)
