By Septimus Senessie in Kono
OCTEA mining group in the diamond fields of Kono, eastern Sierra Leone, has laid off some 300 out of the 426 miners they had earlier sent on leave.
The company’s administrative officer, Julius Aruna, said they had to embark on redundancy after they realised that production had drastically reduced in the last three months.
He said the reason the investors decided to lay off them off was because the company was still paying huge sums of money to workers who sent on leave after the violent December industrial actions.
“In that respect the company will only pay workers for the month of April on condition that they return their identity cards, safety boots and uniforms amongst others,” he said, adding that the decision had nothing to do with last year’s strike actions which left two people dead.
He said the whole process of scaling down their workforce started last year after most of the engagements of the company like constructing the gabion fence, staff quarters and the 180-metric-tonnes-per-hour plant had been completed.
Aruna said the cut-down in the number of workforce did not only affect national staff but also foreigners who had already been paid off and their movements facilitated back to their countries of origin.
One of the affected workers, believed to be the ring leader of last year’s strike against the company, Arthur Kandeh, said the company’s action amounted to revenge against some of them who were leaders of the December action.
He asked that the company pay all their three months salaries and leave allowances before their benefits could be processed. He said they had only received their pay for April as part of their benefit packages which he described as “pittance”.
Kandeh also alleged that they were paid in the presence of gun-totting military men. “This is in violation of our fundamental human rights. We are not criminals,” he fumed.
Speaking to Politico on the phone, the United Miners Union Sierra Leone, Abioseh Morrison, said the problems of mine workers across the country were largely hinged on their “lawless behavior” against their employers.
He said they had always behaved out of order and against the laws that govern them in the mining sector.
