By Mohamed Vandi in Kenema
Despite the presence in Kenema town of the Regional Mines Office, the Sierra Leone police and other law enforcing authorities, the massive, uncontrolled and illicit mining of gold by hundreds of people – possibly over 1,000 – in Kondogbotohun Section in the eastern city of Kenema has entered its sixth day. Most of the miners are students and businesswomen. They also include children with no-one willing or able to help curb the situation. According to Chief Keni Momoh Ngombulango, a member of the land owning family, the mining site was discovered about a week ago when news went through that some young men living around the vicinity had bought new motorbikes from proceeds acquired from gold mining activity. He said that on investigation, people discovered that the youths were involved in illicit mining at night and that the place was productive. This attracted more than 600 mostly women to throng the area. The Chief said that for the initial first two days the mining exercise was disorderly as they were unable to control the crowd that had descended from every part of Kenema. He said it was difficult to stop the exercise because prominent personalities including police, politicians and traditional leaders had groups mining for them at the site. When asked how they were able to contain the situation, chief Gombulango said they had secured legitimacy in the operations by auctioning a mining license for a year. He confirmed that the land-owning family was collecting Le50,000 for five people to mine for two days at the site, and that more than five hundred people go to mine every day.
One Musu Kallon at the site referred to the find as a windfall from God “because of the hardship in the country”. She confessed to having found some gold dust which she said had helped her for days. Katimu Mustapha, a student of the Methodist Secondary School told Politico that for three days she had abandoned school in search of gold so that if successful, she would be able to buy her remaining school materials. A class three pupil of Saint Charles Primary School in Kenema, Ernest Williams was spotted transporting sandstone believed to have gold. He told Politico that he was mining with both his mother and father. The police Area Superintendent, Samuel Foday Lahai refuted claims by a family owning the land that they had secured a mining license. He said Chief Ngonbulango had paid for two plots out of the three required for the operation and that they were still awaiting the family to complete payment before they could be issued a license to operate. He said all efforts to stop the “illegal” mining proved futile as police did not act on their request to intervene. “We are unarmed and cannot stop such a large desperate crowd. We rely on the police, but they have not taken action,” the chief said. However, a press release from the Government Mining Engineer dated 13 December refers to the mining as “illicit” and calls had calls on miners to discontinue forthwith until a joint site visitation has been conducted by his office, the police Local unit Commander, the Office of National Security, the District Forest Officer, The Sierra Leone Water Company, the Mayor-elect, the Paramount Chief and elders of Kondogbotohun. The release also states that the tour which will happen this week, will assess the suitability of the area in question for the issuance of artisanal gold mining license.
“In the meantime, I want all mining activities in Kondogbotohun to stop with immediate effect, A combine team of Mines monitoring Officers and the Sierra Leone Police will patrol the area and arrest any defaulter for subsequent investigations and court action. You have been warned!” the release concludes. The Local Unit Commander in Kenema, David Sahied Koroma shifted the blame and accused the Mines officers of failing to act. He said no arrests had been made, adding that mining issues used to be under the operations of the police but that the responsibility had long been shifted to the Mines office. “So this is there own responsibility to take the appropriate action rather than rely on the police,” he said
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