CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
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Sierra Leone
Mining Sierra Leone to poverty: |
ECOLOGY
What constitutes a country’s true development?
Must development be at the
expense of the environment?
The author considers some of these issues
The huge Payne dredge, the size of a four-storey building, with 68 buckets digging seventy-five feet underground and each bucket scooping three metric tons of earth, is capable of digging 1,097 tons of rutile ore an hour. (Editor’s note: Rutile is a mineral consisting of titanium dioxide in tetragonal crystalline form. It is an important source of titanium). Two other dredges rip up the land, leaving water and vast open lands with no top-soil, making the land useless for agriculture.
There’s also a Table Plant that processes 34 to 40 tons of rutile ore an hour, and a Dry Mill which is considered to be the most dangerous place in which to work, which produces 16 to 20 tons of nearly 97% pure rutile an hour. Work in these plants goes on for 24 hours, and holidays are never observed.
Environmental problems
Never in the history of Sierra Leone has there been such an environmental disaster as that carried out by these three giant floating plants, when in full operation at the Sierra Rutile Limited (SRL) mining area. The SRL is interested only in mining the country’s minerals, and leaves these areas after devastating the land. Then the Abu Construction Company takes over to fill in the giant gashes left in the earth’s surface, and to build dams so as to control the deep pools of flood waters which have gathered in the holes gauged out of the earth’s surface. Abu also dumps untreated waste chemicals like sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid, bentonite, fluorine, zanthate etc, used in the attritioning (chemical clearing process), feed preparation, neutralization, and also in the sulphur and zircon floatation processes at Lake Grey and the surrounding waters. This causes serious environmental problems for the flora, fauna and of course for present and future generations of Sierra Leone.
Last month, Mineral Resources Minister Mohamed Swarray Deen, announced that the SRL, which operates the country’s rutile mine at Moyamba district, may restart operations by July next year, after twelve months of renovation work. Minister Deen says: «If the political and security situation can be successfully controlled, then rutile mining and production which came to a halt when the RUF rebels attacked the mine site in 1995, will start in July 2002».
The Sierra Leone government has re-scheduled elections for the end of this year. Inside sources at the electoral office disclose that the government is financially bankrupt and cannot conduct a decent democratic election. The government seems to be playing for time to contain, and drive out the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) from the diamond fields. The government, which once urged: «Elections before peace» is now changing its tune to «peace (with the RUF) before elections». However, sources in Freetown have declared that the «government is trying to raise funds from any possible sector, in both the diamond and the rutile mines». (Until 1994, titanium dioxide [TiO2], commonly known as Rutile, was the government’s largest source of foreign income).
The story of Sierra Rutile Limited saddens many people in the Impere Chiefdom in southwestern Sierra Leone. When the rebels invaded Mobimbi in 1995, the mines were kept under what the government termed «a care and maintenance basis», protected by «private security guards» i.e. mercenaries. Local people went unprotected, and many lost their lives during the Sobel (soldiers and rebels) incursion.
Minister Deen has disclosed that shareholders’ losses during the past six years have been «significant», adding that «fortunately, world class rutile reserves means the project remains robust, and the government of Sierra Leone, the community and shareholders can benefit from the mining that we expect to last at least twenty years.» So, the world’s largest dredges will soon continue to dig deeper into Sierra Leone’s earth. But the people are not really impressed, as Sierra Rutile has failed them woefully.
Visiting the mining area
Some years ago, in 1992, I had the opportunity to visit the mining area. I boarded one of Sierra Rutile’s hired vehicles at Mosenesi Junction, on the road between Mokanji and Gondama for the twenty-minute drive to Sierra Rutile. This was my first visit to Sierra Rutile, and I was not too impressed as we bumped along the poor road. On either side there were tree seedlings planted by the company, but I noticed that these trees are only planted on areas of degraded land which can be seen from the road. Later on, I learnt that the roads leading to Sierra Rutile are in a poor condition because the company says it’s too expensive to repair them. So, it only sprays tar (bitumen) and sand. During the rainy season there are many accidents.
Environmental catastrophe
I alighted at the «Black and White» station where workers are usually picked up to be taken on to the mines. Ordinary workers are collected from nearby villages. I learnt that there are no living quarters on sight for plant staff; most of them stay at Mogbewemo, Moriba town or Gbetema, where there are few social or sporting facilities. The plant staff constitutes about 85% of the workforce, and do all the dirty manual jobs and tedious mining operations. Most of them live in congested houses of mud and thatch. The company erected only a few water taps — many workers have to queue for hours to get water. So, they resort to using the stream and chemically polluted water from the rutile dams for domestic use.
The fact is, the unchecked Sierra Rutile mining activities have reduced the whole of Impere Chiefdom, Moyamba District, to an environmental catastrophe. Fourteen villages have been eliminated — simply wiped off the map of Sierra Leone. The people were transferred to a new area where Sierra Rutile cleared the land for them. They were paid some compensation but had to buy material from the company to build new homes. Building materials were sold at such high prices that some villagers preferred not to put up new homes — it cost too much — far more than the offered compensation for relocation. The monstrous Sierra Rutile dredges then swallowed up their cocoa, coffee, orange and mango plantations, homes and even the graves of their ancestors.
The largest town in Impere Chiefdom is Mogbewemo, lying between the mine’s plant site and the senior staff campus at Mobimbi. The electricity cables pass over Mogbewemo, and the water pipes go beneath the town from the plant site to Mobimbi. Here, in the Senior Staff quarters, there is 24-hour light and water. But in Mogbewemo, the people do not enjoy these facilities. The company’s health centre renders no services to the non-working citizens of the area. Even though their land provides hundreds of millions of dollars for the foreign company, local people have little or no future in their homeland — Impere Chiefdom.
The fact is — Sierra Rutile looks after its senior staff and expatriate staff, but junior plant staff are woefully neglected, both as regards living conditions, medical facilities and salaries.
Sierra Rutile sets targets every year for mineral production. If these targets are met, bonuses are supposed to be paid. There is a Quarter Bonus, a Second Half Bonus and a Yearly Bonus. Employees are promised a bag of rice each if they meet production targets. Thus, they are conditioned to work round the clock to hit the target. Even then they do not always get the promised bags of rice. Truth to say, it’s hard to understand why such a rich company is so callous and negative towards the development of Sierra Leone. Sierra Rutile claims it is mining only Rutile in Sierra Leone. In reality, the company is mining at least three major minerals — Rutile, Zircon and Illiminite. Zircon and Illiminite are in demand on the world market for use in the construction of rockets and aircraft. Even if Rutile prices fall, Sierra Rutile still benefits. If Minister Deen’s plans work out, the dredges at Sierra Rutile Mines will soon continue to dig deeper than ever before, to make up for time lost and earn more profit for its shareholders.
But is this what Sierra Leone really wants and needs?
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