By Oswald Hanciles
*SILENCE of the bureaucratic and political elite on First Lady’s faceoff with Koidu Holdings…*
_Thread in THE WRITERS CONSULTANCY Whatsapp forum_
[5/17, 04:08] Stephen Mannah: “There is no excuse for silence now. The public demands answers”.
Sure. But, the first answer should be making public the contract agreement, more so the provisions dealing with workers’ salaries and other conditions of service.
Questions for you, Alpha:
*Have you seen the contract agreement, more so the provisions dealing with the terms of* *workers’ salaries?*
If you were the Minister of Mines, what will you in this case?
If you were the CEO of Koidu Holdings where 900 workers go on strike, your company losing tens of thousands of dollars plus a week, and pressure from the FL of the country, what will you do, or should have done?
[5/17, 05:38] USmansa: That’s more like it , a headline that is in tune with what is currently trending in our continent……
As per usual salone is e yone specific or special case …
Not even read this but just the headline attracts one . 🫵🏾top man
[5/17, 05:46] USmansa: One can only imagine the conversation between koidu exploiters and Traore , and compare to salone wider citizens comments and contributions on this matter …😂😂😂
The same people hailing the Saheal boys are now 🤔 when it comes to.salone, er Are defending these nasties mascarading as mining companies…..
Koidu holdings una get luck na salone una dae….
You see dae na colonial bubble , den always lek for out white en out write each other ….😂
Na dae nomor fit una oh…..
BUT IF NA BIN GUINEA NIGER SENEGAL MALI OR BURKINA ….
NOBODY NOR FOR CARE ABOUT UNA TECHNICALLIES ,DEN FOR JYST STONE UNA OUT 9F THE NATION …..
BUT WE NA SALONE …😂😂😂
[5/17, 06:05] Stephen Mannah: *With all these alleged infractions by Koidu Holdings, what is stopping the* *government, the Union, NRA, or NASSIT from taking Koidu Holdings to court? What’s it?*
[5/17, 07:21] +44 7939 254100: To add to your point Stephen, with the speaking in tongue of “colonial” exploiters vs the African, I am yet to hear from the African which jurisdiction the matter will be ajudicated.
Let people find out what was agreed in the contracts, as the legal jurisdiction to settle the matter, then we can begin to understand why, the Court of public opinion is irrelevant to the realities.
The Courts are open to deal with breaches of contracts in both commercial and labour disputes.
When some accused others who are not so emotionally driven but leave in the realm of realities, as being colonial sympathize educated, I don’t see it as an insult, but rather that such people are not suffering from an emotionally mental health crisis.
Such people look at realities and put the blame squarely where it belongs and not swallow every thing, white people say, as gospel, because the stern characteristics of such people requires the confidence and knowledge to deal with issue outside of emotive languages and concentrate on the realities.
Then again they say, ignorance is a bliss
*Businesses in our global village are there to maximize profits, if given a free ride.*
Many here shouting about “colonial” exploitation residing in the kingdom of the “coloniser” jurisdictions, knows very well that in their sojourn, that only recently, efforts are being made to stamp out ZERO HOURS Contracts, which is exploitative in nature by multi billion pounds company.
Do the same apply as “colonial” exploitation of the same colonial nation. Are they trying to tell me that in the case of the UK, our former colonial master, that they are employment cannibalistics allowing the exploitation of their own by devouring its own peoole?
OR
Is it just the” multi national companies who exploit weak and corruptable African public officials, who entertain the very business exploitation of their own people?
Why transfer the blame of the African own fault lines to the foreigner.
Should we not see that our own African incubation of self vested interest corruptive minds that has led to the issue of bad contracts.
Do these people feel that emotive utterances like exploitation is the answer to an issue that is legal in dispensation.
Have the colonial accusers and not business accusers take the same zeal to accused the african business exploiters of their own african workers day in day out. Or is it acceptable for the african businesses to exploit their workers without the same moralistic vigor?
Have these same colonial basher rather than business basher, shown the same zeal to pursue their own Brothers and Sisters, who deliberately falsified the expiry date of products for human consumption by restamping new expiry dates as a false representation.
My Brother, many here knows about such practices if not active parties concluding in such illegal practices.
So, if we are serious about business exploitation, whether in terms of wage exploitation or health and safety exploitation in human consumable goods, lets fix our own house in order, whilst we tackle other foreign businesses working terms and condition.
To accused those who have taken their own plank from their eyes to see clearly the exploitative nature of our people, whether in terms of poor working terms and conditions, to that local shop owner in abacha street deceptive and deliberate criminal exploitation to falsely restamp an expiry date of human products consumption, we owe it to our people to see all these exploitative measure towards as matters of concerns.
To accuse those who are not emotively-driven and who think outside the box as siding with “colonial” exploiters basically shows the shallowness of such utterances.
As I have said over and over again, if ose nor sell you, treet nor go buy you.
Good morning folks
[5/17, 07:26] Stephen Mannah: Okay. But, who signs these contracts?
Why not take this company to court for breaches of contract?
What is going to happen to the workers who have lost their jobs?
[5/17, 08:31] +232 88 744444: I have followed the very spirited debates on this forum and elsewhere relating to the current situation with Koidu workers and demands for contract and other documents to foster more enlightened and evidence based discussions.
While I support the fact that the matter should be adjudicated in the court of law, I also understand why the court of public opinion also deserves to be informed because this is where people are tried and found guilty without the opportunity of a hearing.
As the affected parties prepare for their next line of action ( as I presume) , wouldn’t it be prejudicial to put out their evidences in public prior to the legitimate forum?
In the meantime, let the debate continue.
[5/17, 09:43] +44 7939 254100: But Brother Amadu, lets accept that Koidu Holding was a child of Executive Outcome, a group of outsourcing blood thirsty mercenaries, which was source out by then Late Pa Kabba Administration through the then Blair Administration to so called end the hideous barbarism meted by Sierra Leoneans against their fellow Sierra Leoneans, for which babies yet to come off their mother breast milk had limb amputated by blood lust Sierra Leoneans.
It could be potentially plausible that an ex Sierra Leonean army officer, could be in that company ranks, if risky war places is their preferred taste of life..
Executive Outcome was a business just like people say wars are good business.
If they now diversify into an extractive business, personally I see no issues with such a move.
My problem is not about holding companies to follow regulations in the area of their operations, but whether those empowered to enforce such regulatory tools are not totally complicit in that avoidance of regulatory statutory requirements.
Don’t blame the tool the work it can do, blame the man behind the tool.
Businesses are not moral entities, even the charitable donation they make, has tax incentives.
As I said, I have no comments on the merit or demerit of Fatima’s involvement with their private disputes.
I do think that WE dealing with a matter of our own making to then focus outwardly in blaming a stranger who basically was encourage by our own family to dance with the same complicit tango we show them to dance is absolutely focusing outwardly when there where 2 in the tango dance.
Contracts are serious document and breaches are treated seriously by the Commercial Courts..
Lets look at the problem from our own back yard or under our foot, research why favourable contracts terms that allows these companies to rip us out, came to be and also ask why successive government Sierra Leonean Officials avoid reviewing such favourable contract terms, to see how amendments can be mutually be agreed for not only Kono workers but the Nation as a whole.
We always tend to focus on the now as if things just spring up at an instance.
*Emotion is not law but evidence is law.*
Our problem is not Koidu Holdings or any businesses operating in our Country but rather our ability to negotiate contracts effectively, so that the nation benefited.
[5/17, 10:10] AustraliaAlhaji Alpha Amadu Jalloh: Mercenaries to Moguls: The Executive Outcomes Mining Make-over
By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
Koidu, Kono District. The long night of Sierra Leone’s civil war bred many monsters, but none has cast a longer commercial shadow than Executive Outcomes, the South-African private-military company better known by its stark initials, EO. What began in 1995 as a guns-for-hire outfit contracted by President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah to beat back the Revolutionary United Front re-emerged, barely three years later, as a glittering, government-sanctioned mining concern in the diamond fields of Kono. Today EO’s DNA pulses through a labyrinth of shell companies, Branch Energy, DiamondWorks, Energem, Koidu Holdings, OCTÉA, and is ultimately traceable to former field commander Tony “Dagg” Buckingham, whose Mayfair addresses and Cayman trusts now shelter licences worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Successive governments, red, green and khaki alike, have blessed those licences even while clinics lack bandages, classrooms sag under zinc roofs and the nation’s highways dissolve beneath monsoon rains. The journey from battlefield to boardroom is no miracle of entrepreneurship; it is a masterclass in how private violence is laundered into legal profit when the guardians of the state choose complicity over accountability.
By early 1995 the rump of the Republic of Sierra Leone Military Forces was exhausted. The RUF’s scorched-earth advance had sealed the rutile mines in Moyamba, torched plantations in Pujehun and, crucially, seized swaths of diamond-rich Kono. Facing bankruptcy, mutiny and international ridicule, the National Provisional Ruling Council reached for the private-security Rolodex. Calls landed in Pretoria, where Executive Outcomes (Pty) Ltd, a demobilised cadre of former South-African Defence Force special-forces operators, offered a simple tariff: 1.8 million US dollars per month, payable offshore, plus first refusal on “recovered” mineral zones. In 1996 civilian elections returned Kabbah, but the 1997 coup exiled him to Conakry. When Nigerian-led ECOMOG troops restored him in March 1998 he quietly renewed EO’s contract on identical terms and sprinkled it with a stabilisation bonus of five per cent of all future export revenue from any mine EO secured.
Armed with Mi-17 gunships, refurbished Soviet artillery and 150 Nepalese Gurkhas leased from the Hong-Kong-registered Security Advisory Services, EO cleared the rebels from Koidu in six adrenaline-soaked weeks. Western diplomats applauded the tactical brilliance, calling it a textbook case of counter-insurgency outsourcing. Citizens in Kono witnessed something darker. Villagers in Sandor Chiefdom later testified before Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission that any male found with all ten fingers intact, evidence of not having suffered the rebels’ infamous mutilations, was deemed a suspicious courier and summarily detained, sometimes disappeared. EO lawyers deny the allegations, yet a 1999 United Nations Panel of Experts report documented forty-three extrajudicial killings “consistent with EO presence and weaponry.” Violence, in short, was not an unfortunate by-product; it was the operating system.
Wars end, contracts expire, calendars turn. How did a withdrawal clause in 1999 blossom into a twenty-five-year mining lease by 2002? Enter Tony Buckingham, a former North Sea saturation diver turned military entrepreneur who perfected the art of belt-fed capitalism. Buckingham never drew EO salary, at least on paper; he floated one tier above as a director of DiamondWorks Ltd, a Vancouver-listed exploration junior. In June 1998 he bundled EO’s Sierra Leone receivables, roughly eighteen million US dollars, into DiamondWorks, then convinced Kabbah’s shaky cabinet to convert the debt into equity in a brand-new joint venture: Branch Energy (SL) Ltd. Overnight the mercenaries acquired a controlling stake in the very pit they had liberated by force of arms.
The deal should have jolted every parliamentary eyebrow on Tower Hill. Statutory Instrument 14/98 capped foreign equity in large-scale mining at sixty per cent, yet Branch Energy strolled away with eighty. In exchange the state received a twelve-per-cent free-carried interest that has never been translated into dividends and a glossy brochure promising schools, clinics and feeder roads. Two decades later a single hand pump on the outskirts of Koidu Town is the only visible evidence of those promises.
Buckingham understood optics as well as ordnance. In 2000 he struck Executive Outcomes from the South-African company register, reincorporated the core staff as Sandline International in London and disavowed any link to the old brand. The faces were the same; only the letterhead changed. In 2001 Mines Minister Alpha Demby told Parliament, with straight face, that Sandline was a British investor of impeccable repute. Hansard notes audible laughter in the public gallery, yet the licence stood.
*If* *the SLPP authored the original sin, the APC* *canonised* *it* . In 2012 President Ernest Bai Koroma’s cabinet extended Branch Energy’s mining lease for a further fifteen years, citing “exceptional capital investment.” The Mines Advisory Board recommended that royalties rise from five to eight per cent; cabinet pared them back to six. Two months later Branch Energy donated two thousand motorbikes in party colours to the APC re-election campaign. In the language of auditors correlation does not prove causation; in Kono street markets the verdict is simpler: na one word.
Hopes that Julius Maada Bio would revisit the Koidu question evaporated quickly. A leaked memorandum of understanding dated 18 July 2019 granted enhanced fiscal stability to Branch Energy in exchange for “technical support” to the Ministry of Mines, support that materialised as a 350-thousand-dollar software package retailing for scarcely twenty-five thousand. The yawning delta? Call it facilitation, or more bluntly make-I-see.
*While Freetown’s deal-makers feasted, Kono’s people inhaled* *dust* . The Kimberley Process certificate may keep conflict diamonds out of Antwerp vaults, but it does nothing for the lungs of Tankoro residents, where open-pit blasts rattle zinc roofs five afternoons a week. A 2021 Njala University study measured airborne silica at five times World Health Organization limits within a three-kilometre radius of the pit. Rates of silicosis and chronic bronchitis in Gbense Chiefdom now eclipse national averages threefold. Compensation remains elusive: victims must navigate a grievance mechanism chaired, remarkably, by Branch Energy’s own community-relations officer. The Environmental Protection Agency blessed this arrangement in 2020 under a pilot “self-regulation” scheme, effectively asking a fox to mind the diamond-studded hen-house.
Those still doubting collusion should follow the paper trail. In 1995 the EO service agreement in Defence Ministry file EO/95/SL fixed pay at 1.8 million monthly and granted EO right of first refusal on secured mineral assets, all without parliamentary ratification or human-rights conditions.
In 1998 the debt-equity swap with DiamondWorks breached the sixty-per-cent cap and omitted local-employment quotas. In 2002 lease ML 02/02 lodged in the Mines Cadastre granted a twenty-five-year term with a five-per-cent royalty, no escalation clause and no reclamation bond. In 2012 Addendum III extended the lease to 2037, trimmed royalty to six per cent and awarded a ten-year tax holiday without debate. In 2019 the Bio-era “Enhanced Stability” MoU froze corporate tax at twenty-five per cent and guaranteed expedited VAT refunds while omitting any community
benefit fund. Each document bears a different coat of arms; the through-line is unmistakable: maximize foreign control, minimize state revenue, bury the details far from public scrutiny.
*EO’s metamorphosis is not a solitary metamorphic rock in West Africa’s mineral belt; it forms part of a* *regional geology of* *exploitation* . In Angola a sister company, Airborne Resources, parlayed combat sorties against UNITA into diamond concessions in Lunda Norte. In the Democratic Republic of Congo the same coterie surfaced as America Mineral Fields, dangling helicopters before Laurent Kabila in exchange for cobalt blocs. The formula never changes, deploy arms to acquire territory, convert the resulting debt into equity, convince fragile states that you are indispensable. Sierra Leone supplied the prototype and, tragically, the proof of concept.
Tracing the lineage from Executive Outcomes to today’s OCTÉA reveals a corporate matryoshka. Branch Energy became Koidu Holdings, registered in the British Virgin Islands. In 2008 the BVI-based OCTÉA Diamond Group became parent to Koidu Holdings. Energem Resources, a Toronto-listed firm once managed by Buckingham associates, briefly owned shares before they migrated to BSG Resources and back again through opaque private placements. A 2016 High Court filing confirmed that OCTÉA, Koidu Holdings and Branch Energy share identical beneficial ownership even as they present themselves to regulators as distinct entities. The mercenary brigade never left; it merely changed uniforms, swapped AK-47s for Articles of Association and marched on with the same commander.
What must change is painfully clear. First, publish every mining licence and contract. Section 27 of the 2009 Mines and Minerals Act already mandates a public register; ministers insist the server is perpetually down. Reboot it or resign. Second, impose a mercenary-to-miner cooling-off period: any company that has provided armed services to a state or to rebels should be barred from resource concessions for at least a decade. Ghana’s Petroleum Commission enforces a similar firewall; Sierra Leone can too. Third, seed a sovereign litigation fund because the Attorney-General pleads budgetary poverty whenever civil society sues OCTÉA. Divert a slice of the Extractive Industries Revenue Account to finance public-interest lawsuits; justice should not be a luxury good. Fourth, grant genuine community veto power. Residents of Koidu should decide whether blasting continues near their schools and water tables. A simple-majority referendum before any licence renewal would anchor constitutional talk of popular participation in lived reality. Fifth, request targeted sanctions on beneficial owners. Buckingham lounges in Mayfair town-houses purchased with Kono diamonds. The United Kingdom’s Magnitsky-style regime can freeze those assets tomorrow; State House should formally ask.
Executive Outcomes came to Sierra Leone wielding belt-fed grenade launchers; it stayed wielding bilateral investment treaties. The ordnance changed, the objective did not: extract value and externalise cost. Every administration since 1995, NPRC, SLPP, APC and SLPP again, has kissed the ring for a taste of the signature bonus. Meanwhile the people of Kono still walk barefoot over the world’s most valuable gravel, their water stained orange, their air gritty with tailings. The Krio proverb says wetin big pas yu, if e no kill yu, e gee yu mark. What is bigger than a private army turned mining titan? It has not killed the republic in one blow, but look closely at our coffers, our classrooms, our shortened life expectancy and you will see the marks, deep, shimmering and shaped like a diamond.
*If President Bio, or any future occupant of State House, wishes to claim nationalist credentials he must start by prying* *open these contracts and returning to the nation what was stolen* *in plain sight* . Until then Executive Outcomes, under whatever polite corporate alias, will remain the ever-present spectre at our negotiating table, reminding us that the wages of unresolved war are payable in perpetuity, plus compound interest.
The author Alpha Amadu Jalloh is a Sierra Leonean social critic and youth worker based in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Monopoly of Happiness: Unveiling Sierra Leone’s Social Imbalance and recipient of the 2025 Africa Renaissance Leadership Award.
Notes and references
1 Defence Ministry Contract Register, file EO/95/SL
2 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone, testimony of Sandor Chiefdom residents, vol III p 212
3 United Nations Panel of Experts on Sierra Leone, report S/1999/816 annex B
4 Cabinet Confidential Paper CP/98/17 released under Freedom-of-Information Act 2014
5 Sierra Leone Company Registry, Branch Energy (SL) Ltd file BE/98/002
6 Hansard, Parliamentary Debates 12 June 2001 col 423
7 Ministry of Mines and Mineral Resources, mining lease ML 02/02 and addenda I–III
8 Njala University Department of Environmental Health “Silica exposure in open-pit mining Kono District” 2021 field study
9 National Electoral Commission campaign donation disclosure 22 August 2012
10 High Court of Sierra Leone Civil Suit 371/2016 Attorney-General v OCTÉA Diamond Group
[5/17, 14:36] Stephen Mannah: “…Or is it acceptable for the African businesses to exploit their workers without the same moralistic vigor?”
*Of course, yes. And not only that, it’s acceptable for our leaders and other people in positions of power to screw us with* *no questions asked. In fact, we hail, dance, and even pray for them to live long and continue* *stealing from us.*
_And we keep blaming the white man, mining companies, and everyone else but ourselves._
Who invited company executives to Salone?
Who negotiates and signs these contracts mining agreements and contracts?
[5/17, 14:41] Stephen Mannah: Definitely, as exemplified by not taking actions.
*But, who turned these companies into corporate rogues?*
[5/17, 14:47] Stephen Mannah: Can someone name me a company, just one, in the world, dead or alive, that was/is not potentially a corporate rogue?
[5/17, 15:39] Stephen Mannah: Great! What does the agreement state with regards to the salary of workers? Is it denominated in Leones, or is it denominated or pegged to the USD?
[5/17, 18:12] Stephen Mannah: Maybe. But, here is the thing: every corporation is potentially a corporate rogue. In fact, this is one reason there are laws that govern corporations as well as contract agreements they enter into. *The point is no corporation is ever going to succeed, at least not for long, without the support, and* *cooperation, and protection of those who are tasked with monitoring the* *corporation to ensure that they abide by the law. If these* *corporations are regulated in Singapore, for example, and abide* *by the laws of Singapore, why not in a country like Salone?*
To start with, we look for these companies, connive with them, take bribes and kickbacks, and enter into these ridiculous contracts. In some cases, our highly placed nationals even have equity interests in some of the companies they’re tasked to monitor.
One of the first things each successive government in Salone, including President Bio’s does is to “review” contracts entered into by the previous government.
So, why do we keep getting the same issues with these companies? Why, for example, the government has not taken Koidu Holdings to court for breach of contract? *Why, to my knowledge, we have not heard from the Chief Minister who has been* *everywhere with his “radical inclusion”* *mantra* ? Are those 900 or so workers who have lost their jobs not part of his agenda?
What about the fiti fata illegal mining and other activities in the country which are even worse and more damaging than the actions of corporate “rogues”?
The bottom line is that we should be blaming and holding ourselves responsible for the actions of these corporate rogues.
Why not, for example, take Koidu Holdings to court for all the alleged infractions?
And you people keep blaming the white man and foreign “corporate rogues” for every thing that has and is going wrong with Salone. Makes no sense.
[5/18, 04:03] Stephen Mannah: All this is fine, Mahmud. But, this no an intellectual or an academic debate or exercise. It’s not about sovereignty, disrespect, or FL. It’s not even about Koidu Holdings.
It’s about those with the responsibility to take requisite action against Koidu Holdings that have failed to do so. It’s about betrayal and complete disregard on the side of the authorities of and for those poor workers.
It’s time to call a spade a spade, not a tool to dig a hole in a garden.
[5/18, 08:00] +44 7939 254100: A well written piece and raises some pertinent points.
Just want to point out my understanding from the very video narrated by Mrs Fatima Bio, around the salary issue.
This is what I understood she stated.
She was informed by the workers that Koidu Limited have not kept up with the value exchange rate of the dollar, as was contractually “agreed” in their contract since 2016″. They also informed her that the Bank to which their salary is paid, take what I can only assume is charges / fees for banking administrative purpose.
Having been given that information and some other grievances by the workers, it was at that point, she decided to approach Koidu Limited management to discuss the salary “discrepancy” if such exited.
Clearly the above should tell us something about the absence of any physical evidence, of the contract wording before she approached the company to discuss and amicably resolved that pay grievance.
Yet, the second grievance around the Bank fees / charges we know nothing about in her video
We know the workers are paid in the Leones but from my verbatim understanding from Fatima’s video narration, it was just what she was told by the workers, that she took up with Koidu management.
It is not evidence of facts and Mrs Bio clearly made that known in her video, that she was told by the workers as part of their grievances.
WE the Court of Public Opinion have run with the remuneration fictional or real evidence discussion without having sighted any evidence to prove or to the contrary.
I was engaged on a facebook debate by someone who purported to have the contract which they stated was nine pages long and I will attached one of the page that was provided below.
You can judge whether, the below attached constitute an employment contract or whether its part of any pages of the Koidu employment contract to its workers.
I have asked the individual for the full nine pages to be sent to me by messenger to avoid public display, almost 4 days ago, yet I wait patiently and it now day 5 to no avail.
The above for me, is why I do not engage in emotional discussion, around what should be an evidence based discussion.
Someone asked whether it would be prejudicial to a potential court case, if information on remuneration is produce, to give the Court of Public Opinion a glance of factual evidence.
The simple answer is NO.
Remuneration for a job, is public knowledge, if anyone is interested to apply for a vacancy.
What a company pays, is what attracts applicants to apply for vacant post.
Therefore, any wording in a contract of employment as far as remuneration is concern, should not be prejudicial to a Court case.
Its just a fact of a legal argument before the Court.
Until we can see the contract in line to what was agreed, then we cannot be so affirmative in regards to what was agreed.
[5/18, 09:04] +232 76 999391: I wonder why we have so much of a PhD and a professor in Sierra Leone.
They’ll write a long speech and read it out to the public.
The public will accept what they read out and vote for them.
But yet we are still struggling with basic needs.
*When are we going to stop this issue of heavy titles and do the work of the people*
Someone will study Europe for 10 to 15 years come back and do the worst.
I still wonder why are politicians going out of Sierra Leone to attend a conference in another country.
Please are they not seeing what happened in those countries interns of development.
Why are we still crying for clean Water
Why are we still crying for electricity
Why are we still crying for healthcare
Why are we still crying for good roads
Sierra Leonean what’s happening to Us.
[5/18, 09:48] Oswald Hanciles: What would you do, Stephen Mannah, if you were mines minister or Koidu Holdings CEO?
What would you do if you are a clever university graduate of Kono District heritage and you deduce that since the industrial mining of diamonds started in 1930, less than 3% of the diamond wealth have gone to Kono District indigenes?
What would you do if you have ecological knowledge and you are alarmed by the irreparable and irreversible ecological damage done to the tropical rainforests in the decades of mining for diamonds?
Oswald Hanciles
May 18, 2025
[5/18, 09:52] USmansa: he will wonder why u would ask such 🤷🏾♂️
[5/18, 21:03] Oswald Hanciles: Wonder is my intent. And answers.
[5/19, 00:10] Stephen Mannah: I will make it brief and specific.
If I were Mines Minister…
The first thing I will establish is the terms of the contract agreement that set the rights, responsibilities, and obligations between Koidu Holdings and the various parties. Usually, there will be a Master Contract Agreement and series of sub-agreements, including one between the company and the Union (or a representative) on behalf of the workers.
With regards to the dispute between Koidu Holdings and its employees, first, I will establish the terms of the agreement, including the provisions relating to the level and currency denomination of salaries, wages, and other benefits.
Second, and in consultation with the Ministry’s lawyers, I will establish whether the company is in breach of the terms of contract with its employees.
Third, and assuming that breaches of contract by Koidu Holdings have been established, I will first engage the company, in collaboration with the Union, through arbitration, if one is provided by the contract agreement.
Fourth, and assuming that the company refuses to play ball, I will, in collaboration with the Union, support, on behalf of the Government, class legal action against the company.
In all the above, I will keep the workers informed and will provide all the information deemed to be public knowledge and information.
What I will not do:
I will not jump to conclusions if I don’t have the facts.
I will not threaten the company because I have the power to do so.
I will NOT allow myself to be bought.
*Regarding environmental degradation and destruction, do I blame these companies. Of course, yes; however, the blame primarily lies with us – collusion and failure to monitor these companies and to bring them to book for their misdeeds. It happens in many other countries. So, why not in Salone.*
When I visited some villages near Mokanji several years and saw the destruction caused by bauxite mining I shed tears. I *could not believe the level of destruction that has made the area* *unproductive for* *centuries to come* . And these are among the poorest communities in Salone. *No body cares* . And that is everywhere in the country, including countless number of illegal mining sponsored by foreigners in collaboration with people in high places.
Kono youth? What did the Kono elders and leaders do when they were young graduates? What are the young Kono graduates doing now? Afterwards, there is now the University of Kono. Right?
What will I do if I were CEO of Koidu Holdings?
Same as any reasonable CEO of a for-profit company will do:
First, listen to their grievances of the workers, including establishing the contract agreement relating to workers’ compensation and other benefits.
Second, and depending on the first, I will acknowledge their grievances and will attempt to work with their representatives to resolve the issue.
Failing the above, I will fire and stop paying the workers, main reason being there will be no money to pay them.
What I will not do or take:
In all these, what we should understand is that the company, employees, suppliers, government, and the general public are all stakeholders in a company. So, it’s laughable when I hear or read “leh den go. We no need them”. Wrong. We dearly need these companies.
There is nothing inherently wrong with foreign companies operating in a country. You tell me which successful economy in the world with a strong presence of foreign companies.
We only need to ensure that contract agreements are in the interests of both the country and the companies; that politics stays out of contract negotiations, implementation, and monitoring; that the companies are properly monitored; and that appropriate action is taken against violation or infringement as stated in the contract agreement.
I hope I answered your questions.
SM
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