By Kemo Cham
A landmark High Court ruling in Freetown has rendered null and void a deal involving a Chinese company that has been accused by locals of illegally acquiring vast portions of land for plantation purposes.
Orient Agricultural Limited was recently ordered to restore some 1, 486 acres of land to dozens of families in the eastern Kono district, lawyers representing the land owners have told Politico.
The deal was struck in 2013 and since then the locals have been fighting to overturn it, arguing that they were not aware of the negotiations. They claimed that paramount chiefs and other community leaders had negotiated on their behalf. The Chinese reportedly paid US$130 per acre of land.
The legal empowerment agency Namati represented the land owning families in the case that was initiated in the beginning of February, 2015.In addition to having their lands restored, the plaintiffs were seeking damages for trespass, among others. The judge ruled in their favour with an US$ 85, 000 award and also issued an injunction against the company and the local leaders, including Paramount Chief George Bockarie Torto III, involved in the deal.
The ruling comes barely a month after another court ruling in a separate case which found some land owners guilty of destroying plantation belonging to a foreign investor.
Disparate for foreign direct investment, the Sierra Leone government implements a policy that has attracted all sorts of investors. And this has led to endless complaints of land grabbing in recent years.
Local chiefs and politicians have been accused of conniving with the investors to force helpless land owners to accept deals they often know nothing about.
But this landmark ruling, said Sonkita Conteh, Director of Namati, whore presented the plaintiffs in court, should serve as a warning.
“The court applied a clear principle in our laws, chiefs cannot sell land,” he said, adding, “They cannot undertake land transactions without the consent of the families to whom the land belongs…companies seeking to invest here and every Sierra Leonean should take note.”
(C) Politico 01/03/16
