By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The Minister of Mines and Mineral Resources, Timothy Kabba, has told Politico that the ministry is on the verge of restructuring the Diamond Development Fund.
The fund is meant to disburse to Paramount Chiefs of mining communities so they will embark on development projects. Surface rent and other benefits are put in to the fund and disbursed to communities based on the scale of mining activity in their community or the number of companies operating in the area.
However, there have been complaints of corruption and mismanagement of resources by some chiefs in the past.
Kabba said that a paper is already in front of cabinet awaiting approval and will be sent to Parliament for the necessary scrutiny. Kabba didn’t talk about the specifics of the structure of the proposed fund but he said it would ensure transparency and accountability is followed and will also give people more power to determine what happens with the fund.
“These funds are for the people. I have inherited them and we have a backlog of about two years that we have to pay to the communities. It is time for us to pay these monies to these communities because they are the rightful owners of these resources,” Kabba said.
“But we want to do so in responsible and transparent form, so these monies will be able to achieve tangible results for these areas that are in one way or the other impacted by the activities of mining,” he added.
The Eastern district of Kono stands to gain a lot from the new initiative. The district hosts some of the largest diamond mining companies in the country.
Amidst the riches Kono, is also one of the least developed districts across the country, depleted by decades of diamond mining.
The Chairman of the Mines and Minerals Committee in Parliament, who also hails from Kono, Saa Emerson Lamina, told Politico on Wednesday that diamond mining has been going on in the district for years but “the benefit to us has been very small.”
Kono’s administrative city, Sembehun, is owed at least two years of surface rent and other benefits. Lamina said that it is important the people receive the money but also insisted on the process to be more transparent. He praised efforts of the ministry to ensure greater number of people have a say in how the funds will be disbursed.
The Minister said it is important to put people at the center of this new initiative for the fund.
“The formula will be like a working manual, it will describe everything they have. The people will be involved in it, because you cannot have development without the participation of the people,” he told Politico.
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