By Politico staff writer
After weeks of arguments and demonstrations, Parliament has moved to investigate issues raised by the landowners of Maforki and Marampa chiefdoms in Portloko district regarding a bauxite mining concession earmarked for CTC Mining Company in Sierra Leone.
A letter from the office of the Clerk of Parliament has summoned “all affected and/or interested persons/parties of the Public Disclosure, including members of parliament of those chiefdoms…” to a public meeting in parliament on Monday 5th December, 2022.
According to the letter, parliament called the meeting to “take us through the processes and procedures a company must go through in securing the rights to mine, explore and carry out mining related activities”.
In their petition, presented to parliament, the people complained about the way the company INTEGEMS conducted the public disclosure on 28th October 2022 on behalf of CTC Mining Company. They called for the cancellation of the mining license of CTC Company and for “the anomaly in such a lease agreement to be corrected before the document is tabled in the House for ratification”.
The community people said they had neither met the owners of CTC Mining Company nor had any favourable discussion with INTEGEMS during the process leading to the granting such a licence to the company. According to them, during the public disclosure in Maforki on the 28th of October, 2022, they rejected the process, forcing the meeting to end abruptly. “We are very concerned that an EIA licence was hurriedly awarded to CTC Mining Company without a legally signed lease agreement by the Landowners of our chiefdom, a condition we believe is a prerequisite for the application for an EIA license,” the letter continues.
They petitioned parliament to ensure that “indigenous Sierra Leoneans should be given preferential consideration or support to participate and benefit from their endowed resources”.
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