By Abass Jalloh
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has issued a statement admitting that in January 2022 it certified Socfin Agricultural Company (SAC), an agro-based industry in Sierra Leone that engages primarily on palm oil production.
The company’s operations have been marred by numerous land conflicts, claims of human right abuses by rights defenders, and grievances by people in surrounding villages about its operational effects related to pollution and other forms of environmental harm.
According to a statement by RSPO, dated 18th March 2022, the certification is next in line with a number of “highly controversial certifications” of the SOCFIN group in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Ivory Coast.
The statement says “RSPO is totally biased in favor of the industry and is not fit for purpose to guarantee sustainability and respect for human rights in palm oil supply chains.”
RSPO admitted that their consultation process was riddled with missteps, adding that relevant stakeholders, including affected landowners, were not consulted.
The statement reads: “A crucial government report that orders revocation of the principal lease and a participative process to solve the current land disputes was rejected as evidence. The audits were not independent of the company and a safe space for consultation was not provided despite the huge risks of reprisals for people.”
RSPO said since 2011, SAC had acquired more than eighteen thousand (18,000) hectares of land for an industrial palm oil plantation in the Malen Chiefdom in Pujehun District, Southern Sierra Leone.
“From the beginning, communities have denounced this acquisition as pure land grabbing which was done without their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). Since then, a land conflict has raged between SOCFIN, the local authorities, and the communities”, it said.
RSPO cited the communities of Malen had learned in September 2020 that auditors were coming for a certification audit, adding that during the consultation process, local communities and numerous civil society organizations had provided the auditors from the certification body (SCS Global Services) with evidence that SOCFIN's practices go against the principles and criteria of the RSPO.
RSPO further stated that after communities in Sierra Leone denounced the certification process, the civil society organized an investigation and filed a formal complaint against SOCFIN.
It said that among the irregularities and shortcomings, the public summary of the audit report failed to mention the ongoing criminalization of Malen land defenders and that eighteen of them were still facing court at the time of the field audit, before being released for lack of evidence in December 2020, after more than a year of proceedings.
“These arbitrary arrests and prosecutions followed new riots in the SOCFIN plantation, which resulted in the death of two villagers and which were brutally repressed by security forces with the logistical support of SOCFIN,” RSPO claims.
RSPO is a not-for-profit organisation that unites stakeholders from the 7 sectors of the palm oil industry: oil palm producers, processors or traders, consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, banks/investors, and environmental and social non-governmental organisations (NGOs), to develop and implement global standards for sustainable palm oil. It has a membership of more than 5000 stakeholders worldwide who represent all links along the Palm oil supply chain.
Copyright © 2022 Politico (21/03/22)
