Sierra Leone’s president Julius Bio is now expected to follow through with campaign promises to review mining contracts and consider changes to the law that would ensure the West African nation benefits from its natural resources, his spokesman told Reuters.
Sierra Leone, which is recovering from a devastating 2014-16 Ebola epidemic that killed thousands, is the latest nation to take a hard line against mining companies in an attempt to ensure a larger share of revenues.
As commodities recover from a collapse in 2015, cash-strapped governments in Mali, Tanzania, Zambia and Democratic Republic of Congo have demanded a bigger share of the proceeds by increasing taxes and in some cases banning exports.
Extractives – mostly diamonds, iron ore and mineral sands, constitute more than 80 percent of Sierra Leone’s exports but generate only 15 percent of its total revenues, according to official figures.
In an address to lawmakers earlier this month, President Julius Maada Bio, who was elected last month, denounced what he said was an “extreme lack of transparency” in the sector under his predecessor Ernest Bai Koroma.
He called for an immediate review of both the 2009 Mines and Minerals Act and the individual licenses of mining companies.
“We have to look at these agreements, and we have to look at the laws that govern them,” Yusuf Keketoma Sandi, the president’s press secretary, told Reuters on Thursday.
“There have been many issues in terms of how concessions were given to mining companies and treatment of workers that people deemed unfair,” he said.
Elsewhere Mali’s government in March said that it was negotiating with mining companies to draft a new mining code but would move to implement a new law unilaterally if no compromise is reached.
