The Congo Bridge in Koida, the capital of the Kono district, was considered by the local authorities to be in a dangerous state and could collapse after several years of illegal small-scale mining carried out at its base.
With the support of the government, in mid-2016, the Israeli company Pluto Mining Company began repairing the structures, but this raised fears that large-scale mining would be carried out, as the excavators removed raw materials from under the road, river banks and nearby wetlands.
A group of activists from Kono joined the activities of the Environmental Protection Authority and the National Minerals Agency of Sierra Leone to recognize the unsafe work associated with a bridge in which a natural buffer was removed, leading to flooding Local houses, more than 60 people lost their homes.
These groups claim that they are one example of an existing wave of foreign companies coming to offer free infrastructure repairs as a means for conducting exploration work in areas where mining is not conducted, bypassing the rights of local residents to land.
"We contacted people in our own agencies, we sent them notices to stop work, but mining continues," said KK Dabor, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Rivers, wetlands, hills, even people's places of residence. Everything is destroyed in one way or another. "
Despite the protests, Dabor said, a similar situation arose in 2013 with Pluto, as a large area on the road leading from Koidu is currently mining, and signs are clearly showing "Pluto Mining Property", despite the law on Minerals of 2009, which declared illegal mining at a distance of 200 meters from the city.
For several weeks, Pluto Mining did not respond to numerous phone calls and written requests asking for comments.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation also visited Maxim Brandwain, the founder of Pluto, in Kono, in an attempt to get comments, but the guard did not let him.
Brandwine, an Israeli businessman, is very well known in Sierra Leone as the head of Mercury International, the country's largest company engaged in betting on the results of a sports game. Brandwine did not respond to numerous requests for comments left by his secretary at Mercury's head office in Freetown.
EXTRACTION OF DIAMONDS
Diamonds and agriculture form the backbone of the Sierra Leone economy as the country recovers from the effects of the Ebola epidemic, which claimed about 4,000 people.
Diamonds fueled a decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone, which ended in 2002, in which 50,000 people died. The rebels forced civilians in the east to mine stones and bought weapons for the proceeds, which led to the appearance of the term "blood diamonds".
The UN imposed a ban on the export of diamonds from Sierra Leone in 2003, but the sector is still smitten with contraband and discord at local levels.
During a meeting of the city administration after the collapse of the riverbank last June, local politicians, including Acting Mayor Aya Bartholomew Komba, told residents that the integrity of the bridge structure was damaged by prolonged mining by the villagers.
This could endanger people's lives and, as a result, the local authorities deemed it necessary to remove the "unplanned materials" from under the bridge that were used in mining.
Officials told the residents that the city does not have the powerful excavator equipment necessary for such work, so Pluto Mining was hired, which carried out work for free in the form of an "act of corporate social responsibility".
"We discussed the issue at home, and we only got one name - Pluto. They said charity begins in their own home, and it is this company that is actively involved in the affairs of our local communities, "said Karamoh Kabba, the minister for housing in the eastern region of Sierra Leone.
In addition, we can not conduct mining operations under license on the road, but the place they clear from extraneous materials is included in the license. Therefore, if mining was conducted there, it was not on the road. "
But environmental protection agencies and activists said that these excavations led not only to illegal mining in diamond deposits, without any benefit to local residents, but also to removing the natural buffer that protected residents from flooding.
According to local laws, local leaders are liable for 15 percent of the rent payment for the area of plots paid by the companies that are mining in their tribal areas, and they have the final say on transactions with land.
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