By Ibrahim Alusine Kamara
From the onset, Kingho Mining Company, now known as Leone Rock Metals Group, has exhibited a complete lack of capacity and capability to handle any mining project in Sierra Leone.
Since the advent of Kingho by questionable circumstances in 2011, it has proved to be an unworthy investment in Sierra Leone’s mining industry, evident in the company’s absolute failure to make a meaningful impact with the more than eight small and large-scale exploration and mining licenses given to them, but instead, incurred from the Government a huge debt to the tune of over four million dollars.
In a strange twist of events however, Kingho Mining Company, despite its woeful failure throughout its operations over the years, was in late 2018 surreptitiously awarded a license for the Tonkolili Iron Ore Mines, the country’s most-priced asset.
It is worth noting that on January 8th, 2021, the Sierra Leone Parliament ratified a six-year lease agreement with the company for the management, expansion, and development of the Railway and Ports. One of the clauses in the said contract states that the Lessor reserves the right to engage a third party for the management, expansion, and development of the Railway and Ports after the expiration of the two years exclusivity given to Kingho Mining Company.
Fast forward to 2023, however, the two years exclusivity expired, and the Government of Sierra Leone, through the Ministry of Mines, decided to terminate the contract following the engagement of Arise IIP, an independent company with an enviable portfolio to take over the Rail and Ports.
This termination, however, seems to have unsettled Kingho Mining Company, which is now seen to have gone on the rampage by not only instituting legal action against the Government but also recruiting journalists to wage media war against both the Government and Arise IIP.
Meanwhile, the company has claimed to have invested over 200 million dollars into the Ports and Railway in the last two years and therefore, demands full compensation for their so-called investment.
But it should further be noted that one of the clauses contained in the Kingho’s lease agreement was a provision made for full compensation in cash or kind of whatever investment it may have done on the Rail after an independent evaluation would have been done.
It has now emerged, however, that the company never invested in the rail as it earlier claimed, as experts have confided that Kingho will have to pay compensation to the Government when an independent evaluation shall be done on the Rail.
This is said to be the reason Kingho is now going on a rampage to gain public sympathy in a bid to dodge the millions of dollars in compensation that will be slammed on it as per the agreement.
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