National Kimberly Process Dialogue Ends
A one-day national dialogue on smuggling and enforcement of the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPSC), ended yesterday Wednesday 2nd June 2010, at the Hill Valley Hotel in Freetown, with participants highlighting smuggling and weak enforcement practices as major contributing factors to the country’s continued inability to make the most from its huge mineral deposits, especially diamonds.
Organized by the Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD) with support from Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), the result-oriented dialogue session which attracted key stakeholders from across the country, aimed at capturing the perceptions of the targeted stakeholders with regards the issues of smuggling in the mining and extractive industries and the enforcement of the terms of the KPSC.
Giving an overview of the session, the Regional Director West of NMJD, Madam Aminata Kelly-Lamin, referred to the KPSC as a mechanism through which diamond exporters are obliged to obtain valuable certificates indicating the origin of their diamonds and destination.
She explained that the KPSC is a joint governmental, international industry and civil society initiative that is geared towards withdrawing the flow of conflict or blood diamonds from the market and at the same time protecting the legitimate diamond industry.
She went on to describe smuggling as the heartless means by certain unscrupulous persons to avoid official channels in the process of exporting diamonds. This she said has cost the country millions of dollars over the past 50 years, with their being no end in sight to the menace till date.
She said it was in view of the challenges posed by the activities of smugglers and the inadequate enforcement of the KPSC and other international best practices, that NMJD and its partner, Partnership Africa Canada, deemed it fit to organize the session to enable participants to chat the way forward and to establish the basis for the formulation of a national policy on the status of the KPSC in the country.
In his keynote address, Samuel Borbor Koroma, representing the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Political Affairs, informed that though the implementation of the KPSC is not without flaws, it has however contributed in no small way to the country’s improved revenue generation from diamond exports over the past years, since the scheme was introduced in the country in 2003.
Sierra Leone, he said, has exported well over 600,000 carats of diamonds in the past ten years, courtesy of the KPSC.
Mr. Koroma stated categorically that through the KPSC, 80 per cent of all diamonds exported from the country pass through official channels and are duly certified by the Government Gold and Diamond Office (GGDO) where he operates as Diamond Valuer.
He referred to the session as a preparatory work for the June 2010 conference on smuggling and enforcement scheduled to be held in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he said the country’s national profile on the KPSC implementation would be presented.
According to Mr. Samuel Koroma, Sierra Leone’s participation in the KPSC has been remarkable, as the country is represented at all levels of the process.
He went on to state that member countries are under pressure to comply by the terms of the KPSC, and that Sierra Leone cannot afford to be left behind; bearing in mind the unprecedented lose the country recorded in the absence of the scheme, especially during the war years.
Speaking earlier, the Deputy Executive Director of NMJD, Madam Josephine Koroma, called on participants to freely discuss the underlying issues and come up with suggestion that would help create a better mining environment in the country.
She urged all stakeholders to play the watch-dog role in ensuring that the mining sector is properly regulated so as to ensure beneficiation by the nation.
In their individual contributions, the participants who were drawn from key institutions such as the Government of Sierra Leone represented by the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Political Affairs, the Sierra Leone Police (SLP), the Office of National Security (ONS), the National Revenue Authority (NRA), the Diamond Dealers Association, Mines Workers Union, various civil society groups including the Campaign for Just Mining, National Advocacy Coalition on the Extractives (NACE) and the Association of Journalists on Mining and Extractives (AJME) to name a few, committed themselves to moving the process forward and calling for smugglers to be exposed (since they are sometimes known and easily identifiable) and prosecuted.
Also present at the session were Nadim Kara from PAC headquarters in Ottawa, Canada, Andrew K. Keili, the Managing Director of CEMMATS, the Chiefdom Speaker of Nimikoro Chiefdom, Kono District, Sahr Matturi, and Dan Joe Hadji, Senior Mines Monitoring Officer, Southern Region.
Similar sessions, according to Nadim Kara who happens to be PAC’S Campaign Director, are being held in Ivory Coast, Liberia and Guinea.
By Theophilus S. Gbenda
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