DAKAR: In less than ten years Sierra Leone has gone from one of Africa’s bloodiest warring nations to one of the most promising, but a slew of massive investments to exploit its rich resources has sparked unease.
Ravaged by an 11-year civil war, which left the world with images of child soldiers and rebels funded by the sale of "blood diamonds" hacking off limbs, Sierra Leone was long sidestepped by investors.
However reforms to governance and mining laws have seen major investments that could be a game-changer for one of the world’s poorest countries.
This week, as the UN peace building mission in Sierra Leone reported to the Security Council in New York, recent mining agreements were hailed as both an opportunity and possibly a "considerable risk" to the country’s future.
In August exploration company African Minerals received a license expanding its operations at Tonkolili in the north of the country, where it says it has discovered a 10.5 billion tonnes iron ore deposit — billed as the largest reported magnetite iron-ore deposit in the world.
London Minerals is exploiting iron-ore at the Marampa mine, Koidu Holdings is exploiting kimberlite diamond mines in Kono, oil-deposits have been found off the coast and the country also boasts gold, bauxite and titanium ore.
Many of these resources are as yet untapped.
"This involves billions of dollars," Berhanemeskel Nega, head of the UN peace building office UNIPSIL, told AFP in Dakar this week.
"It is a huge opportunity for the country … it has the opportunity to help the country get out of its dependency on foreign aid, but it is also a risk."
Back in New York, UN special envoy to Sierra Leone Michael von der Schulenberg told the Security Council "it is the sheer size of the two iron ore mining contracts that draw unease, as they could become a ‘game changer’ for Sierra Leone…"
"If official pronouncements are correct the financial turnover of (Tonkolili) alone would dwarf the financial and organizational capacities of the government itself."
Observers point to the resource curse and the seemingly inevitable corruption, social troubles and often violence that accompany such wealth.
Lansana Gberie, a researcher with the Institute for Security Studies based in Addis Ababa told AFP in a telephone interview that Sierra Leone "has moved from a very violent place to one of the most peaceful places in West Africa."
"But there are problems around governance issues," he said, adding that the agreements signed "have not been very transparent and some of them have been quite illegal I think. Issues of corruption are very real."
He says some recent agreements violate key provisions of the 2009 Mines and Minerals Act.
According to the UN’s Von Schulenberg concerns over these mining agreements and "how much economic power has been given to a single external investor should be taken seriously."
Sierra Leone’s mining ministry says that with the prospect of new modern gold and diamond mines opening in the next three to five years, annual mineral export revenues could exceed an estimated 370 million US dollars (270 million euros).
Diamond exports reached 35 million dollars in the first five months of the year, a 25 percent increase from the same period in 2009.
Francis Minah, communications director of the state-run Sierra Leone Investment and Export Promotion Agency, says the country has over "120 active leads" in the investment pipeline.
Sierra Leone is also set to benefit from a 400-million-US-dollar investment over the coming years from Swiss Addax Bioenergy, for a project to produce fuel ethanol and electricity.
However the country remains deeply poor and, according to Finance Minister Samura Kamara, "aid currently contributes 18 percent of GDP and provides essential support to many critical growth sectors and basic services."
"The dependence on donors is reducing and with the upward showing in the diamond and iron ore industries, we have tremendous hope that we would be able to help ourselves in the long run."
