BY Donstance Koroma
Sierra Diamond Mining Company that situated at the Lower Bambara Chiefdom, Kenema District, by the look of things it seems not in the good books of residents of the Lower Bambara Chiefdom. Residents of the above stated chiefdom are calling on the government, chiefdom and district stakeholders to review the twenty five years lease agreement for the mining of kimberlite.
Just five years since the lease agreement took effect, people of Lower Bambara are worry about the future of their chiefdom due to the environmental damages caused by the Sierra Diamond Mining Company.
Sources filtering into Forum News from Lower Bambara chiefdom have it that during the hours of blasting the kimberlitic, houses of residents normally tremble that gradually weakens the foundation of the houses.
Poverty is noticeable in the chiefdom as many youths are unemployed and no single son or daughter occupies senior management position in the company despites the mining activities that are ongoing in the very chiefdom.
Lower Bambara Chiefdom Forum News was intimated is deprived with most if not all basic social amenities that should have served as a signal of the physical presence of Sierra Diamond Mining Company corporate social responsibility as mandated by the Mining Act of the country.
With twenty more years left in the lease agreement, people of Lower Bambara Chiefdom fear not to wake up one morning in a sea or river unable to escape to save their lives and properties and therefore rendering the chiefdom to an un-imaginary environmental damage.
Despite several calls by the chiefdom stakeholders for Sierra Diamond Mining Company to construct and equip a Technical Training Center where youths can be trained in various skills that would make them marketable to the company and country as was the case with the former National Diamond Mining Company (NDMC) that constructed an hospital where nationals and nationals of the sub region also access for health care services still not adhere to by the company.
