He spoke of hopefully doing a second review of the agreement while responding to a question on what the government’s position was with regard to the highlight made about Sierra Leone in the Panama Papers.
“The issues that were raised there to some extent are issues that are of concern to us and that are issues that we have already initiated a review process for which the OCTEA have undergone the first review. We are hoping that we’ll go through a second review,” President Koroma said.
“If you will remember, just about the time we took over governance there was a riot out there and we put a hold on the mining until certain things are addressed. And from that committee that was set up we tried to move forward by previewing the whole agreement and the agreement was reviewed. Even when we have increased the benefits to the country it is still not an agreement that you can consider as an agreement that is what you will expect as a government,” the President said.
“The owner was about to sell off the interest but I think negotiations are still ongoing and as a government we’ll continue to engage both the owners and maybe other interested parties to ensure that we increase the benefit to the government and the people of this country,” President Koroma concluded his response on the Panama Papers.
OCTEA, as Koidu Limited is often referred to, is the largest diamond mining company in terms of production in Sierra Leone so far.