Selling and Buying Sierra Leone

In southern Sierra Leone the Paramount Chief is the supreme traditional authority in the Kpaka Chiefdom. The Paramount Chief leased their land to a foreign company without consulting the people nor without the consent of the family heads who are the customary landowners. They have never even laid eyes on the lease agreement, which was signed in January 2011 by the Paramount Chief. It gives an Indian company, Biopalm Energy, control of nearly 20,000 hectares (close to 50,000 acres) of land in Kpaka Chiefdom for 50 years, with a possible extension of 21 years. The lease in Kpaka Chiefdom is just one - and indeed the smallest - of eight registered agreements in seven of the 12 chiefdoms in Pujehun District. Three of them are held by Biopalm Energy, which is acquiring vast land holdings in Africa and Asia to "become the largest global player in the production of sustainable palm oil." According to Green Scenery, the Siva Group is now the largest landowner in Pujehun District, with close to 100,000 hectares, nearly one quarter of the total area of the entire district. The company is part of the complex corporate web of the Siva Group, an Indian conglomerate registered in Singapore and owned by the elusive Indian billionaire, Chinnakannan Sivasankaran.


The Sierra Leonean NGO Green Scenery calculates that in the past three years in Pujehun District, large investors, primarily representing foreign interests, have taken out long-term leases on at least 248,219 hectares [613,362 acres] - more than 60 percent of the total area of and 81 percent of all the arable land - in Pujehun District. Most of the investors that have leased farmland in Pujehun District plan to use it not for food production, but for industrial plantations of oil palm. Annual rents vary from about 23 US cents to US $12.35 per hectare [9 cents to $5 per acre). Green Scenery warns that the poor compensation rates and the concentration of land in the hands of a few corporate investors will leave local farming communities with very little to live off after their land is converted to giant plantations and they've lost their farm fields, forest fallows and valuable economic trees.

In the Malen Chiefdom Socfin Agricultural Company (SL) Limited, a subsidiary of the giant Luxemburg-registered Socfin Group, has leased 6,575 hectares [16,247 acres] for oil palm plantations, and is looking to double its land holdings. The situation was so tense that in late 2012, aggrieved landowners in Malen Chiefdom called on the Sierra Leone Human Rights Commission to come to their assistance.
Five other large land leases in Pujehun have been taken out by four different companies, which involve a very small group of associates from Sierra Leone and the UK. Since 2009, using seven different companies, these individuals have been involved in eight leases totalling close to 265,000 hectares of land in Sierra Leone. Two of those companies - and thus the land leases - have already been sold off to Biopalm Energy, one for US $5 million and another for $1.5 million.



In 2011, another company, Redbunch Ventures Limited, secured a lease for nearly 45,000 hectares in Barri Chiefdom in Pujehun District. Redbunch was subsequently taken over byAgriterra, a cattle and grain-trading business, when it acquired the parent company, Shawford Investments Inc. Such deals smack of speculation and quick profits.

According to a former agent for Quifel Agribusiness (SL) Limited, a subsidiary of Quifel Natural Resources of Portugal, it has three leases in Port Loko District in northern Sierra Leone, although staff in the Registrar's office could find just one. In 2010, a Quifel country representative reported that the company held a total of 120,000 hectares [296,526 acres]. Another large chunk of Port Loko District (41,582 hectares, 102,751 acres) is owned by one of the companies that Biopalm Energy purchased, Sierra Leone Agriculture. And yet another has been leased by West Africa Agriculture (32,441 hectares, 80,163 acres), a company that is linked with the same British and Sierra Leonean individuals that have scooped up so much land in Pujehun.

Addax Bioenergy Limited, a subsidiary of the Malta-based Swiss company, Addax & Oryx Group, originally acquired 57,000 hectares [140,850 acres] straddling two districts in the north of the country. The land is for sugar cane plantations to provide the raw stock for ethanol for export to Europe. According to Derek Higgo, Health, Security, Social Affairs and Environment Manager of Addax Bioenergy, by March 2013 the company had surrendered more than half of the land, but still held about 24,500 hectares [60,541 acres].

The Sierra Leone government is providing the Chinese company Hainan Natural Rubber Group ,000 hectares [333,592 acres] of land in the country for rubber and rice in exchange for a 10 percent share. An Italian company, FNP Agriculture Limited, holds a lease on 15,000 hectares [37,066 acres] in the north of the country. Other investors claiming large land holdings in the country include the British firm Lion Mountains Agrico. Ltd (14,000 hectares or 34,594 acres), and another British firm, Whitestone Agriculture (SL) Ltd. (542,279 hectares or 1.3 million acres) in the north of the country.

José Graziano da Silva, director general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, compared "land grabs" in Africa to the "Wild West" and said that a "sheriff" was needed to restore the rule of law. Sierra Leone has become part of the "Wild West."

Eritrea's Tyranny

Eritrea has jailed at least 10,000 political prisoners, many in "unimaginably atrocious conditions", rights group Amnesty International said in a report. The exact figure is impossible to know.

Eritrea is one of the most repressive, secretive and inaccessible countries in the world. Anyone who challenges President Issaias Afeworki is jailed without trial.


Political opposition is banned, independent media quashed and religious minorities targeted. Reporters Without Borders lists Eritrea below North Korea as the worst country in the world for press freedom

"The government has systematically used arbitrary arrest and detention without charge to crush all opposition, to silence all dissent, and to punish anyone who refuses to comply with the repressive restrictions it places on people's lives," said Claire Beston, Amnesty's Eritrea researcher.

Underground dungeons and shipping containers are used to house the prisoners.

Capitalism is to blame

The capitalist system is the real enemy in South Africa, so says Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
Speaking at a seminar hosted by Wits University's African Centre For Migration and Society in Johannesburg on Friday, Vavi said problems such as xenophobia, corruption, gender-based violence, and substance abuse were rooted in economic misery.

"All of these are rooted in another set of three, even bigger demons: unemployment, poverty, and inequality, which provide a fertile breeding ground for all the others."

More on the Zambian Political Scene

On the local political scene the former MMD president Rupiah Banda has gain appeared in court (15 April 2013), where he was found with a case to answer: it is alleged that President Banda had abused his authority by concealing 12 light trucks donated to him by the Chinese contractors in 2011. He was arrested and released on bail,. It is a foregone conclusion that Banda will never be locked up in prison – the whole thing is designed to polish the image of the PF government in the eyes of the Western Donor Community.

The political habit of removing political immunity of every defeated political statesman is in itself a total disgrace in as far as human dignity is concerned,. It remains to be seen whether corruption, which is a crime against private property can be stopped for good here in Zambia. Zambia is a capitalist country – it does not matter whether the president visits China to open up doors for economic co-operation. Zambia is not deviating to the left under the PF government. What is sickening is the sudden disintegration of the MMD ever since it was defeated by the PF. The MMD under the leadership of Nevers Mumba has lost its political credibility – it is no longer a regional or ethnic party – it is fragmented and without a distinguished political power base. Dr Mumba – a disgraced evangelist does not possess a political charisma to win a majority following in Zambia today.

The UPND under Hakainde Hichilema has lost its long-cherished tribal support in Southern Province, given the failure to win a parliamentary seat in Livingstone. UPND members of parliament are deserting it and joining the ruling PF government. The PF is no longer restricted to the Copperbelt and Lusaka. It is now represented in every province of Zambia. Fears of an impending slide towards a one-party political state are validated by the evidence lack of political discipline within the fragile political opposition. In capitalism political unity can only be rallied under a political ideology that explains the reality of nationalism and patriotism. Thus there are no solid facts in the rumours emanating from the UPND that President Sata has gone flat out to liquidate the MMD and UPND. There is a degree to which Zambia may slowly be sliding into a one-party political state unless the opposition political parties develop into popularity to act as counter checks to the political and economic policies of the PF. What remains is for the political opposition to utilise the existing media freedoms to help re-organise itself. In politics the printed word is an effective tool of political propaganda. This is what the WSM is doing in order to disseminate the working-class political consciousness.

KEPHAS MULENGA,
Kitwe, Zambia

More from Zambia

On 25 March 2013 the former republican president Rupiah Banda was charged and arrested for being in a fraudulent involvement in an oil scam deal. This is a case in which it is alleged that Banda signed an oil contract with Nigeria, whose financial benefits were siphoned off in his private account. He was released on a police bond of K500 million, and will keep on to appear in court soon. But what many people in Zambia fail to appreciate is the fact that there was a global economic crisis immediately Banda took over as president of the MMD in 2008 – whose economic significance led to his fall of Banda in 2011. The adverse economic conditions prevailing in the years 2008-2011 made the PF political slogan of Don't Kubeba [don't tell them] more appealing to the Zambian workers and students. It is also a fact that the PF came to power when the adverse economic conditions had started to improve in western Europe and the USA.


Thus President Sata’s first year in office was characterised by favourable copper prices on the world market. Thus any further economic success enjoyed by the PF government remains to be argued on the rejuvenated global economic prospects. When we take into perspective the politically motivated frays of tribal and ethnic comments emanating from the UPND – together with the adverse economic conditions suffered by the Zambian workers under the MMD, there is a concern for a compelling comparison between economic liberalism and a one-party dictatorship.

It is a fact that twenty years after the collapse of "Communism" in both Europe and Africa – African countries have been rocked by election motivated street riots and student demonstrations. In Zambia the dawn of political pluralism has given rise to tribalism and nepotism. Third world countries, Zambia in particular must be fair to themselves by distracting themselves from the falsehood circle shared by defenders of capitalism hat public sector investment, price regulations and subsidies on fertilisers are a representation of the failure of socialist-oriented economic dogma.

It is still believed by Dr. Kenneth Kaunda that UNIP lost the 1991 general election to Fredrick Chiluba due to an exorbitant increase in the price of meali meal. The street riots that broke out in 1986 when people in urban areas took to the streets and looted shops was a consequence of spiralling oil prices and falling copper prices on the London Stock Exchange – and was therefore not a consequence of increased meali meal prices. It was also plain that "Communism" is conceived under a one-party state had come to an end in both eastern Europe and Africa.

Dr. Kaunda went to nationalise private-owned mealing companies and introduced food rationing. But this only heped the emergence of a black market and more shortages of essential commodities. When the MMD came to power it introduced privatisation, and parasitical firms were hastily sold at knock-down prices. This led to short-term unemployment. Fredrick Chiluba, though and avid political demagogue, failed to implement any sound economic policies when he was in power. The coming Levy Mwanasa signalled a new beginning in the political misfortunes of the MMD lawyer by profession Mwanawasa completely dismantled the MMD from its patriotic sentiments, founded upon the charismatic status of Fredrick Chiluba. Ethnicity and tribalism resurfaced within the MMD and the movement lost its Bemba-speaking political membership – the MMD had a strong political membership in Northern Province. In today’s modern world political statesmen are everywhere; the last and only individuals singled out to bear the brunt of political and economic misfortunes of the nation state. This is because political statesmen are everywhere entrusted with constitutional political power and privileges above everyone else.
This political privilege and power is fanned by the flames of patriotism and nationalism.

The global economic crisis that begun in 2008 witnessed the sudden collapse of copper prices at the London Stock Exchange. In Zambia this translated itself into the abrupt closure of some mining firms––unemployment shot up overnight in urban areas. And, without any seemingly vibrant and pragmatic response from President Banda, the MMD became very unpopular within Copperbelt mining.

Though and Security Mining Minister Fackson Shamenda may have displeased a number of organisations when he announced the banning of employing non-Zambian expatriates as Human Resource Managers, he was only responding to the hue and cry that has reverberated among urban workers. Discredited among workers in companies controlled by non-Zambians or ex-patriots Human Resource Managers intensified under the MMD government.

The ban is aimed at appeasing the expatriate Human Resource Manager against the vile seductions of victimisation, ill-treatment and racial abuse. Foreign Human Resource Managers are known for imposing harsh and draconian conditions of service on the local labour force.

In order to deliver on the election promises the PF has introduced a minimum wage (pay rise) to general workers from K415 to K1230. It has also created 9700 jobs in the Civil Service through employing teachers, nurses, policemen and agricultural extension officials. President Sata is bent on increasing a huge Public Service that is absorbing 70 percent of government expenditure. Being a seasoned and pragmatic politician, Sata has seen the economic advantages in the diplomatic relations with China.

The PF government is relying on Chinese investors to develop the country in terms of building hospitals, schools and constructing roads. But this is a surprising about-tune from Sata’s well-known anti-Chinese political statements when he was in opposition. All said, it becomes a matter of grave concern to note that both the MMD and the UPND have lost their regional and ethnic support ever since the PF came to power. Opposition members of Parliament are deserting the MMD and UPND to join the ruling PF. Fears about Zambia becoming a one-party state are consequences of these resignations.

We in the WSM are the only effective political opposition that shall always remain intact to analyse the social and political vices perpetrated under capitalism – how innocent and sometimes well-meaning politicians try and fail to make capitalism work in the interest of the workers, both in the Western developed countries and Africa. Capitalism as a system lives on and survives through boom and bust, and will forever remain to be so unless the workers who comprise the majority try to replace it with socialism – the last and only remaining political and economic alternative to capitalism.

K. MULENGA, Kitwe, Zambia

Business malpractice

Tax avoidance, secret mining deals and financial transfers are depriving Africa of the benefits of its resources boom, ex-UN chief Kofi Annan has said.
Firms that shift profits to lower tax jurisdictions cost Africa $38bn (£25bn) a year, says a report produced by a panel he heads.

"Africa loses twice as much money through these loopholes as it gets from donors," Mr Annan told the BBC.

It was like taking food off the tables of the poor, he said.

Between 2010 and 2012 five under-priced mining concessions were sold in "highly opaque and secretive deals" in the Democratic Republic of Congo, depriving the country of $1.3bn in revenues, double DR Congo's health and education budgets combined.

In Zambia between 2005 and 2009, 500,000 copper mine workers were paying a higher rate of tax than major multinational mining firms.

Africa's hunger

Food production in sub-Saharan Africa must rise by 50% to feed an estimated population of 1.3-billion by 2030, according to a report.

12 sub-Saharan Africa countries are severely affected by food security problems. These include Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique and Lesotho. It shows only four countries in the region have high food security — SA, Gabon, Angola and Nigeria. Food security is closely entwined with poverty — food MAY be available but unaffordable for many people in the region.

In the 40 years to 2010, per capita world food production grew 17%, while in Africa it fell 10%.

Sub-Saharan Africa has 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land. It imports an average of $50bn of food annually. Yields on staple crops such as maize, rice, groundnuts and sorghum in sub-Saharan Africa are only one-third to two-thirds of the global average. Grain yields generally are 40% lower than those in the rest of the developing world.

At present, eight sub-Saharan African countries are suffering from lack of water and that number will increase to 18 by 2025, affecting 600-million Africans.
Africa has 13 tractors per 100 sq. km., far below the global average of 200.

Inequality and corruption

Sub-Saharan Africa is also home to six of the top 10 most unequal countries in terms of economic disparity. In 2010, Africa’s oil, gas and mineral exports amounted to $333 billion in 2010. But illicit financial outflows from Africa are estimated at up to $200 billion annually, dwarfing the development aid it receives.


Oxfam International Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said: “Too often extractive industries in collusion with corrupt government officials cheat Africa of its wealth and potential for social spending. African citizens must get their true share of extractive industry revenues and royalties paid to their governments.”