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Breathe easy in the sun: Can the Sierra Leone government play victim and villain in the climate change debate?

Author: SEM Contributor

The topic of Climate Change took center stage at this year’s UN General Assembly, ahead of the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen. The focus of the discourse was to remind wealthier countries about their obligation to save the planet. But poorer countries have a moral obligation to the debate as well.

The UN Secretary General Ban Kid-moon, at the UN Climate Change summit on September 22nd appealed to the international community to act on a draft proposal so that a treaty might be signed during the conference in Copenhagen-Denmark.

During the summit, the Chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, noted that poorer nations need help from wealthier ones in order to prevent some of them (the former) from becoming failed states. He warned further that soil degradation, lack of food and clean water could lead to internal strife in some poor countries.

Rajendra Pachauri’s call adds to the pressure that has been building on wealthier states to commit themselves to lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and to provide poorer nations with the aid they need to avoid burning coal or cutting down forests for firewood.

President Koroma, in his speech to the UN General Assembly on September 24th this year, urged developed countries to cut down their greenhouse gas emission by 40%. Ironically, his Vice Samuel Sam-Sumana continues to have the largest stake in our country’s logging and timber export industry through Taakor Tropical Hardwoods – a company he started before getting into active politics. Sierra Leone has less than four percent of closed forest. The amount of forest remaining in the country is too small for the country to be exporting timber.

Although the burden for action on climate change lies on wealthier countries, poorer countries in Africa with tropical forests ought to be making efforts to protect their forests, because Africa stands to suffer the most from the effects of climate change.

Although Vice President Sam-Sumana denies still having hands in the operations of Taakor, available evidence points at the contrary. He continued to use the company’s trucks and equipment for construction work at his home, long after denying links with the company. Recent press reports state that Vice President Sam-Sumana is using his privileged position to get the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA) to pay Taakor huge amounts of money for roads they constructed through the Tamar-Tonkoli Forest reserve for their logging operations. Such unethical and double standard tactic is interpreted by many Sierra Leoneans as not only a misuse of power, but a ploy to rescue Taakor from its recent financial woes. You think that was his first attempt at fleecing our country? You’re wrong! In 2008, he denied Sierra Leone hundreds of millions in revenue, by prevailing on the National Revenue Authority to grant Taakor Tropical Hardwoods duty-free waivers.

The operations of Taakor is also wreaking misery on communities living around the Tama-Tonkoli Forest, in addition to clearing Sierra Leone’s remaining pockets of closed tropical forests. I visited the Tama Tonkoli in May 2008 on a film-making trip, and saw first hand the accelerated pace at which Taakor was clearing the forest. I also heard several complaints from people whose forests and tree crops have been cleared by the company, with no form of compensation. When I brought it to public attention, the Vice President Sam-Sumana’s response was an angry press release berating the media outlets that brought the story to light, as being irresponsible for linking him to a company he had ceded interest in; but at the same time the press release lauded the company for doing a good job. The plight of the people of Tama-Tonkoli has still not been looked into by neither Taakro nor the Government. I am also very concerned about the spread of Taakor’s activities in other parts of the country. In April of this year, I saw their trailers near the Kambui Forest Reserve in the Kenema district, and local residents I interviewed told me that Taakor trailers transport tons of timber at night. The company has also been notorious for not paying salaries and benefits to its workers. Such unsustainable exploitation of natural resources and marginalization of vulnerable people are what the Chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fears could lay the foundation for the internal strife in poor countries like Sierra Leone.

The activities of African leaders like Vice President Sam-Sumana will surely undermine the moral higher ground, which poor nations put forward in the climate change debate. It is the responsibility of civil society to put it strongly to government to match up its words with action, when it comes to climate change; and to advance a pro-community rights agenda in their position at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. These thoughts are in line with the position we took at this year’s Africa Community Rights Network meeting in Cameroon – a cause I am committed to promote in Sierra Leone.

By Morie Alpha

Editor’s Note: a call at the VPs office countered that he (VP) has no interest in Taakor, citing documents at the Office of the Administrator General showing that the VP had long divested his interest in the company. In the area of compensation and payment of salaries, Aid to the VP Mr. Koroma said, the Vice President was not the Human Resource Manager at the Company and could not be held responsible for the non payment of the people who work for Taakor. Koroma commented that on the issue of the VP using his position to let SLRA pay for the road constructed by the company, SLRA Boss Munda Rogers must be asked on the matter.

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Breathe easy in the sun: Can the Sierra Leone government play victim and villain in the climate change debate?

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