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Why Kanu’s mines policy backfired!

Author: SEM

Sierra Leone News

After much publicized proclamations and much expectations, the loudly acclaimed bill entitled “Mines and Minerals Act, 2009” presented by Minister Alpha Kanu which was described as having a human face, has started manifesting strange characteristics.

Alhaji Alpha Kanu’s bill entered the House with much fanfare but retreated in a resounding silence as it was rightly rejected by the law makers and even the support of the ruling party did not help matters.

Notwithstanding the much hyped statements, that the policy has a human face, that it is the best ever in the history of the mining sector in the country, and that it is geared towards the betterment of the nation-the Parliament of Sierra Leone, the lawmakers, see it in a totally different perspective.

Democracy might not be the best form of government, but it is certainly the most appropriate as shown in the recent act of Parliament in rejecting Kanu’s bill.

Minister Kanu, with all his experience in governance, has proved to be a fresher when it comes to handling Bills in Parliament. Quiet apart from this, the Mines Minister failed in several instances, to prove the much hyped up and contentious bill to be in the interest of the people.

Apart from failing to publish the bill in the government Gazette, the minister had even failed, in a democratic dispensation, to bring it to the attention of the stakeholders and affected communities who might profit or be affected as a result of the bill.

Where the people of Gbangbatoke and other affected communities in Moyamba and Bonthe, or the people of Kono, or Tongo Fields or Lunsar or Pepel or Kabala and other areas where the extractive industry is going on informed and sensitized about Kanu’s Mines bill with a human face? NO.

Minister Kanu was apparently force feeding the people and inevitably the Parliament into accepting a hastily structured Bill which was not really meant to examine the complaints and wishes of the affected communities, but rather to ensure that he had successfully passed through a law.

But Minister Kanu failed to realize that the present APC government is not a military junta promulgating decrees which have to be accepted, hook, line and sinker without question from the people.

The action of the Parliament shows they have become lawmakers rather than rubber stamps to be used at the whims and caprices of the ruling government.

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