Illicit Diamond Mining Pays In Sierra Leone

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27564, 22 January 1955, Page 7

Illicit Diamond Mining Pays In Sierra Leone

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, January 21. Illicit diamond mining is proving so profitable in Sierra Leone that hundreds of farmers, particularly younger men, are abandoning farming for mining, says the Freetown correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian.’’ “The right to mine diamonds has been granted by the Sierra Leone Government exclusively to the Sierra Leone Selection Trust Monopolistic control of diamond mining was workable as long as operations were conJped to a fairly small area; but diamonds are now being found quite easily over a far more extensive region.

Omsequently, smuggling has now reached very grave proportions, especially over the slightly guarded frontiers* of Liberia and French Guinea. *The loss of revenue has been estimated as high as £5,000,000 annually, • u *» although the true figure may be

£1,000,000, that is a considerable loss to a country whose total revenue barely reached £8,000,000. “Opinion in Sierra Leone seems to be turning in favour of the creation of an open market for diamonds. This would permit many people to mine while enabling the trust to control sales so that the international market is not disturbed. “It is hoped that if all who found diamonds could sell them openly at a fair price it would no longer be worth their while to rim the risks of smuggling even for a higher price. “Present public opinion in diamond areas is definitely in favour of illicit miners and against the law. Police-

men are being constantly subjected to the temptation of heavy; bribes and the diamond ordinance is suffering the natural fate of laws supported neither by the will of most of the people nor by really vigorous police action,” the correspondent says.