African Minerals Limited and the cocaine bust

Special Commentary

Could African Minerals be behind the latest cocaine bust???

With Theophilus Sahr Gbenda

A container loaded with a quantum of cocaine camouflaged in baby pampers has been intercepted by intelligence personnel at the Queen Elizabeth 11 Quay in Freetown.

There is no clue at the moment as to who the importer of the illegal substance is, given that the relevant documents are no where to be found.

Fingers have been pointed at the police officers who intercepted the said container as having done an unprofessional job, thereby making further investigation into the matter somehow difficult.

Accordingly, the police arrested the container without the slightest information regarding its ownership, destination and so on.

The suspicious container had gone through necessary checking procedures, loaded on a trailer and was just about to be taken out of the quay when intelligence from abroad caused it to be blocked.

The high levelness that surrounds the container in question including the mysterious disappearance of all relevant documents and the fact that the consignee is yet to be identified, has left tongues wagging.

The question that keeps coming to mind is how genuine are the people entrusted with the security and administration of the quay, especially giving the fact that the container section has long been privatized, with a French company called Bollore in charge.

The fact that the suspicious container was about leaving the quay when it eventually landed in the hands of security personnel courtesy of last minute foreign intelligence is an indication that this is not the first time such containers have come into the country via the quay.

Taking a closer look at the mysteries involved in the handling of the container and the sudden disappearance of the documents including a bill of laden, one can safely conclude that there is a big time conspiracy taking place at the quay. But who are the conspirators? One may ask.

One big room for conspiracy at the quay is the fact that multilateral companies operating in the country enjoy duty waivers and their consignments not subject to rigorous checking.

One such multilateral company enjoying this undue concession that is amounting to huge revenue loss for the nation, is African Minerals Limited owned by a controversial Romanian called Frank Timis.

It is no longer newsy that Frank Timis, who last year got listed in the Forbes list of billionaires, is on record as having been convicted on three separate drugs related charges.

One can only therefore refer to him as an expert in the business and given how powerful his company has become, it is almost likely that he would want to take advantage of the situation.

The amount of so-called expatriates that have been flown into the country by African Minerals Limited and other companies like Sierra Rutile Company Limited over the past years is huge, and the possibility cannot be overruled that most of them if not all, are directly linked to cocaine and other harmful drugs.   

Go to Makeni and Sierra Rutile where the two companies are active and see for yourself how our poor sisters are being sexually exploited by these so-called expatriates in exchange of a few leones.

Rumours have been doing the rounds that the excitement over the jobs being provided by especially African Minerals Limited and the purpose-based reintroduction of the train will soon be things to openly cry about rather than celebrate.

There is a big game plan for the taking over of the country. By making companies like African Minerals Limited become too powerful, it will warrant a situation wherein good people who otherwise cannot easily depart from their sense of patriotism and nationality losing grips of their integrity and becoming corrupt.

African Minerals Limited has enough money to throw around and what many people including some colleagues in the media don’t know is the fact that the monies the company is spending by way of operational cost are subject to specific deduction from revenues that should go into the national coffers.

This is a complete rip-off when one takes into account how much profit the country is getting as compared to what the company is taking away.

Because the company has enough money, whether clean or dirty, coupled with the fact that people are desperate to have a share of the loot, anything is possible.

It will reach a time when companies like African Minerals will be the ones determining who the next president of the republic will be and which political party should be in governance.

It’s all designed and mind you, African Minerals for instance has secured a 99 years infrastructural lease agreement that has a stability clause attached to it. The question is, has African Minerals become a part owner of Sierra Leone?