Despite desperate efforts to conceal and distort the truth about its abuses, Lawyers representing the plaintiffs Seilolo, Stevens, Charley, Mendea, Anderson families, and Moseilolo Descendants Association (MOSADA) on Thursday secured a landmark court injunction against the operations of Shun Da Ore Trading Company, operating in the Bagruwa Chiefdom, Moyamba District, Southern Sierra Leone.
According to court papers, the company has been slapped with an injunction for, among other things, violation of a contractual agreement.
In the Judge’s order, for the next one week, the company must halt all its activities and respond to the prayers against it, failing which the injunction could be extended.
In an interesting twist of events, the Sierra Leone Parliament has commissioned an investigation into the operations of Shun Da Ore, after it was made clear by Hon. Mustapha Sellu that land, water, air, and other environmental disasters have been caused. The locals accused the company of grabbing their land and not fulfilling the provisions of the land lease agreement between the company and the landowners.
It could be recalled that the land owners have mounted legal, legislative, and press pressure on the company, which prompted the company to seek the right to reply at the National Public Broadcaster, but the company declined to reply and decided to hire a paid-for-publisher to distort some of the facts claiming that P.C Robert Coker Seilolo and landowning families vindicated Shun Da Ore Tarding Company.
Instead of writing implicate, the writer used vindicate in an attempt to vaguely absolve the company of its wrongdoings.
The landowners have reiterated that the company is noncompliant with the terms of its agreement. Due to landowners’ pressure, the company hastily, on 25 May 2025, staged a so-called surface payment to the landowners that is way below what was agreed amount.
The Company has heavily influenced the Paramount Chief with bribes to give its operations a clean bill of health. PC Robert, however, acknowledged the concerns of the community by stating that:
“To all community stakeholders with concerns, I urge calm and dialogue. The proper channels exist to address any grievances, and we must utilize them rather than spreading information that could harm the progress we have made together.”
The stakeholders, MOSADA, say that there has not been any progress outside of the company, concealing of information and violation of the terms of its agreement, and using the PC to deceive the public and distort the truth.
The PC who was once dethroned for sacrilegious allegations is grappling with a legitimacy and public trust deficit. He has amassed enormous wealth from the proceeds that he gets from the company and shares with his immediate relatives, sidelining the true landowners because he does not want to pay them the contractual stated amount. He has surrounded himself with sycophants and cronies who cannot tell their left from right in the interest of the suffering masses.
“Shun Da Ore’s operations have been noncompliant with the legal and regulatory framework, and the Company has not been transparent. The Company’s operations in our Chiefdom is so far a curse to the lives of the people of Bagruwa Chiefdom. The true landowners have not been consulted, the compensation that they have paid is a pittance to the amount of land that they have grabbed and rendered useless in their columbite and other mining operation sites,” a MOSADA Spokesperson told the SLBC Morning Coffee programme.
Amara Charles Dukuray, Managing Director of Shun Da Ore, agrees that there are issues with the Company’s corporate social responsibility and disagreements among people in the host community.
When asked for a reply to the many serious host community concerns around sustainable development of their operations in Bagruwa Chiefdom, he deflected by saying that they have spent twenty-five thousand dollars on road rehabilitation and maintenance, the same issue flagged by MP Sellu in the area as unaddressed and worsening with an ever-increasing threats of road accidents due to reckless driving.
He also claimed that the company has spent ten thousand dollars on the provision of solar-powered water wells and taps, but this was contrasted by the stakeholders, who said:
“All of our rivers have been polluted. The wells they claimed to have dug no longer exist; they are only distracting attention from the real issue of their noncompliance with the terms of their land lease agreement with the host community.”
According to MOSADA, the claims by some so-called indigenes of the chiefdom that the company is doing well are, from a personal standpoint, as the company has, with the help of the PC Coker, sown discord among innocent and unsuspecting poor rural families who depend on their land and water for daily sustenance.
They vowed not to collaborate or continue to tolerate the blatant violations of the company, even if the Company employs a change of outreach strategy, which has now turned into deception and damage control. The distorted and spin-so-called appraisal of the company by a kangaroo-style cabal of imposing stakeholders and landowners is nothing far from a facade and damage control of the tarnished reputation of Shun Da Ore Trading Company.
