SIERRA LEONE DIAMOND SECTOR FINANCIAL POLICY CONSTRAINTS

30 June 2003

CHAIM EVEN-ZOHAR

Study conducted for US and British governments looks at the plight of alluvial miners and diggers in Sierra Leone. This plight mirrors problems often seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Angola, Central African Republic and other diamond-rich African countries. In Sierra Leone de facto control and ownership of most production is in the hands of a small but powerful trading elite, depriving licensed miners and their diggers the opportunity to secure a fair return for their labor. We estimate the number of miners and diggers to be between 300,000 and 400,000. Between 85% and 90% of the production is smuggled out – a figure that has been repeatedly stressed by both private players and government officials. To facilitate smuggling and money laundering, both in Sierra Leone and “downstream” (that is, in the direction of the ultimate consumer), record keeping and transaction transparency are kept to a minimum or are totally absent. Some of the existing paper trail is fraudulent

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