By Jane B. Mansaray.
National Chairman of the Sierra Leone Timber Association, Mr. Mohamed Forna has warned foreign nationals dealing in the timber trade across the country to desist from illegal transactions. Mr. Forna gave the warning in an interview conducted with media practitioners.
Mr. Forna stated that, as an association, they have observed that some foreign Nationals including Chinese, Nigerians, Ghanaians and others are breaching the laws of the trade by illegally opening “depots” in the regions.
He maintained that, these foreign Nationals even go to the extent of carrying power saw machines right into the bushes where local people earn their living.
“As an association, we would not tolerate such thing to happen as it has negative economic effects on our people`s livelihood especially those who largely depend on the timber trade in the regions,” Forna said.
During a recent on-the-spot check at the various depots in the Northern region of Sierra Leone, a team of experts from government arrested Nigerians who were right in the forest buying timber; a move he referred to as ` illegal’ as they were only permitted by law to do carry out their trade in Freetown and not in the regions.
He explained that, during the spot check, they confiscated truckloads of young timber logs, which according to law, is against the Forestry Act of 1988.
He furthered that some of the Nigerians who were caught loading timber in the regions do not have harvest licenses and a good number of them do not have proper documents to carry out this trade.
Mohamed Sow, a timber businessman explained to this medium that foreign Nationals need to be controlled as their trade ventures have adversely affected their business.
He noted that apart from destroying their business, these foreign Nationals are deeply engaged in harvesting of young trees that are not allowed to be harvested by citizens.
According to him, there are graduates who have searched for jobs for many years, but could not secure any and instead, have jumped into timber trade with the connivance of these foreigners, given the high rate of unemployment in the country, particularly among graduates.
He called on the Bio administration and the leadership of Timber Association to critically look into their plight and put mechanisms in place for the timber business to be properly regulated to weed out illegal foreign Nationals currently residing in the provinces.
