By Nightwatch Roving Correspondent
Much against the widespread misinformation and spurious attacks on the dealings of Ismail El-Abbouti, Sierra Leone’s Special Envoy for Trade and Investment and his local business partner, Mary Jatu Kosia by certain unscrupulous investors, the people of Diang Chiefdom in Koinadugu District are hailing the Foundation set up by the two as one they have never seen in the Chiefdom by their kind-hearted donations that are positively impacting on their lives.
The Baraka Foundation, a non-profit outfit set up by the two, has been doing extremely well for the people even before the start of their intended mining operations in the in the Chiefdom in terms of their humanitarian and selfless donations, which according to what our Correspondent has gathered, “are directly impacting on the lives of the people especially, women and children.”
El-Abbouti and Kosia, two eminent personalities, have in their fold, two registered mining companies, EP Mining and Baraka Mining. EP Mining is registered to operate in Diang Chiefdom, while Baraka Mining is registered to operate in the Tonkolili District.
According to the Chairman of the Diang Chiefdom Mining Committee, Edward Manso Koroma, the humanitarian gestures exhibited by the Baraka Foundation has in the opinion of the generality of the people of Diang Chiefdom, in particular in Yarra and Beninkoro in the Fogbo Section are palpable. The Baraka Foundation, according to Chairman Edward Koroma, is a listening organization and has been acting in consonance with the needs and wants of the people. In the clustered community of Yarra and Beninkoro, the Baraka Foundation speedily constructed a much needed Safe Mother Delivery House besides the Clinic to hold and prepare pregnant women in-wait to go into labour.
“This, to our women, was like a rain on a dry savannah land that sees fresh grass springing up for pasture for a starving cattle,” Mr. Koroma summarized the feeling of happiness and hope in the women.
In Beninkoro especially, the Barak Foundation stepped in the complete and put to use a huge Mosque the community has been struggling over for years now. “The Mosque now stands as an attractive structure in the community and as a centralized place of worship in that widely Muslim community.
“The Baraka Foundation did all of these and continue to do gestures much to the surprise of the people,” Chairman Edward Koroma noted, pointing out that when the Foundation Team first went into the Chiefdom, they undertook a needs assessment of the people, which he maintained, “they are now executing based on the priority needs of the people.”
During the just ended Month of Ramadan, the Baraka Foundation went to the Chiefdon headquarter of Koninbaia, where they distributed over two hundred bags of rice for the various communities of the chiefdom and made another laudable promise to the women, to construct another Safe Mother Delivery House at the Chiefdom’s headquarter clinic vicinity.
According to Edward Manso Koroma, the construction of these Safe Mother Delivery Houses is very significant in the reduction of maternal fatalities as a result of complications in pregnant women in their times of delivery. Mr. Koroma indicated that when instances of difficulties arise in pregnant women and they require special attention, the clinics even with abled midwives and nurses, find it difficult to hosts such cases because of the inadequacies of spaces ideal enough for such crucial maternal care.
He explained that it would require the Chiefdom Dispenser and nurses to call for an emergency ambulance service to transport such critical cases over forty-five (45) miles of dusty and rugged road to the main Referral Government Hospital in Kabala the District headquarter town.
“With all these put in perspective, we the people of Diang Chiefdom are looking forward to welcoming the full operations of EP Mining Company because, by what they have manifested so far, there is hope that once they get fully engaged, they will do more as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Chiefdom,” the Chiefdom Mining Committee Chairman noted.
Mr. Koroma went on to reveal to Nightwatch that Diang Chiefdom is currently host to a total of seven (7) active mining companies, with two major ones of Chinese origin, but that, none of these are making themselves attractive to the people. “These ongoing mining companies are just ripping from us; digging and carting away our gold. They care less about the social concerns of the people and communities in which they are operating,” Chairman Koroma charged, pointing the poor roads condition and the lack of social infrastructure in most of the mining communities these existing mining companies are operating.
“Even though the EP Mining Company has not started operations yet in the Chiefdom, as a people, we want to join in making a solemn appeal to the Government of Sierra Leone through the relevant Ministry of Mines and related agencies, to please fast-track the completion of the authentication of the documents of the EP Mining Company so they can start operations in our Chiefdom. We have seen hope in them; we have seen social development capability in the Company and as a people we are yearning for them to come join us officially so they can help support the social development of our Chiefdom,” the Diang Chiefdom Mining Committee Chairman stated.
He said everything he has highlighted he has done for and on behalf of the people of Diang Chiefdom, because according to him, “we as a people have never seen anything like this from any of the mining companies.”
He went on to remind the Baraka Foundation to make do on its promise for the construction of the Safe Mother Delivery House at Koninbaia, noting that, “I have every confidence that they will just that since they have proved themselves sufficiently to the people of Diang Chiefdom as “a talk and do business-minded people.”
Nightwatch will continue on the trail of these apparently sober business-oriented an philanthropic people; Ismail El-Abbouti and Mary Jatu Kosia as they work towards improving the lives of Sierra Leoneans in their various concession areas and to unveil the truth against the plethora of misinformation against them as let out by a certain unscrupulous so-called investors who appear to be nothing other than scammers.