Dredges on the St. John River in the Kokoyah District, Bong County. The DayLight/Esau J. Farr
By Esau J. Farr
KOKOYAH DISTRICT, Bong County – On an early Friday morning last month, men dressed up in country clothes moved through a forest and arrived at a mining camp on the banks of the St. John River. Miners fled into the bush as they failed to escape with their makeshift dredges. The men, with hammers, machetes and a container of gasoline, destroyed one of three to the cries of its nervous owners.
This was an operation conducted by a task force of the National Traditional Council of Chiefs in Bong County. Its mission was to rid the sacred waters of illegal miners in the Kokoyah and Panta districts. The one-month operation stemmed from a 2019 moratorium on dredging, which was lifted last June, according to an official document.
“The miners are going on our traditional waters using a lot of mercury,” said Aphonso Diggs, the task force’s head. “Those dredges are depleting our waters. It is just disturbing!” He said that the operation was independent of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, but that the regulator was aware.
This reporter counted 10 members of the task force, including armed anti-riot police officers.
The operation had started days before the raid in Sayweh Town, near David Dean’s Town, a famous mining town in Bong County. Videos The DayLight obtained show the task force burning dredges in the Rock Crusher town and Willie Village.
The raid comes at a time when the Ministry of Mines and Energy has legalized dredging, which is associated with the use of mercury, a chemical detrimental to human and the environment. Permits for small and large-scale mining are US$10,000 and US$1,500, respectively. No permits have been issued.
Dredge owners The DayLight interviewed said they wanted to get permits.
“If they were going to tell us to get [a permit], it wouldn’t have been bad,” said Henry Kromah, a dredge owner in Sayweh Town. “I would have gotten our documents because I don’t like stress.”
Diggs accused Ministry of Mines’ agents in the district of collecting L$10,000 from illicit miners weekly, a claim the agents deny.
“That is false. I am not aware [of any payments],” said Rufus Garkpah, a Ministry of Mines agent in the region, in a telephone interview. “How can I be in Monrovia and be collecting money from somebody?”
Interestingly, miners and townsmen interviewed accused the task force of collecting bribes from dredge owners and runners.
“Normally, they only come for money. They collect money and go,” said James Tokpah, one of the illicit miners in Rock Crusher. A day after the task force’s raid, this reporter saw three dredges operating, while two burned ones floated on the riverbank.
“After a while, you will see another group come and collect and they go. That is what they do in this area,” Tokpah added.
Diggs denies any wrongdoing. He said he was only interested in getting illicit miners from rivers and streams across the countryside.
Diggs said, “If they don’t leave, we will still remove.”
The DayLight produced this content with support from the Embassy of Ireland through Integrity Watch Liberia. The DayLight maintained editorial independence over its content, which does not reflect the position of the Embassy of Ireland or Integrity Watch Liberia.
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