“Kono Mining Limited Insulted Me” …First Lady Says

Speaking to the press last week in Koidu Town, Kono District, the First Lady, Madam Fatima Bio said she had been on the campaign for the welfare of workers at Kono Mining Limited for over two months and that the company had already started to comply with their demands as they have started giving their workers a bag of rice at the end of every month.
She said a week before now, after a series of negotiations, the company agreed to almost all of their demands, but they needed to confer with their bosses in South Africa about salary increase, which they negotiated from 50% to 30% increase for staff members from supervisors downward.
She said, “I left Kono with the hope that everything is settled. They later called me to send them my email address so that they could send me their final decision, which I did. Instead of cooperating, they sent an insulting and demeaning email to me….After we had held over five meetings with Kono Mining Limited and they had agreed to our demands, some of which they have started to comply with, and now they said in their email that I am not a government official and that they would only cooperate with government officials.
She said, “After reading the email, I knew that there is someone in the government who told them to do what they did. To justify my claim, the email they sent to me, they had the audacity to copy other senior government officials into it who are supporting them.”
The First Lady confirmed that Kono Mining Limited had earlier offered to fly her to South Africa on a private jet to meet with their bosses, an offer she refused, saying that the problem is in Sierra Leone so it’s best for them to come over here and resolve all the outstanding issues”.
She furthered that she would not negotiate with them again until they put pen to paper to accept their demands or else they would continue with their industrial action.
“I may not be a government official, but I am a special envoy of the Labour Congress…They asked me to fight for workers’ welfare and their human rights…And is exactly what I am doing”.

It is unfair to have people working underground for you, for over eight hours everyday, with no portable drinking water, no toilet facilities, not even a first aid facility for staff who are working in dangerous areas in the mines and no risks allowance…this is not fair…while they foreign staff are well paid anð have all the necessary facilities…this is unfair”.
“I will continue to fight for my people, not as First Lady but as an indigene of Kono”, Madam First Lady emphasized.