Efforts are being made by a team of Government Ministers to engage the managements of Leone Rock Metal Group LTD, formerly Kingho, and Arise IIP with a proposal that will lead to a compromise in favour of both companies regarding the management of the railway and port facilities.
The companies, like any other investor seeking to roll out in a country like Sierra Leone with huge prospects for industrialisation, readily available labour, fertile land for crops, high-quality mineral deposits and strategically linked to other markets in the Mano River basin, might welcome the move to settle the misunderstanding.
The existing railway between the port of Pepel and the Marampa iron ore mine is currently being operated by the Chinese miner, one of the largest resource investment companies in West Africa and the largest in the country’s extractives sector, now expanding its operations in Guinea and Liberia because of new opportunities in a number of commodities, including Iron Ore, Bauxite, and other base metals.
ARISE Integrated Industrial Platforms (ARISE IIP), the Indian-owned developer and operator of world-class industrial ecosystems across Africa, is partnering with the Republic of Sierra Leone, to launch the SIZ – Koya integrated industrial zone, designed to host companies specializing in agro-industry, timber processing, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods manufacturing, electric vehicle manufacturing, and cement and tile manufacturing.
The railway as an investment
It was designed as a common carrier railway, but it is now being used predominantly for transporting iron ore. The Kingho Railway and Port Company Limited, a subsidiary of Leone Rock Metal Group LTD, established in Sierra Leone in 2010, has been managing and operating the infrastructure of the railway and Pepel Port for the haulage and export of millions of tonnes of iron ore.
There are, however, huge prospects and opportunities for expansion with multiple rail tracks, terminal stations along the rail corridor, storage facilities for perishable goods and movement of large numbers of people from hard-to-reach communities in that part of the country. This is where Arise IIP is said to be being considered to concentrate and expand the rail facilities.
When the company came into the picture early this year, it brought with it an ambitious business proposal to include an industrial zone in the airport city of Lungi, a strategic investment that will require them to transport raw materials. Early this month Arise IIP announced it was bringing in trains for passenger movement from Tonkolili through Bombali to the Port Loko district.
It could be recalled that when between 2011 and 2014 African Minerals, now closed, set out to construct a new standard gauge railway from the Tonkolili iron ore mine to a new port at Tagrin Point, it knew that there would eventually be other players to expand the facility and cater to the needs for passenger movements and transportation of goods.
Now, Arise IIP has an opportunity to actualise its project idea of improving mobility and trade access through a passenger rail service. In what looks like a win-win situation on the horizon, Arise IIP now has the opportunity to build its assets or refurbish, where possible, the Pepel Port and the Pepel to Tonkolili infrastructure, to realise its business goal of introducing landmark passenger rail services and rail connection to Guinea.
At the end of the day, Kingho will not be constrained to maintenance the rail infrastructure because it needs it for iron ore transportation and Arise IIP will concentrate on passenger movement and the transportation of goods, especially its raw materials, to its massive manufacturing and processing plants at the industrial Zone in Lungi.
The biggest beneficiaries are the country, the government and the people of Sierra Leone because both projects – Leone Rock Metal Group (Kingho) and Arise IIP – bring benefits in the form jobs, bulk passenger movement and transportation of goods from Tonkolili in the northeast, through Bombali in the north to the Port Loko in the northwest. They will pay competitive annual royalties, as well as pay-as-you-earn for locals and expatriates and boost other forms of taxes as additional revenue streams for the government.
