By Joseph S. Margai in Freetown, Sierra Leone
Inhabitants of Ropath village have complained that quarry operators are posing grave danger to their lives as a result of improperly maintenance to their houses cracked by quarry blast of rocks.
Ropath is a small community with its inhabitants mostly farmers. It is situated in Koya Chiefdom, Port Loko District, in northern Sierra Leone. Four quarries, including the Foresight International, Malick, and other companies identified only as ARG and CSE surround the village.
The activities of these quarries, especially the sound that emanates from the blasting of rocks, have been cracking locals’ houses. Inhabitants said earlier this year, the operators agreed to carry out maintenance works on the cracked houses, but the operators have so far done nothing to remedy the situation, only carrying out what victims described as “improper maintenance”.
Kadiatu Sesay, Chairlady of Ropath Development Committee, confirmed that some houses in the community were cracked, as a result of the big sound that emanated from the quarry blast of rocks.
“Because of this ugly development, Kadiatu said, “we he have been meeting and urging them as a committee to repair the cracked houses. They have been responding immediately by providing the workforce with cement and sand to do the maintenance but the maintenance is not properly done.” She added that whenever the operators wanted to embark on maintenance work, some of the committee members monitor them.
According to her, anytime the committee notices that houses have been cracked due to their operations we will take them around the village and show them the damage caused, and they timely intervened.
Abu Thoronka, a man whose house operators repaired, told Groove 106FM that he was not satisfied with the work done on his house, claiming that the continuous blasting have rendered the foundation of his house very weak.
“We are in the rainy season and the cold weather conditions, and if the blasting is also cracking hour house foundations, it means in the not too distant future they will collapse on us,” he said.
However, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Malick Quarry, Ahmed Yigit, popularly called “Big Boss”, said most of the houses in Ropath village are not strong enough to withstanding the sound of the blasting.
He claimed that whenever they have cases of cracked houses, they walk through the village in order to inspect the problem, noting that they do an estimate and ask their workers to repair them.
“We have stopped big blasting since last year,” she claimed.
Human Resource Manager of Foresight International, Abubakarr Koroma, said they used to blast rocks, but they have stopped one year ago.
“Our work now involves rental of machines and rehabilitation of feeder road. We are currently out of business because of the rains and we have even relieved some staff,” Koroma said.
Sahid Deedat, Human Resource Officer of ARG Quarry, said since his company has started operations in Ropath village on May 1, 2017, they have only blasted rocks once, which was in June 2017.
“Our quarry site is over one mile away from here. We pay a blasting fee to the community and we also make an announcement notifying the people that we were to blast at a particular time of the day,” he said.
He denied that they have ever produced big sound when they blast because they always dig a hole about 10 meters deep before they blast.
“Frankly, nobody in this village has complained that our blasting has destroyed their houses. We have lots of cement and sand here to repair their houses, if such complaints come up,” he added.
