Diamonds' uncertain future

Summary

Business Daily — "Diamonds' Uncertain Future"
Host: Ed Butler | Date: April 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the turbulent legacy and present crisis surrounding Sierra Leone's diamond industry, a sector that has shaped the nation’s economic and social landscape for nearly a century. Host Ed Butler visits Kono, a once-prosperous mining region now wracked by labor unrest, industrial shutdown, and enduring poverty. Through ground-level conversations with miners, their families, community leaders, and executives, the episode explores whether diamonds have truly benefitted Sierra Leone—and raises the question of what the future holds for those who depend on them as lab-grown diamonds begin to disrupt the global market.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sierra Leone’s Riches and Poverty

[02:40–03:36]

• Ed Butler paints a picture of Sierra Leone’s vibrant landscape—fertile, lush, and rich in minerals—yet highlights its paradoxical standing as one of the world’s poorest countries.
• Augustin Sheko, Kono District Council chairman, affirms the region’s agricultural and mineral wealth:

  "Kano is very rich in terms of biodiversity. It's very rich in terms of the soil. Almost everything does well here...cash crops, tree crops, livestock..." ([03:09] Augustin Sheko)

2. Historical Context: The Resource Curse & Civil War

[04:22–06:40]

• The episode traces Sierra Leone’s descent into civil conflict, largely fueled by international interest in its diamonds—a phenomenon immortalized as “blood diamonds.”
• Augustin Sheko recounts the horrors inflicted during the war:

  "When the war struck, Kono was very attractive...they shot at random. They killed people, burned the entire town. All houses were mined." ([05:32] Sheko)

• Sheko shares the personal toll:

  "I lost my mother. The rebels struck and burnt the house, and she, unfortunately, was the victim." ([06:19] Sheko)

3. The Modern Crisis: Industrial Dispute and Economic Fallout

[07:02–15:11]

• Tension centers around a major dispute between Koidu Ltd (the main mining concession) and its workforce.
• Suleiman Mansari, Secretary General of the Mine Workers Union, alleges broken agreements and declining conditions:

  "We came to an agreement...they failed to do that. Started to dismiss people...If you talk, they will just dismiss you." ([07:54] Suleiman Mansari)

• The core financial issue: switching wages from US dollars to the Sierra Leonean currency (lyon), leading—according to workers—to real-terms pay cuts as the local currency lost value.
• Mansari explains:

  "Early 2016 it is fixed at 650. Now the dollar is not 650 in Sierra Leone...now it's something like 23.23.5 Lyons." ([08:19–08:49] Mansari)

• Koidu’s CEO, Dag Kramer, disputes these claims, asserting:

  "This pegging to the dollar and so on is part of that narrative and there is no factual foundation for it...we were paying the local workforce in Sierra Leonean currency which we were obliged to do by regulations..." ([09:00] Kramer)

4. The Strike: Shutdown and Broader Impacts

[12:16–14:30]

• The dispute escalates into a mass strike, halting all mining operations, leaving 1,000 workers unemployed.
• Kramer describes an atmosphere of rising fear and evacuation:

  “We spent the last two weeks of this saga greatly concerned that this could escalate...staff...were petrified...We ultimately...had to evacuate people from the mine site.” ([12:44] Kramer)

• Kramer expresses deep mistrust and a lack of security for possible return:

  “Once you've been hijacked, pickpocketed, beaten up...you need all kinds of guarantees...I wouldn't feel comfortable sending anybody...to that country today. I just don't think it’s safe.” ([14:04] Kramer)

• Attorney General Al FA Sisay asserts that negotiations to restart mining continue:

  "We're working very hard, assiduously, to make sure that the people of Kono continue to benefit from the mineral wealth..." ([14:30] Sisay)

5. Human Effects: Community and Family Hardship

[15:16–18:46]

• Ed Butler visits a community now reliant on petty trading after the mine closed.
• Sheriff Simbo, a former miner, shares his hardship:

  "I feel so bad, so devastated. When they close the mine. My source of income was closed down. I manage it right now to take care of my family is a part time job. Odd job." ([15:47] Simbo)

• Mani Simbo, his wife, underscores the layered deprivation faced by large families:

  "We are suffering. We don't have water. We don't have food to eat. Our children are straining." ([16:53] Mani Simbo)

• School-age children have been out of class for two weeks due to unpaid fees:

  "Two weeks now, look." ([18:15] Mani Simbo)
  "Joshua, would you like to be in school today?" — "Yes." ([18:25–18:27] Butler & Joshua)

6. Social Tension & Legal Battles

[18:48–19:24]

• Sheriff Simbo voices community anger and hints at possible unrest if legal claims for unpaid wages are not resolved:

  "If I don't get another job...If we don't get the final say of our case in court, we do not get our benefiting. We'll go on the rampage." ([18:56] Simbo)

7. Rethinking Development: Education vs. Diamonds

[20:11–21:04]

• The program shifts to a more hopeful note as head teacher Abubakar Amara and community voices look toward education as the pathway out of poverty:

  "With education, they can change this community...Maybe if the diamonds have failed us, the education cannot fail us." ([20:11–20:19] Suleiman Mansari)

• Reflection on diamonds’ legacy:

  “To me, the diamonds have failed us. War, poverty. If you ask now, what have those diamonds done for our community?...Diamonds have failed us.” ([20:43] Suleiman Mansari)

8. Looking Ahead: The Threat of Lab-Grown Diamonds

[21:12–21:36]

• The episode closes with a teaser for the next installment, promising coverage of how lab-grown gems—from India and China—could further upend livelihoods in Kono.

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Memorable Quotes

• Augustin Sheko (on the civil war):

  "It was war of terror...It was very demonic, I would say." ([05:59–06:16])

• Sheriff Simbo (on mine closure):

  "I feel so bad, so devastated. When they close the mine. My source of income was closed down." ([15:47])

• Suleiman Mansari (on diamonds’ legacy):

  "To me, the diamonds have failed us. War, poverty...up to now, we are considered as poor in the world." ([20:43])

• Community reflection:

  "Maybe if the diamonds have failed us, the education cannot fail us." ([20:19] Suleiman Mansari)

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Key Timestamps

• [02:40] — Sierra Leone’s paradoxical riches
• [05:32] — Sheko recounts civil war trauma
• [07:02] — Launch of the industrial dispute
• [08:19] — Details of pay dispute and currency devaluation
• [12:16] — The First Lady’s intervention and shutdown
• [15:47] — Sheriff Simbo on loss of livelihood
• [18:15] — School fees crisis for children
• [18:56] — Rising anger and hints at unrest
• [20:19] — Shift toward hope in education
• [21:21] — Lab-grown diamonds and global competition preview

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Summary

This episode exposes the fragile dependence of Sierra Leone’s Kono region on diamond wealth—where the promise of prosperity remains unfulfilled, and social unrest looms. Mining disputes have led to mass unemployment and hardship, forcing communities to question the true benefit of their most famous export. Drawing a direct line from civil war to modern poverty, the voices in this episode suggest that the real solution may lie not in diamonds, but in education—offering hope for a new legacy, even as the diamond industry faces existential threats from abroad.

Transcript

[Ed Butler]

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[Ed Butler]

That's the sound of the gate here. The security people coming out to look at me suspiciously as I bang on the door. Hi there, my name's Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. Today I'm in Sierra Leone in West Africa and I'm standing outside an old mine site, one of the most contested, contentious areas in all of Sierra Leone.

[Sheriff Simbo]

Right now I feel so bad, so devastated when they close the mine. My source of income was closed down.

[Mani Simbo]

This is our challenge. Our husbands have been laying off and there's no money.

[Narrator/Reporter]

An industrial dispute and what it says about the legacy of diamonds here in West Africa.

[Ed Butler]

That's Business Daily from the BBC.

The view is extraordinary. Around here. You've kind of got the mountains in the distance, palm trees, verdant forests. This is the richest, most fertile region of an already pretty lush green country. You feel like Sierra Leone should be doing a lot better than it is. But nowadays it remains one of the poorest countries in the world, dependent on its mineral resources for what Foreign income it makes.

[Augustin Sheko]

Kano is very rich in terms of biodiversity. It's very rich in terms of the soil. Almost everything does well here. You know, cash crops, tree crops, livestock, all of them are here. We all need the requisite investment.

[Narrator/Reporter]

That's Augustin Sheko.

[Ed Butler]

He's the chairman of the local Kono District Council.

[Narrator/Reporter]

As well as a lush landscape, the region enjoys vast majority mineral riches.

[Ed Butler]

Underground, too.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Dag Kramer is the CEO of Koidu Ltd. The country's biggest diamond mining concession.

[Dag Kramer]

Historically, diamond mining in Sierra Leone goes really back to the 1930s due to the nature and the quality and the consistency of quality of the diamonds found there. The significant, if not the most significant, contributor to private sector gdp from a mining perspective. We've seen ups and downs in the mining industry in Sierra Leone over the last two decades. But as a mining operation, Koidoo managed to survive both the good times and the bad. And this is reflected in the relative prosperity of the district and the area.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Relative prosperity. But this view of Sierra Leone's economic potential hasn't always been so rosy. Back in the 1990s, after years of

[Ed Butler]

stagnation and state corruption, Sierra Leone found itself thrown into a brutal civil war. Violence spurred in part by foreign actors

[Narrator/Reporter]

targeting the country's diamond wealth.

[Ed Butler]

It helped to coin the term blood

[Narrator/Reporter]

diamonds, one made famous by a Hollywood

[Ed Butler]

film of that name starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

[Augustin Sheko]

It came from the heart of the earth. All who touch it are left with

[Podcast Sponsor Announcer]

blood on their hands.

[Ed Butler]

The film certainly helped to instill the

[Narrator/Reporter]

idea worldwide that the diamond industry is

[Ed Butler]

just another resource curse, as it's known, an economic blessing that in places like Africa seems only to have fueled corruption and killing. The Kono chairman, Augustin Scheco, says the horrors of the 1990s remain fresh from. For everyone in the district, it is

[Augustin Sheko]

a very sad memory. Kono was regarded as a breadbasket of Sierra Leone because of its mineral wealth. So when the war struck, Kono was very attractive. And what we saw was very harrowing because when the rebels came, they shot at random. They killed people, burned the entire town. All houses were mined.

[Ed Butler]

They stuck mines inside the houses as well.

[Augustin Sheko]

Absolutely, absolutely. It was war of terror. So if you see somebody being killed before you or somebody being maimed before you, it was how they, you know, established their aim here. It was very demonic, I would say. Each time I think of loved ones that were lost.

[Ed Butler]

Did you lose a lot of loved ones?

[Augustin Sheko]

Oh, yes, ma'.

[Sheriff Simbo]

Am.

[Augustin Sheko]

I lost my mother. The rebels struck and burnt the house, and she, unfortunately, was the victim of

[Ed Butler]

that she died inside the house?

[Augustin Sheko]

Absolutely.

[Ed Butler]

How awful.

[Augustin Sheko]

It was a nightmare. I would really not want to think about it.

[Ed Butler]

Do you fear that something like that could ever happen again here?

[Augustin Sheko]

I don't have that fear, but sometimes I get paranoid.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Paranoia. Fueled perhaps by the events of last year.

[Ed Butler]

The strikes and protests were some of

[Narrator/Reporter]

the most active unrest seen in Kano in the last two decades. The anger was directed by families of mine workers towards Koidu Ltd. The international firm that runs the diamond concession. It employs 1,000 local workers.

[Ed Butler]

Suleiman Mansari is the Secretary General of

[Narrator/Reporter]

the Mine Workers Union.

[Ed Butler]

He claims that an initial deal to resolve the industrial dispute was broken by management.

[Suleiman Mansari]

We came to an agreement that they would give us 30% a bag of rice for you every month and they will provide toilet facility for you. They will be giving you water because Kodulimited was not giving us water. These are all some of the things we are saying. So we are just waiting for them to implement. They failed to do that.

[Ed Butler]

It didn't happen.

[Suleiman Mansari]

It didn't happen. They failed to do that. Started to dismiss people. Just started to dismiss people. If you talk, they will just dismiss you.

[Ed Butler]

The essence of the dispute between the company and the workers boiled down to rates of payment. Suleiman Mansari and other miners say wages were being squeezed following a company move some years ago to switch from paying local staff in dollars to the Sierra Leonean currency instead.

[Suleiman Mansari]

At first they will tell you that you will be paying a sum of this in a US dollar payable using the prevailing exchange rate at a time. If the dollar goes up, you see it on your pay slip. If it comes down, you see it again in your pay slip. But early 2016 it is fixed at 650. Now the dollar is not 650 in Sierra Leone.

[Ed Butler]

What is it now?

[Suleiman Mansari]

It's something like 23.23.5 Lyons. That is the policy.

[Ed Butler]

So miners say the company was profiting thanks to the falling value of the Lyon. Koidu Limited categorically denies this. Here's the CEO Dag Kramer again.

[Dag Kramer]

A lot of the narrative out there is convoluted. It's fake, it's wrong. This pegging to the dollar and so on is part of that narrative and there is no factual foundation for it is false.

[Ed Butler]

You were using an up to date exchange rate for their rates of pay, were you?

[Dag Kramer]

No, we were paying the local workforce in Sierra Leonean currency which we were obliged to do by regulations in the country. The lowest paid worker at Koidu was paid three times the national minimum wage going into this and the working conditions at Koidu. Any person who has been there visited will confirm that the conditions were exceptionally good, not only by Sierra Leonean standards, but by mining standards in Africa.

[Ed Butler]

You're listening to Business Daily on the

[Narrator/Reporter]

BBC World Service

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[Ed Butler]

I'm Ed Butler and today I'm looking at the massive industrial dispute in Sierra Leone that's threatened development and some say peace in the country. Both sides have been accusing each other of misrepresenting the pay issue here based on pay slips, the BBC has seen one submitted to the court. Koidu miners do appear to have experienced a substantial pay cut in real terms. While the company has been selling its diamonds on the global market in dollars, salaries paid in local currency have not kept pace. By early last year the President's wife Fatima Bio had intervened. She was taking the mine workers side in what was becoming an increasingly vitriolic dispute.

[Mani Simbo]

Kwaidu holding not make money and for any day Kwaidu holding no work for 24 hours. It'll cost them millions.

[Ed Butler]

A mass strike was called and in May last year Koidu Ltd. Suspended mining operations altogether, laying off the entire workforce. CEO Dag Kramer says the First Lady's intervention had had the effect of heightening tensions. He blames the government for not guaranteeing security.

[Dag Kramer]

We spent the last two weeks of this saga greatly concerned that this could escalate into a situation beyond our control. And many of the staff on the mine, both local and expat, were petrified. And we had never been in a situation that felt this threatening. And we ultimately, you know, had to evacuate people from the mine site.

[Narrator/Reporter]

What is happening now?

[Dag Kramer]

Well, regardless of us following our obligations and entitlements and having given the government notice of arbitration, we literally haven't heard a word from them. Zero silence. It's bizarre because it's not rational. I think the silence has a lot to do with who's going to take responsibility for this fiasco, because that's really what it is. There has been no benefit, only downside. One of the few cows that was healthy and giving milk was slaughtered. Now, nobody wants to step up and own that. I don't think that there is a single serious investor or a provider of risk capital who would invest in that country today.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Are you willing to go back in?

[Dag Kramer]

We would love to restart the mining operations, but we can only do that with the needed guarantees. Once you've been hijacked, pickpocketed, beaten up, you know, you need all kinds of guarantees, and I don't see those guarantees forthcoming. I wouldn't feel comfortable sending anybody who has been involved on our side of the equation to that country today. I just don't think it's safe.

[Suleiman Mansari]

We are in discussions with Kwaidu because we are government and we have an agreement. We're working very hard, assiduously, to make sure that the people of Kono continue to benefit from the mineral wealth that really belongs to them.

[Narrator/Reporter]

The words there of the Attorney General, Al FA Sisay, who does insist that

[Ed Butler]

negotiations to restart the mine are still ongoing despite there being no signs of this. Well, we asked the first lady for an interview as well. She didn't respond.

[Narrator/Reporter]

There is now a class action lawsuit

[Ed Butler]

against Koidu limited in Freetown, the capital, for what miners say are unpaid wages.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Whether they win or not, the economic consequences of the region's biggest single employer

[Ed Butler]

shutting its gates are clear for everyone.

So we just stepped into a dusty courtyard here just outside the mine site. There's a small gathering of people. There's some clothes lying on the floor which are clearly for sale. This is the empty only business these people now have now that the mine is closed and the head of the family has lost his job. Hi, sir.

[Mani Simbo]

Hello.

[Ed Butler]

Nice to meet you. What's your name?

[Sheriff Simbo]

Sheriff Symbol.

[Ed Butler]

Sheriff Simbo. Nice to meet you. Can I sit down?

[Sheriff Simbo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel so bad, so devastated. When they close the mine. My source of income was closed down. I manage it right now to take care of my family is a part time job. Odd job.

[Ed Butler]

Just doing odd jobs. But it's not the same as a mine job, right?

[Sheriff Simbo]

Definitely. Definitely.

[Ed Butler]

Sharif's wife Mani leads me inside their home. She speaks to me both in broken English and in her local Creole language.

We are coming into just a little shack. It's. How many rooms? How many rooms here?

[Sheriff Simbo]

Five rooms.

[Ed Butler]

Five rooms. Bare concrete walls. How many of you live here?

[Mani Simbo]

15. 15 there.

[Ed Butler]

There are 15 people in this house?

[Mani Simbo]

Yes.

[Ed Butler]

Including the children?

[Mani Simbo]

Yes.

[Ed Butler]

How many children do you have?

[Mani Simbo]

I have four children.

[Ed Butler]

Fifteen of you in these five rooms?

[Mani Simbo]

Because we are suffering. We don't have water. We don't have food to eat. Our children are straining.

[Ed Butler]

What's it been like the last 12 months since the strike?

[K]

It's really hard for me to keep my children. Especially now. They have drove them out of school and the school fee is not there. Life is so difficult for my family.

[Ed Butler]

How are you making money now?

[K]

I have a cookie shop. That's where I raise some money to support my family.

[Mani Simbo]

They do business.

[K]

Other people are doing petty trading, mining, agriculture, just to make ends meet.

[Ed Butler]

Was life better when your husband was mining?

[K]

Life was okay for me and my family during the time when my husband was working. At the end of the month, we received a bag of rice and money to sustain the family. But since the closure of the mine is really difficult. Life is so terrible for me. Even to provide daily food is a challenge.

[Ed Butler]

Your children are here today. Why are they not at school?

[Mani Simbo]

For school fees.

[Ed Butler]

You can't afford the school fees.

[Mani Simbo]

Two weeks now, look.

[Ed Butler]

Two weeks you've been out of school. He's looking at me. He's looking sad. What's your name?

[Mani Simbo]

Joshua.

[Ed Butler]

Joshua, would you like to be in school today?

[Mani Simbo]

Yes.

[Ed Butler]

You like school? What do you like most in school?

[Mani Simbo]

Reading.

[K]

I like reading.

[Ed Butler]

Reading. You like reading?

[Mani Simbo]

But they struggle for it. But they suffer. But they really suffer. Suffer.

[Narrator/Reporter]

As I was preparing to leave, Sharif,

[Ed Butler]

the former mine worker, took me to one side.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Winning the legal claim for lost wages, he said was now the key.

[Sheriff Simbo]

If I don't get another job. The date that has been said. If we don't get the final say of our case in court, we do not get our benefiting. We'll go on the rampage.

[Ed Butler]

You will go on the rampage?

[Sheriff Simbo]

Yes, on the rampage. We are angry of our money. Of our money. Definitely. We'll go on the rampage. Definitely.

[Narrator/Reporter]

It's unclear how seriously to take such threats. I never felt at personal risk in Koidu, nor saw anything to suggest serious violence was imminent. But the country's troubled past continues to hang like a shadow. There is, of course, another more positive vision for Connor. At this school, I met children with dreams, studying, they said, to become teachers, doctors, web designers. Abubakar Amara is the school's head teacher. He believes literacy and mathematics are the country's best hope, the only true path out of poverty.

[Suleiman Mansari]

We want to make the future bright for the kids that are going to school now. With education, they can change this community.

[Sheriff Simbo]

Really?

[Ed Butler]

You think so?

[Suleiman Mansari]

Yes, I'm quite sure. I'm very confident that we can transform this community. Maybe if the diamonds have failed us, the education cannot fail us. So education is one of the tools I think we can use to transform this community. No more mining, no more diamonds because the diamonds have failed already. The people of this country. The people of this community.

[Ed Butler]

You think the diamonds have failed this community?

[K]

Yeah.

[Suleiman Mansari]

To me, the diamonds have failed us. War, poverty. If you ask now, what have those diamonds done for our community? What have those diamonds done for Corner? What have those diamonds done for Sierra Leone? Up to now, we are considered as poor in the world. So to me, yeah, diamonds have failed us.

[Narrator/Reporter]

But still the local people dig, sifting gravel amidst the mud in homemade pits

[Ed Butler]

to supplement their income.

[Narrator/Reporter]

In tomorrow's Business Daily, I'm going to be looking more at that industry here and the new economic challenge that's threatening the traditional diamond miners.

[Ed Butler]

The emergence of industrial made gems grown in labs in faraway countries like India and China. What's the best choice for today's diamond consumers? The lab grown or the traditional diamonds?

[Narrator/Reporter]

And what's best for those still digging for a living? Join me, Ed Butler for that.

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