Socfin’s response to Fian’s “Draft report extracts made available to Socfin before publication – Provisional title: Land Conflict in Malen – Analysis and lessons learned from a human perspective”

Socfin denies allegation and argues amongst other things that they went through a lengthy process of consultation with the communities, resulting in an overall acceptance and support to the project; people were free to choose and some decided not to adhere to the project and kept their land. They further argue that they had a full Environmental Social and Health Impact Assessment study, which was done by Star Consult in 2010-2011, followed by its Public Disclosure made in June 2011. Which resulted in the Government of Sierra Leone granting  Socfin three different land lease totalling 18473 hectares (the Government of Sierra Leone leases the land from the land owners and then the Government of Sierra Leone sub-lease that land to Socfin).