As President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf approaches the end of her final term scandal and defections hang over her Unity Party which twice carried her into the country's top job. But her would-be successors have problems of their own as the field of rival can
8th Jul 2016

Following the leak of over eleven million company files from the Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama on 3 April many African activists and law enforcement officers have been searching the documents for evidence of malfeasance. Of course being a client of
15th Apr 2016

Flattened by an Ebola epidemic the crash in world iron prices and serial mismanagement in its mining companies Sierra Leone's economy is in intensive care. On 15 March the day after President Ernest Bai Koroma announced a reshuffle suggesting that he w
1st Apr 2016

President Ernest Bai Koroma named 13 new ministers and deputy ministers some of them his most devoted and hardline supporters on 14 March in Freetown. One Freetown daily dubbed them a 'Cabinet of Cronies'. But the reshuffle also tried to please some spe
22nd Mar 2016

Standing prominently in front of the maternity ward of Kenema Government Hospital is a newly erected plaque bearing the names of 36 health workers who perished combating the recent Ebola epidemic (AC Vol 56 No 13 'Lack of focus' on Ebola). The first nam
19th Feb 2016

President Ernest Bai Koroma is planning to take out a massive Chinese loan to build an airport despite promising the International Monetary Fund he would not we hear. Africa Confidential has also learned that a Chinese feasibility study for the project
19th Feb 2016

Britain's Standard Chartered Bank is caught in the middle of an increasingly bitter feud between the Sierra Leone government and the heavily-indebted Octéa Limited owner of the country's biggest diamond mine at Koidu. After tense and unsuccessful talks i
4th Dec 2015

Somalia has long been seen as too risky for even the hardiest foreign investors but now a new band of British money-men adventurers and politicians is setting up shop there. A former Home Secretary and Conservative Party ex-leader Baron Michael Howard of
4th Dec 2015

President Ernest Bai Koroma's government informed the International Monetary Fund it had abandoned his flagship project the Mamamah international airport during its team visit in September Africa Confidential has learned. Ten days later however Korom
20th Nov 2015

A ten-strong team led by Mines Minister Minkailu Mansaray is in London for crisis talks set for 16 November on the future of the Koidu diamond mine which is currently owned by Octéa Limited a debt-laden subsidiary of the Israeli billionaire Beny Steinm
16th Nov 2015