Tongo, also known as Tongoma, is a diamondmining town and the second largest city in Kenema District, (after the city of Kenema) located in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. Tongo is about twenty seven miles to Kenema. The population of the 60-sq.-mile city is 44,376.
Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. At room temperature and pressure, another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form, but diamond almost never converts to it. Diamond has the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of any natural material, properties that are utilized in major industrial applications such as cutting and polishing tools. They are also the reason that diamond anvil cells can subject materials to pressures found deep in the Earth.
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef or placer deposit. These deposits form a mineralized package that is of economic interest to the miner.
Kenema District is a district in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. Its capital and largest city is Kenema, which is the second most populous city in Sierra Leone, after Freetown. Tongo is the second most populous city in the district. Other major towns in Kenema District include Blama and Yomboma. The district is the most populous district in the Eastern province with a population 609,873. Kenema District has an area of 6,053 km2 (2,337 sq mi) and comprises sixteen chiefdoms.
The town is the seat of the Tongo Diamond Field, one of the largest diamond-producing areas in Sierra Leone.
Demography
The city of Tongoma is ethnically and religiously diverse. The city is home to a significant number of most of the country's ethnic groups and attract people from all parts of Sierra Leone, due to the rich diamond mining in the area.
Sport
As in all parts of Sierra Leone, football (soccer) is by far the most popular sport in Tongo. Children are seen playing street football all over the city. The city even have a professional football club in the Sierra Leone National Premier League called the Gem Stars of Tongo.
Sierra Leone National Premier League is the top professional football league in Sierra Leone. It was founded in 1967. The league is sponsored by the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank, one of the major Sierra Leonean banks. East End Lions and Mighty Blackpool are the two biggest and most successful clubs. The National Premier League is controlled by the Sierra Leone Football Association. The season runs from March to July.
Tongo Diamond mining Field
The Government of Sierra Leone headed by the Minister of Natural Resources under the Administration of president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah originally granted a Mining Lease for the Tongo Diamond Field to Rex Diamond Mining Corporation Limited, a diamond mining and exploration company with its head office in Antwerp, Belgium. However, the new administration of president Ernest Bai Koroma headed by his Minister of Mines and Natural Resources suspended this contract.
Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was a Sierra Leonean politician who served twice as the 3rd President of Sierra Leone, from 1996 to 1997 and again from 1998 to 2007. An economist and attorney by profession, Kabbah spent many years working for the United Nations Development Programme. He retired from the United Nations and returned to Sierra Leone in 1992.
Antwerp is a city in Belgium, and is the capital of Antwerp province in Flanders. With a population of 520,504, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium, and with 1,200,000 the second largest metropolitan region after Brussels.
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of 30,688 square kilometres (11,849 sq mi) and has a population of more than 11.4 million. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi and Liège.
A letter issued by Sierra Leone Ministry of Mines and Natural Resources required them to confirm that they would restart their operations or give up their mineral rights. Rex Mining failed to commit sufficient resources to their exploration programmes. As a result, the Government cancelled their Tongo and Zimmi mining leases in October 2007.
In an effort to introduce greater transparency into the granting of a new mineral right for the former mining lease area in the Tongo Diamond Field, the government of Sierra Leone decided to publicly offer the former mining lease area open to bids for exploration licences from interested companies. The advertisement published in local newspapers and on the internet stated that application forms could be obtained from the Geological Survey. The advertisement asked that in addition to providing ten completed application forms, interested parties should make a non-refundable payment of US$5,000 by bank draft to the Director of Mines. The advertisement included a statement that 'Companies are guaranteed a Mining Lease in accordance with the Mines and Mineral Act 1996 if prospects prove economically viable.' Other than some basic details on the dykes and 'blows' that had been discovered previously no further geological information was provided.
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Tongo may refer to:
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