Sierra Leone officials facilitated illegal mansion-building in a key national park

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Scores of illegal luxury mansions have been built in a national park that serves as an important environmental buffer for Sierra Leone ’s capital and the government has done little or nothing about it, an investigation shows.

The Associated Press and The Gecko Project exclusively obtained the results of a government investigation into the illegal construction that has never been shared with the public, almost four years after President Julius Maada Bio commissioned it. It found that senior government officials handed out land ownership documents.

In a visit, the AP found that construction continues.

The mansions are in the Bio Barray neighborhood, part of which has been built illegally in the mountainous Western Area Peninsula National Park, which Sierra Leone’s government has proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At least 50 houses in Bio Barray have been built or are under construction within park boundaries on land that was rainforest as recently as 2019.

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This story was reported in collaboration with The Gecko Project, a nonprofit newsroom reporting on environmental issues. The reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters, and funded coverage areas at AP.org.