By Kadiatu Sankoh
The Civil Society Consortium on Community Accountability and Service delivery, established in November 2016 after a National Conference on Community Engagement and Accountability held in August 2016, was born out of the Government’s commitment to working collaboratively with Civil Society organizations and community leaders in ensuring that accountability and national cohesion is key in nation building. The Consortium aims to complement Governments efforts to improve on good governance and access to service delivery, maintain peace and national cohesion and to effectively promote active stakeholder participation, ownership, and accountability.
It is an open secret and grave concern to the general populace that the current ongoing demolition along the peninsular is unlawful and an unfortunate situation. This can be traced to the fact that there were no proper stakeholders’ engagement and dialogue on the demolition process.
In that regard, this will not create room for positive community relationship, peaceful co-existence, and community ownership.
It is evident that most of the people affected by this demolition have legal title and ownership over their properties, thus, the exercise carried out is a gross violation of their Human Rights.
Currently, more than Hundreds of people are homeless and have lost all that they had worked for over the years, to construct their houses.
It can be recalled that it has been more than forty years since the government last constructed low cost houses, an endeavor that is grossly insufficient to meet the housing needs of the Sierra Leonean populace.
As a consortium charged with the responsibility to ensure quality services are delivered at all levels and protect the Human rights of people, we equally condemn all forms of deforestations, illegal grabbing of state lands, and construction in prohibited areas.
Against this background, the Civil Society Consortium on Community Accountability and Service Delivery is calling on the Government of Sierra Leone, through the Ministry and Agencies concerned to:
- Immediately stop the current demolition exercise
- To form an independent committee to look into the land issues and to determine who are legally entitled to own lands and property at the said communities.
- To closely engage and work with community leaders and stakeholders at the various affected communities for a consensus and peaceful resolutions.
The Civil Society Consortium on Community Accountability and Service Delivery will closely work and monitor all the process for quality service delivery and accountability.