By Francis H. Murray
The disabled community, which was partly affected by the recent fire incident at PWD on Pademba Road in Freetown, has called on the government and its partners to provide them with a permanent housing solution.
The fire incident destroyed properties worth over Le5million, mostly properties owned by the disabled community, and it left many of them homeless and in a state of anxiety with the approaching rainy season.
Most of the disabled who live in the community are victims of the paralyzing disease - Polio. The abandoned buildings which house them are on a piece of land owned by the Ministry of Works and Public Assets, which also owns a workshop next door.
Ishmael Komba Gborie, chairman of Help Empower Polio Person’s Organization (HEPPO), an umbrella body for the disabled community, said the incident last month seriously affected their social wellbeing as a community.
“The fire which broke out from the workshop took us by surprise. We were calm, observing the national cleaning exercise, when we heard people shouting that fire had broke out,” Gborie narrated.
“We were frightened by the thick smoke that came out and as a result we ran out to call for help,” he added in an interview.
He said the impact of the fire could have been worst if abled bodied youths in the nearby neighborhood had not come to their rescue before the fire-force arrived.
“Had it not been that the abled bodied guys were very swift to intervene and used the available water we had for home use, the consequences would have been very grave,” he stated.
Despite his expression of gratitude to the support from the youths, Gborie said that they had to pay a costly price in that most of the helpers made away with their valuable items. He said they counted three laptop computers, two desktop computers, phones, DVD players, a bluetooth tape, cash and lots more, as having been taken by the youths who came to render help.
Gborie also said that several NGOs had made promises to their community to transform their makeshift structures to standard homes should the permission be given to them by the central government to build permanent structures.
The cause of the fire incident is still not known, although both parties (the disabled community and officials of the workshop) have been making accusation and counteraccusation about who is responsible for it.
The disabled specifically point an accusing finger at the head of the workshop, Superintendent of Works, Ibrahim Jabbie, who they claimed did not only cause the fire but also ordered thugs to threaten and beat them up a day after the fire incident.
“I was outside after the cleaning exercise when a group of angry looking youths came and began to throw all sorts of invectives on us on the order of Mr. Jabbie,” narrated Allieu Sumoray, a member of the disabled community and a victim of the fire incident.
Sumoray alleged that he was thrown out of his wheelchair and threatened by the thugs.
Jabbie however dismissed all the allegations against him when contacted by Politico.
“The allegations are not true. We are responsible people and we, as civil servants, are here to save lives and properties, just like the police who were here,” Jabbie said, adding that all they now looked forward to was to resume work after a temporary halt as a result of the fire incident.
The Ministry of Works, which owns the plot of land where the disabled are occupying, has collaborated with other stakeholders such as the National Commission for Persons with Disability, the Ministry of Social Welfare and Office of National Security (ONS), to identify the cause of the fire.
Saa Lamin Korteque, Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Persons with Disability, said that in response to the PWD incident, a committee that comprised officials of ONS, Works and Social Welfare ministries, the Disability Commission and the Sierra Leone Police, had been set up to investigate the matter.
According to Korteque, the Commission was expected to issue out a report on the outcome of the findings last Wednesday, but that the investigation wasn’t completed owing to the busy nature of members of the Committee.
Meanwhile, the disabled are worried that if immediate help is not rendered, their suffering would worsen by the rains which are expected between April and May. Most of the buildings serving as shelter for them were already in deplorable conditions before the fire incident.
They are therefore pleading with the government and its partners to find any suitable place within the Western Area where they could be relocated and standard permanent structures subsequently built for them.
“We are pleading with the central government to please look into the concerns we have raised and help relocate us to any suitable place within the Western Area where permanent structures would be built,” said Gborie.
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