By Mustapha Sesay & Kenneth Thompson
The Legal Adviser at Sierra Leone's central National Power Authority has told Politico that encroachment on their land at Goderich in the outskirts of Freetown may scupper their chances of implementing a US$ 14 million project funded under the Japanese International Corporation Agency (JICA) project to construct substations for the supply of electricity to the area.
Tamba Kellie said that JICA had already done a survey on the said land and had certified it as suitable for the project and was ready to start the construction project but that they had found out that the land was not ready yet. As such, he said, JICA had written to NPA indicating that they would delay the project.
Kellie continued that though the money was a grant to the Sierra Leone government, the possibility existed that JICA would throw its hands in the air and say “let us forget it”, he said.
The NPA lawyer said that the land in question was about 10 acres given to the Authority in 2008 by the former state-owned broadcaster SLBS since and that the land had not been utilized since. He said that in that time the land was encroached upon by people who started building make-shift structures on it, adding that all efforts to ward off the encroachers failed.
He said the process of transferring the land to NPA through the lands ministry which would give the full ownership of the land had been difficult, but assured that his Authority ensure “the illegal occupants” were evicted through the due process of the law.
However, the head of administration of SLBC says they have not ceded ownership of their land to any individual or institution. George Mason told Politico that they would soon start repossessing their land which he said had been encroached upon.
(C) Politico 01/10/13
