By Septimus Senessie in Kono
The chairman on the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Defence and National Security says soldiers and police officers have bitterly complained to them about "the poor accommodation” they live in barracks across the country. He says they also complained over their conditions of service.
Leonard Fofana, MP, told Politico in Kono during their visit to the district immediately following an emergency District Security Committee (DISEC) meeting held at the conference hall of the Sierra Leone Roads Transport Authority in Koidu.
He said the concerns of the police and the military “are serious and worth addressing with immediacy,” emphasising that the forces were the bedrock of security of any state.
He added that on their “nationwide inspection and assessment visit on military installations, challenges and constrains in the military barracks” they had received so many complaints and concerns from the military and police ranging from “poor accommodation, delay in the payment of salaries and take-home rations, poor welfare conditions and mobility constrains among several others.”
Fofana said the problems varied from one barracks to another and did not only affect the soldiers and police but extended to their immediate families which he said if not addressed with all seriousness "will not be good for the security of the state".
The defence committee chairman assured that he would table in parliament the concerns raised by the forces for an immediate intervention.
The District Coordinator of the Office of the National Security in Kono also complained to the committee on financial, mobility and personnel constraints. Sorie Ibrahim Koroma said "a district with many porous border entry points has only two chiefdom security coordinators to coordinate all security matters at the 14 chiefdom levels in the district".
He also reported on boundary disputes among chiefdoms, political interests, farmers and cattle herders whose cows ravage crops, and strike by mineworkers strike saying they were potential insecurity threats in the district.
Police Local Unit Commander at the Tankoro Police Division, Superintendent David Sahid Koroma told the committee that they were acutely understaffed saying he only had a little over 100 police men and women to serve in the nine chiefdoms under his jurisdiction.
A parliamentary committee member, Ambassador Patrick Foyah, described the concerns of the LUC and the ONS coordinator as “worrisome and grave especially considering the volatile nature of Kono district".
(C) Politico 26/02/14
