By Mabinty Kamara
A number of communities in Sierra Leone, especially in the capital Freetown, are unplanned and can hardly be accessible by vehicles. This has posed a great difficulty to residents in such communities.
A major drawback for such communities is deprivation of developmental projects.
When, for instance, it is time for vaccination campaigns, children in hard to reach communities are ignored by health workers.
This was also an issue during the just concluded census process. Up till now there are unregistered households because the enumerators were constrained to get to some of those places.
Such communities do not have hospitals and so if someone happens to fall ill they have to be carried on the back to get to the point where they can access vehicle, or directly to the hospital. This can be very dangerous when it involves contagious diseases like Ebola and cholera.
The people living in such communities have to walk through other peoples compounds to get in and out of their homes.
This has been the case with residents of the Jalloh Terrace community, who now risk being cut off from crucial social services by a nearby school development project. The community people say a fencing project at the Methodist Boys High School will see the access road, which passes through the school, closed.
Methodist is located in Thunder Hill, which borders Jalloh Terrace, a community of over 500 residents. Both communities are situated in the east end of Freetown, between Kissy Mess-mess and Wellington.
Jalloh Terrace is one of the most poorly planned communities in the city. The only motorable road is in bad shape and it is far away from some part of the community, which can only access their houses through either the Methodist Boys High School or the Sierra Leone Muslim Congress Secondary School. The shortest route is through Methodist.
The only access to the bakery that serves the community is through the school.
The community people are therefore pleading with the school authorities to give them some portion of land that can be used as access road.
Mohamed Kamara, Secretary General of the Grievance Review Mechanism of Ward 357 in Constituency 100, where Jalloh Terrace falls, said the fence will seriously disadvantage the community.
The community people fear that they stand to surfer in two main ways if the project goes ahead. Firstly, they will be cut off from the only water well, the only source of drinkable water for the community.
Secondly, at the height of the Ebola epidemic Jalloh Terrace proved to be a major hotspot for the virus in the western area.
“This was the route used by ambulances to take sick Ebola patients and dead bodies from this part of the community,” Kamara, himself a resident of the affected community, explained to Politico from within the school’s courtyard.
Fatmata Kargbo, a resident, expressed fear in case the Sierra Leone Muslim congress also decides to fence their school.
“In case Ebola or any other disease resurfaces, or in case of a fire accident, we will all just die here,” she lamented.
But construction work is already in progress.
Risk of flooding
Just near the would-be fence runs a stream that empties in the sea. This stream separates Thunder Hill community from Jalloh Terrace.
“Our fear now is that in the future when the water level rises above normal, this might cause flooding in the community as there are houses very close to the stream,” lamented Kamara.
The Alumni Association of the Methodist Boys High School, also called Old Boys, is funding the construction project. Its President, Emil Nylander, told Politico that the school board had looked into the plea of the affected residents and had come to the decision of not sparing “an inch” of the school’s land.
“The school has already lost 20 acres of land to the community through encroachment. So we have only nine acres left and we can’t afford to lose any more,” he said.
Nylander said the school needed to be fenced to safeguard aginst thieves, noting that most of their school furniture have been stolen. He said even the floodlights built by Medicines San Frontiers (MSF), after the demolition of the Ebola treatment and holding centers hosted by the school, have all gone.
The Alumni Association President however assured Politico that he would ensure provision of water for the affected community in the event they don’t have access to water as a result of the fencing project.
On fears of potential flooding by the community, Nylander said the school will take responsibility if that happens.
“The contractor is a professional from UK and the fence area has been well observed before proceeding with the work,” he said.
Mohamed Turay, Councilor of Ward 357, agreed that the problem is as a result of improper planning, blaming it on the nonexistence of local government prior to 2004. People were just building houses as they like, he said. He said they are now meeting with the central government to see how such communities can be restructured.
“But that will have to take some time since we have inherited an unstructured community,” Turay said.
While commending the school for their patience all these years, he pleaded with the authorities to look at the greater good of the people in light of their requests.
Mohamed Jawara Kamara, MP for Constituency 100, told Politico that he had already stopped the construction process until the board came up with a word on the issue. He said the lives of over 500 people were at stake and that they were not requesting for an acre, nor a whole town lot, but just a small portion of the land to accommodate a single motor lane.
The MP said he’d been assured by the board that work would be halted until the issue was resolved. But he then realized that work was in fact ongoing, at which point he demanded that they stopped the work.
Responding to this, Mr Nylander said the contract they’d signed was supposed to expire in February, and that delay in construction was bound to cost them more money, which was why they went ahead with work.
Disturbances and noise
Reverend Ronald Bobb-Williams, board member Methodist Boys High School and Secretary of Conference, Methodist Church, told Politico that initially there was a plea and the board decided to meet on the issue. He said at that meeting they reached at a conclusion that they should not give the community any access on grounds that the school had constantly been vandalized by the community, and for the fact that 20 acres had already been encroached upon.
The school is also concerned about noise coming from the community which serves as distraction to the pupils during lesson hours.
Reverend Bobb-Williams said following constant appeals from MP, councilor and other senior members of the community, the board decided to reconsider and eventually decided that even if they were to spare small portion of the land only enough for pedestrian, rather than for vehicles, it would cost the community some money as they had to foot the bill for relocating the gate from its current position.
The Reverend said the ongoing work at the moment was from that agreed point. But he said later they received complaint from workers that the community people had threatened them, leading to stoppage of the work for two days.
This, Reverend Bob-Williams said, got the board “very angry”.
“And so on that note we are now carrying on our work. If they think it’s their property then we shall face the law. I don’t think one should be pleading and at the same time using force,” he said.
While this fencing project appears to bother the people of Jalloh Terrace more, the neighboring community of Thunder Hill also has a lot to lose if it goes ahead. The only source of drinkable water from the water well which is located within Jalloh Terrace will be cut off from the Thunder Hill community.
Chief Alimamy Nande, a community chief of Thunder Hill, expressed his concern over this.
“We are still pleading with the school authorities to give us an access road that can lead to the stream if they can’t give more. That is the most important thing as the water is very important to the two communities. We are ready to pay the cost involve,” the chief said.
(C) Politico 28/01/16
