Twenty senior ranking officers of the Sierra Leone Correctional Service take part in a refresher training organised by the administration of the Sierra Leone Correctional Service and facilitated by the Technical Support Team Lead seconded to the SLCS from the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF).

The training is on- going in Freetown at the refurbished training room, former Special Court Complex.

The training which is being sponsored by the government, started on the 6th September and is being organised on the theme: “Training for Excellence”.

The keynote speaker at the opening ceremony Lahai Lawrence Lemma, who is the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, spoke on the need for skills, techniques, and approaches to always form crucial parts in such trainings.

“We are not assembled here to joke. After previous experiences, the government saw the need to invest money and time on this institution in order for it to grow.”

He said the crime situations vary from district to district, emphasising the need for knowledge sharing among officers during such seminars.

Stepping forward to speak on behalf of the office of National Security, Mr. Langumba keilli encouraged officers to keep working hard and not despair.

Mr. Keilli stressed that working for the security sector required self- less service and dedication to love for one’s country.

Former Deputy Director General of the SLCS, Mr. Dennis Harman delivered words of motivation and caution to officers.

Moved by the theme of the seminar, he said he would like officers to not just train for Excellence but to also strive for it.

In his delivery, the Technical Support Team Lead, Colonel David Ngaujah cum Director of Security and operations of the SLCS, said one of their terms of reference was to ensure the professional execution of the SLCS’ mandates.

Continuing his speech, he said a lot of steam had been put on the security component of the SLCS in order to prevent a re- occurrence of the the April 29 incidence.

“Regardless of the bottlenecks we are encountering in terms of resourcing, we have established an incident control room at the Pademba road Correctional Centre; there is now a corrections security operations center which we are fighting to operationalize; we have done an assessment of Mafanta to enhance its security, and so on.”

While officially opening the seminar, the Ag. Director General Mr. Ahmed Turay commented on the need for strategic engagement with donors and the government. He owned up to the fact that that was an area his administration sought to tap for present and future development.

Other speakers included representatives from the Ministry of Defence and the Sierra Leone Police.