The Freetown City Council (FCC) has over the weekend kicked off their fifth annual flood mitigation exercise at Taylor Street, Wellington.

The Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr joined a team of FCC officials made up of Councillors, public spaces cleaners, sanitary inspectors, MET Police and community volunteers in the flood mitigation exercise.

According to the Mayor, the exercise involves removing garbage and silt from gutters, culverts and other waterways at flash flood points, and engaged communities on the need to have registered waste service providers.

She noted that the exercise is aimed at reducing the risk of flooding in areas that are prone to flooding during the rainy seasons.

“This year’s exercise will be implemented over three alternate weeks with funding from the Robert Bosch Foundation through GOAL SL,” Mayor Aki-Sawyerr disclosed.

The Mayor further stated that she joined FCC’s sanitary inspectors and MET Police at Taylor Street to encourage residents and businesses to call 8244 or use findmeinfreetown.com to identify waste collectors in their area.

“I also joined the Environment and Sanitation Officer, Mr Mustapha Kemokai, in the supervision of the cleaning and clearing operations,” she added.

“Today’s cleaning was successful as all silt cleared out of the gutters were collected by our excavators and skip trucks for dumping at the Kissy Bomeh, to prevent silt making its way back into the gutters and on to the streets.”

Mayor Aki-Sawyerr maintained that they are aware that SLRA is also clearing gutters in Freetown with funding from RMFA and they are continuing to request that silt removed from the gutters by SLRA is immediately cleared away and not left on the side of the road.

“We also continue to advocate for the devolution of land use planning and building permits to all local councils so that construction, especially up in hills, is better regulated to avoid indiscriminate deforestation and the associated erosion, which fills our gutters and waterways with silt every year,” she added.