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The Minister of Lands and Country Planning, Dr. Turad Senesie has given out a strong warning to citizens who are bent on encroaching state lands for their own personal use to deviate from such practices with immediate effect.
To ascertain this, the Minister together with the Local Unit Commander (LUC) Mr. Murana Eric Kamara, and a team comprising both the Operations Support Divisions (OSD) and Officers from the Anti-Land Grabbing Unit, have on Saturday 11th March, 2023 made an unannounced check at the Kenema Airfield and arrested some people that were involved in some illegal activities in and within the airfield itself respectively.
This came about with the evident of an extreme encroachment into the National Airfield in Kenema City, by indigenes and other people of Kenema. This development has captured the attention of concerned authorities and other developmental-oriented citizens of Sierra Leone who have severally commented and called on the presence of the government through the lands minister.
The minister in his statement said that the arrest was to serve as an example call to others who might be tempted to get along with the same activities emphasizing that Government lands were not for sale as well as Government had fully purchased those lands from the land-owning families, and therefore, no one has the legal right to buy or sell the land without genuine approval from the Government, stressing that building a permanent structure on state land without the prior approval of the Government was a trespass and a clear violation of the state law, to which defaulters would be arrested and prosecuted.
He disclosed that, he has given the authority to the Police to be in charge of the Kenema Airfield, as well as arrest any ill-feeling Sierra Leonean who might tend to go against the laws binding the existence of the Kenema Plane Field, warning strictly that, the land belongs to the government of Sierra Leone.
In his response, the Local Unit Commander of Kenema Division; Chief Superintendent of Police, Murana Eric Kamara, cautioned citizens to be law-abiding and patriotic, stating that Government lands were reserved for developmental purposes, thus, people should deviate from selling or buying it, if only they had good intentions for the state. He called on the community people to be aiding the police with information on anyone who may tend to undermine the peace of this country, more especially at a crucial time like this, when the nation was fast approaching the general elections.
He added that, the police is always making sure that the citizens and their properties are safe and secured t all times and that have to reciprocated by the citizens to be helping in community policing for a sustainable and effective service delivery.
