Jean-Marc Barattolo, a Senior Police Advisor and the team from the Strategic Capacity Group (SCG), American Embassy in Sierra Leone has at the Police Headquarters at George Street in Freetown, engaged the Inspector General of Police (IGP), William Fayia Sellu ahead of the commencement of a two weeks Training of Trainers in specific areas for the 24th June 2023 Multitier Elections.

Addressing the SCG team, the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Fayia Sellu informed that the President Bio-led Government is pleased with the support from the American Government towards the capacity building of the SLP for the 2023 electioneering period.

“I have discussed the elections Training Manual and the last Training Of Trainers (TOT) with both Vice President Jalloh and His Excellency, President Bio. They were both pleased” said IGP Sellu.

Elections he went on to say come with other tasks including public order management and investigations.

The Police Chief, therefore, said the capacity building is timely, especially when personnel was doubled promoted in the last promotion.

Earlier, Marc Barattolo said they were there to inform the IGP on another TOT which he dubbed as Specific Focus Group Training (SFGT) aimed at capacity building of Police for the 2023 elections.

Director of Training, Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), Sylvester N Koroma in his overview of the training explained that it is part of the support provided by the American Government to countries winding up to elections.

The American Embassy capacity building for the SLP, he said is part of the support.

“With a contract from the US Embassy, the SCG which is an expert body in various training, collaborated with us and we developed a standardized Elections Training Manual that took into consideration best practices that happen across the globe”, disclosed AIG Koroma.

The last time the group was here, he said they validated the manual and rolled out the first training of master trainers for 12 personnel and the second was the training of trainers, which benefits 72 personnel.

The training which commenced on 9th January 2023 at the Sierra Leone Peacekeeping and Law Enforcement Academy (SILEA) is expected to end on 20th January 2023. The Director of training said is a Specific Focus Training Group targeting 6 groups with 20 personnel per group.

The SFTG he said is also a TOT in areas including media, investigations, and public order management among others.

These training, AIG Koroma assured are geared towards a holistic approach taken to ensure that the June 2023 elections are conducted in a peaceful and violent-free atmosphere, thus they are doing all their best to heighten their level of professionalism.

He concluded that the training of a larger number that would include the sister forces will be done in March this year.