By Politico Staff Writer
Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr and the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Tamba Lamina, have embarked on a joint visit to dumpsites that are under construction in the capital city.
The purpose of the inspection is to monitor the progress of the seven ‘improved solid waste sites’ that were under construction, according to the offices of the two officials. The project, which is funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), is aimed at changing the way the city manages solid waste by providing communities with proper waste disposal methods.
The sites are being constructed in such a design that it will keep communities safe and will not pollute the environment. Each site has temporary waste storage building with two office spaces, toilet facilities, and tricycle tracks.
Freetown, like most other urban cities in the country, has serious issues with the management of its waste.
After assessing the various sites, the Minister thanked the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) for supporting Sierra Leone by providing the Freetown City Council (FCC) with improved solid waste sites in the form of transfer stations within the capital city. He noted that proper solid waste disposal had been one of the major challenges facing communities within the Freetown Municipality. The minister also emphasized the need to follow structural and constitutional procedures to ease coordination and smooth implementation.
“Applications have been made to the Environment Protection Agency, the Ministry of Lands and the Ministry of Health and Sanitation for the proper running of those waste sites, and progress has been made in that regard,” Lamina stated.
In recent weeks, the Ministry and the council have been at loggerheads over the council’s controversial property tax regime. The visit by the two to council owned projects is seen by many as a sign of progress.
The FCC is under an opposition All People’s Congress administration.
Lamina used the visit to reaffirm the government’s commitment to supporting councils across the country by giving “the fullest support of the MLGRD and the Central Government to the various Councils across the country in making sure that development is decentralized in every sector”.
Aki-Sawyer described the project as a community-based development initiative, which formed part of her broader “Transform Freetown” agenda.
She added that the FCC and CRS engaged the various community stakeholders at Macauley Street and Cline Town and said that those contacted played a commendable role in the construction of the transfer stations.
Out of a total of seven sites under construction, the delegation visited the New England, Macauley Street, and Cline Town transfer stations as work continues on all sites.
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