By Politico Staff Writer
Kailahun District has got its first ever fire station with the inauguration of the facility by President Julius Maada Bio.
The inauguration ceremony took place on November 21. Welcoming the entourage, Deputy Chief Fire Officer, Sylvester Momoh Taluva, expressed gratitude to the President and his government for providing the eastern district with the first fire station.
According to the 2015 census, Kailahun District has a population of 525,372.
Officer Taluva said they were also proud of the many other development projects in the district by the Bio administration, urging the people, especially the youth, to embrace all the progress.
Paramount Chief of Luawa, Sama Kailondo Banya, stated that the government was responding to the unfortunate fire incidents in the district with the prompt construction of the fire station. He thanked President Bio for such a development, while stressing the need for sensitisation on fire hazards, so that people would know what to do in an event of a fire outbreak.
Minister of Internal Affairs, David Maurice Panda-Noah, said that fire incidents across the world were a big security issue and that Kailahun had had different fire accidents with billions of leones losses, stressing the importance for the people of Kailahun to have their own fire station.
According to Mr Panda-Noah, just a little above two years of governance, the ‘New Direction’ administration of President Bio had built three different fire stations in Kailahun in the east, Pujehun in the south and Kabala in the north, noting that by 2023 they would have trained 1,500 firefighters across the country.
President Bio, for his part, said the people of Kailahun deserved better security from the state, noting that that was one of the reasons why his government decided to build the first-ever firehouse in the district, to help protect them during times of fire incidents.
“All over the world, fire remains the biggest means of hazards because of the many climate change challenges. Kailahun is a big town, therefore, they deserve a fire station that will protect lives and property in case of an accident,” he noted.
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