By Saio Marrah
The Minister of Lands, Housing and Country Planning, Turad Senesie Ph.D has at the distribution of state lands to members of the Sierra Leone Commercial bike (Okada) riders Association and Union of Rickshaw (Kekeh) riders, who won the state land raffle draw, promised that the next set of people to earn state lands are the Petty Traders.
Minister Senesie was speaking on Friday 16th June at McCDonald in Western Rural District - the designated place for allocation of the plots of land to the raffle winners.
Minister Senesie said petty traders are among the less fortunate people that are adversely struggling with the high cost of house rent.
“So those petty traders at Sani Abacha Street, Dove cut, Bombay Street, Lumley, market are the next…,” Minister Senesie assured.
He recalled President Julius Maada Bio’s statement some time ago that the only way to force the price of house rent in the Western Area to go down is to make more land available to Sierra Leoneans especially in the Western Area.
Dr. Senesie further assured that the government would continue in a non-discriminatory path to ensure all Sierra Leoneans get a shelter where they can sleep peacefully.
He said this is because it is the vision of the president for all Sierra Leonean to live in peace, happiness, acceptance and love for one another. For that to happen, the minister said the less fortunate must have access to land in the Western Area.
According to him, it is also the vision of the president that all citizens have a bite of the national resources, while referring to land as one of the precious natural resources.
He told the beneficiaries (bike and “keke” riders) at the handing over ceremony that it is on that backdrop he was distributing the land from the instruction of president Bio. He also promised that the government would expand on the distribution of state land to marginalized people across all the regional headquarters in Sierra Leone.
He assured the winners that their documents were ready for distribution to each and that the plot of land would be shown to them as well.
The one thousand (1,000) winners in the raffle draw are the third set of beneficiaries of state lands.
In December 2021 the ministry for the first time distributed two town lots of land at AllenTown to each raffle draw winner, followed by another raffle draw in May 2022, where five hundred civil servants, journalists, security forces, teachers and health workers also each received two town lots, in Bureh Town and Kent Village along the Freetown Peninsula.
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