By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The Independent Police Complaint Board (IPCB) has proposed a new bill seeking to give it more powers to enhance its oversight functions over the Sierra Leone Police.
On Wednesday officials of the Board held their first consultation with members of the Committee on Internal Affairs in the House of Parliament, where board Chairman Richard Shealton Freeman made a case for a new law.
The IPCB was established in 2013 with the mandate of checking the excesses of the police. It receives complaints from members of the public against the police, investigate them and make recommendations for appropriate action.
The board said its major challenge has been failure to implement recommendations of the investigations it conducts.
“Currently there is nothing in the regulations that compels the IGP [Inspector General of Police] to act on our recommendations. In this new bill we want it to be mandatory for the IGP and DPP [Director of Public Prosecution] to act on our recommendations in 14 working days,” Freeman told lawmakers.
Wednesday’s meeting with MPs was meant to formally present details of the proposed amendments.
Amadu Femoh Sesay, Head of Communications at the IPCB, emphasized the need for a review of the existing law. He stressed that the inability of the Board to implement or force the implementation of its recommendations means that its work is meaningless.
According to Femoh, when the Board concludes an investigation, those that have criminal infractions are sent to the DPP for implementation and the ones dealing with misconduct are sent to the IGPP.
“As we speak right now, we have no records to show [that] the then DPP acted or implemented those recommendations,” he said.
Sesay told Politico that to get to this stage they put together a working group for the review, and which embarked on a nationwide consultation with key institutions like the Anti-Corruption Commission, Office of the Ombudsman, Human Rights Commission and Parliamentarians.
Members of the Internal Affairs committee sounded positive about the review process. The Chairman of the committee, Alusine Kanneh, said: “I know you have the powers but sometimes the police overtake those powers. With this new law there will be no doubt between the citizenry and the Police.”
This move comes in the wake of growing concern over the Police’s operational conduct against civilians, especially in light of their handling of last month’s protest by supporters of the main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) and more recently their encounter with former Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana in Port Loko.
In May the IPCB itself had a share of the bitter taste of the conduct of the police.
In a letter addressed to the Inspector General of Police, the Board demanded disciplinary action against AIG North-West, Ambrose Sovula who was accuse of arresting a complainant and summarily suspending an officer in the course of an IPCB investigation.
© 2019 Politico Online
