By Mabinty M. Kamara
Ahead of the five years report on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Indicators, Civil Society Coalition on Land, Human rights and other natural resources have engaged to assess the progresses made so far in meeting the land right indicator on the SDG which Sierra Leone committed to.
Speaking at the broad based engagement held in Freetown with participants from across the country, Daniel Sesay, member of the coalition representing Namati and National advocacy Coalition for Community Legal Empowerment (NaCCLE) said most of the land conflicts that have over the years occurred is as a result of obsolete land laws.
He added that because of the issues emanating from those laws, came the development of the national land policy to ensure land rights reform, a policythat he said is one of the best in the West African sub region and therefore asked that the policy be transformed into law which will be stronger than a mere policy.
Sesay said that was what led to the development of the customary land rights and the land commission’s bill.
“We want to have a commission that can handles land rights issues in the country since we do not have confidence in the ministry of Lands, a commission that has the expertise so that the land sector will improve,” he said.
However, he said despite several engagements held with different stakeholders in government, development partners and the Civil Society groups, the documents has been stalled at the Director General’s office at the Ministry of Lands Housing and Country Planning. He said they have also engaged with the new minister of Lands but that nothing has been done in that regard despite promise of reforms by the minister.
Speaking at the event, Abu Brima Executive Director, Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD) who doubles as the National Convener for Land Consortium said how to get the policy into law is what they have been working towards but that much has not been done.
“We have had meetings with the Attorney General and Minister of Justice and so we really do not know why the bills have not yet come out, we are looking forward to it but we are a bit disappointed, very disappointed that for a very long time since the land policy has been developed in 2015, this is the sixth year and we are till crawling to make the laws come into effect and it has multiple effects on land across the country. It has serious implications for land governance across the country,” he said.
He added that as civil society organizations, they will continue to push to let the government know that land issues are not issues to be ignored or neglected. He said that was why they were meeting so that they can do an analysis of what government has done with regards to land governance.
Brima said that the report of the assessment they are doing will be sent to the Global Land Alliance that will be presented as the Civil Society’s assessment of government progresses on the indicators in the region.
“We believe that the alternative report that we are putting together will give them an understanding of what we believe are the issues at stake,” he said.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online
