By Mohamed Foday Conteh
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) has completed a two-day verification process of Lumley Government Hospital evictees as the government prepares to provide them humanitarian packages early next week.
The eviction was as a result of the construction of over 23 million United States Dollars’ ultramodern children’s hospital along the Lumley- Regent Road community which is being funded by the Japanese government through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The hospital will have a 152 bed capacity with a laboratory, triage and mortuary.
The construction is set to displace 30 families that have been illegally settled on the land that borders the old hospital.
Tamba Dauda, Director of Lands and Surveys at the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Country Planning last week expressed the Ministry’s role in ensuring beneficial usability of lands in the country.
The size of land grabbed by the evictees, according to the MoHS is said to be over three acres, spanning from Mafa community field to Josiah Drive.
Mariama Jalloh, one of the affected persons, expressed dismay over the action by the MoHS . She however agreed that the project is that of a generational one that is set to benefit the entire nation. She also disclosed that the verification exercise had been transparent ‘so far.’
The government is to compensate tenants with the sum of 15 million Leones per household, with the home owners still unsure what they would get as compensation, having built big houses on the property, a concern Mariama also voiced. She mentioned a woman who had been a senior nurse of the old hospital for over 20 years and had constructed a couple of flats there and an eatery that had been serving the community for over two decades.
Mamie Ballay a property owner of the said land for over 20 years now, also expressed disappointment on the part of the government for leaving out property owners. She told Politico that the land was given to them by her mother-in-law, one Kadie Taylor who was a nurse for decades at the Lumley Hospital. She said that she has survey documents of the said land. She pleaded with government to consider their plight as property owners.
Member of Parliament for Constituency 132, Ibrahim Tawa Conteh made a distinction between land owners and property owners. He said that government is only obliged to compensate both land and property owners. He affirmed that the verification exercise only came to fruition after advocating to the government on behalf of tenants that have occupied properties in the demolition zone. He said the move was hinged on the notion that the package will aid the evictees in the wet season to relocate elsewhere.
Conteh said that there is no one with a ‘cogent’ document to prove that they are the rightful owners of the lands they occupy. He stated that he did a door-to-door engagement with the evictees explaining the importance of the project to them. He told Politico that they encountered some difficulties with regards the number of victims but they were able to sail through after a thorough cross-checking.
The demolition of the properties was set to have been started on the 31st August 2021 but was put on hold.
Opinions toward the entire process have been mixed, even among the evictees. Some of the evictees with dispirited faces dragged their feet through unpaved alleys behind the parliamentarian and staff of MoHS as they went through lawns to verify affected tenants.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (03/09/21)
