By Bampia James Bundu
As con men increase the riff-off of unsuspecting members of the public at the ministry of lands, country planning and the environment, its spokesperson admits that “impersonation is a commonplace”.
Alfred Kabia told Politico at their Youyi Building offices in Freetown that people needed to ensure that they had met the right authorities in the ministry before they could start any transaction.
“We will not be held responsible if you are duped by fake surveyors. That’s why we keep an open door policy to the public. In a situation where you want to enquire about land, our doors are always opened,” he assured.
His reaction was a response to Politico’s investigation following calls from some victims of the scam by bogusmen in the ministry, most of them hanging along the corridors of the office and pretending to be legitimate staff.
Complaints were that some of these impostors, claiming to be surveyors or supervisors of the ministry,had made away with millions of leones from unsuspecting but desperate people in search of a piece of land.
One such victim, a middle-aged married woman, we met at the ministry on Tuesday 5 May, Fatmata Mansaray, said she had lost over Le 15 million last year to some men who posed as surveyors of the ministry. She claimed that that heist was gradually costing her marriage of many years because her in-laws felt she lied about it. “They thought I used the money for my personal gains,” she said.
Mansaray said the apparent inability of the ministry to curb the practice had left many people wondering whether some authorities were actually not conniving with the conmen.
“During the course of dealing with the ministry, I have seen people bring in the same complaints and I was tempted to ask whether some personnel of the ministry were accomplices,” she said, sounding very frustrated.
Meanwhile the ministry spokesman said their principal concern and mandate at the ministry was to manage and administrate state lands but also survey and demarcate those lands.
He explainedthat their surveyors were responsible for surveyinggovernment lands, but also noted that there were also some licensed private practitioners who would deal with private lands for the ministry’s approval.
Kabia said they had receiveda lot of complaints that people were using names of ministry officials to obtain money fraudulently, adding that “in recent yearsimpersonation has been very rife with land transaction,especially in Freetown.”
He added that: “We are going to ensure that we institute stiffer measures in order to clamp down on those involved in the act. We have been gathering some intelligence and will soon hit them hard,” he stressed.
© Politico 07/05/15
