By: Haja Hawa Koroma
Some traders residing around the central part of Freetown have raised concerns about a piece of land, situated between circular road and Regent road, the business district of Freetown. A State land that is under threat as a certain group of individuals have made couple of attempts to sell it to local business men.
The said portion of land hosts a Transformer, owned by the Electricity supply and Distribution Authority, a Telecommunications Booth, owned by the National Telecommunications company, plus a monument which has been under construction since 2016.
This land is very close to the Lumley and Abderdeen lorry park and it has a couple of makeshift structures, owned by the petty traders who sell assorted goods, foods and other forms of businesses.
The Freetown city council have been collecting market dues and yearly rents over the years, through a third party including the claimants from the traders occupying the makeshift structures on the said piece of land.
Engineer kamara, who is the former Estates Officer at the Freetown city council has attempted on several occasions to recognize the third- party as being the owners of the piece of land, despite their failure to produce document of ownership.
According to the findings of a document, there is a letter of termination for the united youth organization from FCC to quit, as their lease and rent for the land housing mini shops at No. 30 Circular road Via Regent road has expired.
This land was said to have been handed over to the said organization since 1991, and up until now the FCC records no form of development at the said piece of land by them. They also subleased the said land to other people without the knowledge of the FCC.
Meanwhile, there are some set of senior members whom were staffs at the FCC that continues to work with the organization rather than to work with traders, and they have resulted to threatening a demolition anytime from now, of some of the structures which the traders have spent millions of leones to renovate into certain standards.
According to a field staff at the Electricity supply and Distribution Authority, he stated that the Transformer on the said piece of land is the property of EDSA and it is the transformer that supplies electricity to the central part of Freetown. If it were to be removed at the said premises, this will result to electricity problems at the said area.
It seems as if the traders and the said organization are not in good terms and some set of senior members of the FCC are working interest of the UYO. The traders are pleading with the mayor, the government, Chief administrator and his deputy to take the necessary steps in ensuring that the traders pay directly to council rather than UYO so as to avoid any further consequences between both parties or to mount a fresh investigation on the said matter before making a decision to do business with the said organization again.
