By: Melvin Tejan Mansaray
A top ranking officer in the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF) has appealed to service men and women to ‘please exercise restraint over housing and accommodation challenges,’ assuring them that ones things are on the right track, ” every individual in the military will have a comfortable place to live.”
Brigadier General (Brig. Gen) Dauda Fred Alpha, Commander 3 Infantry Brigade, Murray Town Garrison made this statement in an exclusive interview while responding to an allegation that he unjustly ordered the demolition of female military Corporal Amie Tucker’s building structure on Monday 20th April, 2020.
Brig. Gen. Alpha said that he ordered the Camp Commander at Murray Town to demolish a structure being erected by female Corporal Amie Tucker for obvious reasons.
Corporal Tucker’s relatives said that the decision to demolish her structure was unjust and selective, arguing that their sister has served the RSLAF for nineteen years and has never being provided a quarter to lay her head with two kids. Tucker’s family wept saying that she loaned five million from the bank plus personal savings of eight million Leones also incurring huge debt to put the structure up noting that now she is in great distress by the action of her boss.
Corporal Tucker is not the only RSLAF personnel that is faced with the endemic problem of inadequate housing and accommodation of serving military personnel.
In a face to face interview, the Commander in charge, Brig. Gen. Alpha said accommodation is an age old problem in the Military that is not unique and that is why the Government is doing all that it can to address the issue.
On the allegation against him, Brig. Gen. Alpha said indeed the corporal applied for a piece of land through the Camp Commander to construct a shop not a dwelling house but because the barracks is congested and has a lot of squatters and illegal occupants, they are very mindful on how they lease out their places.
“When this letter was sent to me through the Commandant, I made it very clear that for now we are working on an overall eviction plan, there is no way I can give approval for a construction to be done on the piece of land in the barracks, which will mean I have also breached the policy, so it was based on that I summoned this lady to my office. I encouraged and even told her why can’t you look for a place so that I can assist you rather than going all out to get a place in the barracks; don’t you think it will be counterproductive in the future considering how many years that is now left with you. The whole thing was confusing, she was talking about a dwelling and talking about a shop but her letter clearly state that she was requesting for a shop and the place at the end of the day was an eyesore, when I admonished her I told her to exercise restraint, she went ahead without my endorsement and considering my role, it was very challenging to me and it was based on that I also summoned her the next day, I warned her to stop forthwith without much adu this lady went ahead; and I am working under instructions as well and the instructions and directive are very clear that we should make sure that no new dwelling houses comes up until after the eviction plan.”
Brig. Gen. Dauda said: “The eviction is not only going to target Murray Town barracks but also Juba and Goderich.”
He noted that the barracks are overpopulated, “it was based on that that I personally asked this lady to exercise restraint until after the entire eviction process. I even encouraged her that if she can find anywhere else, I will support her financially in order to make her get a livelihood but unfortunately she blatantly refused. It was based on that that I now said to the Camp Commandant that in the military we work on orders,if I have taken my time to explain the rationale to this lady for her to understand to wait and she has gone ahead, then I have no option and that is why I gave instruction that for now since it is like a direct challenge to my authority, I now said she has to understand that in the military there are rules and regulations and based on that, I told the Camp Commandant go and stop that work forthwith. The structures are there but the additional extensions that are made in terms of the demarcation or in terms of doing the shops, two or three shops being done together and to me that does not call for at this time.”
“We need to understand that at this time we are all aware about some of the challenges that we are faced with but equally so we have to be mindful that we are under authority, we should allow authorities to give permission before you go ahead, that was not done in this case,” Brig. Gen. Dauda said.
Asked how far has the overall eviction plan gone, Brig. Gen. Dauda said, ” as I am speaking the Commander Joint Forces is very passionate about us coming up with an eviction plan. We have already come out with the design, we have tabled it in three phases; phase one is going to look at overall registration, we are going to register everybody within the barracks, ones we complete the registration we are going to bring the Barracks Services Maintenance Unit, they already have the the documents, we are now going to crosscheck the documents as against the respective blocks to ascertain who are eligible to be within the barracks, ones that is done , then we now go into the vision proper because we really want to weed out the squatters out of the barracks and restore sanity.”
Brig. Gen. Dauda recounted that at Goderich barracks, a soldier was killed in broad day light and the investigation is still ongoing, ” so we want to curb this menace within the barracks that is why, we are very much passionate and we are going to go all out to ensure that we put this whole saga to rest.”
Lack of accommodation is a bane in the RSLAF with a good number of personnel confronted with housing constraints for themselves and relatives.
On whether the eviction plan will negate the lack of accommodation problem in the military as a whole by creating more spaces, the Brigadier General said that it is their hope that the many miscreants in their midst in the guise of of dependants of soldiers or visitors, “so the eviction plan is really going to target those category of individuals.”
“In terms of accommodations, the Government is working assiduously, if you go now to Gondama it is a brand new barracks, a lot of things are working behind the scenes; Kambia there is an ongoing construction, if you go now to the Mayong Officer’s Mess, His Excellency has done a tremendous job. That mess is going to be a modern structure,” Brig. Dauda said.
Asked when will these housing construction projects be completed while some of the personnel are complaining about lack of accommodation even though many of them lacked the guts to put it to the military hierarchy, Brig. Gen. Dauda said their is actually a timeframe, adding that, “we only hope that we work towards the time. Of course we know our current situation with the global health threat of Covid-19, which has actually affected all of our activities but we are very much optimistic that sooner or later we will get it on track and ones that is done, we are all home and dry.”
In his summation, Brig. Gen. Dauda said, ” there are no vacant spaces or pieces of land at Murray Town Barracks because for now the barracks is congested. Mind you these barracks were constructed fifty to hundred years ago and it was actually designed for a very small number of personnel but over time we have quadruple the number and that is why we are now having challenges. All what we are saying we want our guys to please exercise restraint. Ones things are put on the right track then each and every individual will have a comfortable place to live.”
