Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr last week visited the victims of the landslide disaster at Portee. The disaster, which was said to have occurred as a result of the erection of unplanned constructions on a sloppy ground with a waterway underneath, affected 13 householders in the Portee community.
The team, which comprised the Deputy Mayor Osman T Koroma, Mrs Stella Smith (Head of Social Services Department), Cllr Fatmata Williams (409), Cllr Hannah Mary Jaiah (413), Cllr Agnes Marah (407), and Cllr Sheku Turay (408) engaged victims to understand how they have been coping since the disaster.
To each household, FCC made a donation of Le 1,000,000, a bag of rice, a bucket and packs of Maggi from the limited resources available to the Council as a result of its inability to roll out its new property rate regime. FCC continues to urge residents to stop building properties in hazardous locations whilst we continue to prepare for the devolution of land use planning and building permit issuance from the Ministry of Lands to the local councils in accordance with the Local Government Act 2004 and under the supervision of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.
The lack of enforcement of building permits within the city and the granting of building permits in hazard prone areas continues to threaten lives and properties in the city. We can work together to improve our city with land use planning and an effective, environmentally sensitive building permit the Mayor stated.
