Eastern Region police complains of man power

The Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Mustapha Solomon Kambeh in the Eastern Region in a meeting held with the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Internal Affairs on Wednesday 1 June at the Eastern Police Headquarters in Kenema have told the Committee that they most times receive disbursement of late subsidies, fuel, and mobility to carry out their operations in the Region and that they only have strength capacity of 1,444 officers across the six divisions of the Region. According to AIG Kambeh, the Region is faced with numerous challenges especially in the area of mobility for Police personnel to move from one district Headquarters to hard-reach areas of the Region.

Welcoming the Committee, AIG Kambeh informed the Committee that as it was, there was relative peace, stability and calmness in the Region, stating that except individual incident that were occurring which they were doing best to address.

He outlined that the Eastern Region is made of three districts, Kenema District, the city of the regional headquarters, Kailahun and Kono District. “And when you look at the Eastern Region, it also covers the two international boundaries between the Republic of Guinea and Republic of Liberia and we have a wide spread of prowse borders. It poses also a challenge because not all areas have been manned. Though patrols of RSLAF and the SLP are ongoing in certain areas, borders are posed with cross-borders activities” he explained.

He pointed out that as the country approach elections, their focus now is elections preparedness, adding that he has held consultations with all his commanders in the six divisions of the Region to have a status report on their assets, challenges and achievements they have passed in certain areas and the document has been sent to Freetown.

” We have our strategic development plan, this is an extract of the government agenda and from this we now extract Regional plans because each Region has its own priority so you have to factor things which reflect dynamics of the ground where you are leading your policing. So we also produced an annual status report covering all what it entails, our challenges, achievements, our strengths, and weaknesses. All these have been done, so this is guiding us and these are all every commander produces as a divisional plan” AIG Kambeh explained.

As policing has become dynamics, he said and emerging global issues coming out, the challenge in policing has become very difficult, the complexities and challenges, he added are so much that is not an enviable job, noting that it is a vocation and people have to make self-sacrifice in it and work for the nation.

He disclosed that in the entire Eastern Region, they only have strength of 1,444 officers across the six divisions who are policing, adding that the number is not adequate enough to police the entire area. He intimated that there are certain chiefdoms police presences there is very small. He said because of the vehicular challenges they faced, it even difficult for them to access areas when incidents of crime are reported.

Assuring the AIG and his team, the Chairman of the Committee, who also doubles as the Deputy Chief Whip of Sierra Leone Parliament, Hon. Alusine Kanneh, assured the police of their support, adding that they would take their concerns to the leadership of Parliament and extension to the Inspector General of Police.

“Most of the things you have highlighted here in terms of difficulties or the challenges, some I am aware of, and I am going to present all these things to Parliament and for possible debate. And I will assure you that some of them will be addressed in the shortest possible time” he assured.

By Mohamed Amara Gando