By Hassan I. Conteh

Many residents of the Moa Wharf community in east of Freetown have done a day’s cleaning of their community.

The slum community, one of the largest in Freetown, is filled with plastic rubbers and other similar materials seen in wide gutters and on the beach.

The community headman, Mr Manika Bangura, was the lead-organizer of the cleaning activity.

The cleaning day saw men, women, youth, and children were helping out to remove the rubbish from the main gutters of Moa Wharf.

The rubbish, after laying there for months without being attended to, has spilled over to areas where fish are being smoked.

The areas are: Russia, Tripoli, Ad-dawu. Through a phone conversation on WhatSapp, Africa 24 spoke with a leading figure at the community.

“We’re badly in need of help here from the government especially the city council. We don’t have cleaning tools and the capital to pay those who should be doing the work, “Headman Manika told Africa 24.

Moa Wharf is a fishing dominated community with many residents.

The slum community is often being affected by dirt thrown afar by people.

This is because Moa Wharf sits below the highland where Freetown’s oldest and biggest market is, Dove Cot or Guard Street.

When the rubbish is thrown by business people in the gutters and in some culverts, the water or rains normally force it way out, thus pushing the pile of rubbish to be emptied into the sea, that is close by the Sierra Leone’s Shipping Port, Queen Elizabeth ll.

The headman said they are calling on both government and the private sector for a helping hand to the community.

The people need working tools and money to compensate labour workers.