The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), female Member of Parliament from Moyamba District, Hon Veronica Kadie Sesay, has stated in the Well of Parliament that “Forest Guards are posing serious threat to their communities. They are behaving as soldiers; they make sells and locked up people in there.”
Hon Veronica Kadie Sesay made these assertions during the debate on the approval of Presidential nominees on Wednesday 20th December 2023 in the Chambers of Parliament.
According to Hon Sesay, he visited her at Shenge in Moyamba Dustrict where she discovered that, these forest Guards run sells where they locked up people and they are seriously exploiting her people.
“I saw a female fish monger locked up, it was then I asked, what was she doing there, the MP asked, the Forest Guards who locked up the woman. It was also then I ordered these Guards to remove the woman and I also told them that they are not soldiers or police officers,”
They are only there to protect the forest and not harass the people, Hon Kadie Sesay said.
The female MP revealed that, these Forest Guards are also sell lands in connivance with some community stakeholders.
In his statement the MP from Kailahun District, Hon Quinton Sallia also informed the House of Representatives that, Forest Guards have become land owners and they shift the belt and sell the state lands.
According to Quinton, the Guards have posed as serious threats to the environment, adding that if such issues are not address there will be no forest reserve in the Western Area.
“This is serious issue; these Forest Guards deplete the forest as they sell it off. It will come a time unless we have to relocate the city of Freetown to Kailahun because of the environmental threats,” he ridiculed.
The APC MP from the Western Area Urban, Hon Amadu Bah Esq, said the appointee at National Protected Area Authority (NPAA) should ensure that he warns and sanitized the institution especially the Forest Guards.
“These Forest Guards recruited are now engaged in deforestation and the depletion of lands which pose threats to climate.
Other speakers also spoke on the need to caution those Forest Guards who are posing as soldiers to be reprimanded and prosecuted for their actions towards the environmental disaster.
“What our Forest Guards are doing? They are alleged to be conniving with people and selling forest reserve,” MPs blasts.