Koroma mentioned that mounting settlements in water reserve areas, wherein settlers cutting down forest tress to process and burn fire coal for their livelihood, had resulted in deforestation because settlers would eventually destroy the water reserve areas.

He reiterated that the primary raw materials of Guma were the rains and they needed to be protected, but noted that those were disappearing at a faster rate, leaving in the wake limited or no storage water storage in the mountains as a result of settlements.

Executive Director for Wash Net, Musa Ansumana Soko, said houses are being built in areas that are demarcated as places that were considered to be services of water supply, and with people settlers in those areas it has been a pull back for Guma Valley Water Company in the country, adding that people are complaining of the services Guma are providing when the people themselves have erected houses in catchment areas. 

Executive Director, Climate Change Forum Network Sierra Leone, Amara Salami Kanu mentioned that Deforestation is on the alarming rate as people are building at the catchment areas and that we should have been prepared for this.

He further encouraged citizens to harvest water during the rainy season, adding that: “the ministry of lands should not hesitate to demolish houses that are built on catchment areas as long as it is in the interest of the people, and should not consider whether you are APC or SLPP.”

Amara Salami stated that it was very essential for the president to incorporate climate change in his presidential recovery plan and that climate change had the tendency to undermine all other development projects, adding that if there was no water shortage in the country there would be water borne disease outbreak.

(Klonopin)