The Public Relations Officer, Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Food Security Abubakarr Daramy said they had once instituted forestry security post at the Regent Community that was burnt down.

“We led a patrol about a year ago, were forestry guards from the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Lands went out to ask people in those particular areas to evacuate and refrain from constructing houses in the said areas, what happened then was that the community people chased out our forestry guards together with the people of ministry of lands.” Daramy pointed.

He confirmed that all the agencies and ministries concerns have been working harder to get people out of those areas, adding that the those ministries would continue to work hard to combat the issue in order to prevent the reoccurrence of the said incidents.

He maintained that in 2016 the Minister of Lands took a bold step to demolish houses around Regent-Grafton highway, houses that were situated on the cliff of the mountain, adding that lots of people were opposing the positive action of the Lands Minister.  He reaffirmed that the minister took the right action.

Former SLPP Secretary General, Jacob Jusu Saffa stated that the country has a loose land policy, pointing out that the country happened to be very much weak and naive in enforcing laws.

Saffa further explained that the country’s inability and unwilling to enforce the laws has been a serious challenge, and people are not taking environmental consideration when doing their construction.

He continued that poverty and the lack of proper housing policy have been the serious factors that led to mudslide.

He reiterated that the government has the responsibility to ensure that the people of this land conform to the rules and regulation and that what happened is a governmental issue.

A political analyst, Mamoud Tim Kargbo said that if people are blaming the Minister of Lands for all what has happened has been very much unfair to the hard working minister, adding that the minister was initially determined to implement the laws but she might have been tapped on the back, he noted.

He continued that if people refused to respect the rules and regulation of the land and trying to win vote illegally at the expense of the lives of people, the blame would come back to them for failing to deliver all what were promised to uphold the laws of the land in protecting lives and property of the general citizenry.