President Julius Maada Bio has on Saturday November 21, 2020, commissioned the very first fire station in the township of Kailahun since the National Fire Service Act of 1980 that set forth provisions relating to the hiring and employment of firemen in Sierra Leone.
Welcoming the entourage, Deputy Chief Fire Officer, Sylvester Momoh Taluva, expressed gratitude to the President and his government and disclosed that the office was the first fire station in the district. As of the 2015 census, the district had a population of 525,372.
He also said that they were proud of the many other development projects in the district by the government, adding that they were, therefore, encouraging the people and especially the youth to embrace all of that progress.
Paramount Chief of Luawa, Sama Kailondo Banya, stated that the government was responding to the unfortunate fire incidents in the district with the prompt construction of the fire station. He thanked President Bio for such a development while stressing the need for sensitisation on fire hazards so that people would know what to do in an event of a fire outbreak.
Minister of Internal Affairs, David Maurice Panda-Noah, said that fire incidents across the world were a big security issue and that Kailahun had had different fire accidents with billions of Leones losses. He maintained that it was important now for the people of Kailahun to have their own fire station.
He also disclosed that just a little above two years of governance, the New Direction of President Bio had built three different fire stations in Kailahun in the east, Pujehun in the south and Kabala in the north, adding that by 2023 they would have trained 1,500 firefighters across the country.
Delivering the keynote address, President Julius Maada Bio said the people of Kailahun deserved better security from the state, noting that that was one of the reasons his government had built the first-ever firehouse in the district that would help protect them during times of fire incidents.
“All over the world, fire remains the biggest means of hazards because of the many climate change challenges. Kailahun is a big town, therefore, they deserve a fire station that will protect lives and property in case of an accident,” he noted.
24/11/2020. ISSUE NO: 7956