By Ralph Sesay
Residents of Macdonald Community in the Western Area Rural District have urged the CRSG Road Construction occupying their quarry to do more to improve the lives of the people.
Modu Williams a member of the newly constituted Village Committee and also one of the land owning family members told this medium that the company has been meeting their commitments to the people by paying their annual rents and also meeting some Corporate Social Responsibility projects like road construction, contributing local materials like granite stones and sand to undertake other development projects within the village.
He further told this medium that, even though they initially had problems with CRSG due to the heavy blasting they were doing in the area which he stated affected over seventy houses they have been able to amicably resolve the issue with the company providing the huge maintenance cost towards the damaged houses.
‘’This greatly affected us and we had to ask for the intervention of the Police, SLRA and EPA who later convened a meeting that amicably resolved the issue‘’ Mr. Williams noted.
He concluded by asking for more help and support from government towards meeting the basic social services in this rapidly growing community.
It will be recalled that the Chinese Railway Seventh Group (CRSG) had undertaken the construction of several roads in the country including the Freetown-Masiaka Toll Road and are using a huge quarry site at Macdonald Village for the production of granites and other local materials to aid their construction works.
The new headman, Mr Njai Coker and his dedicated and forward looking committee of elders have made frantic in the shortest time to develop the village by lobbying with various players involved in the development process of the country. The Community will soon benefit from an additional Secondary School, health facilities with the coming of the Shepard’s Hospice Palliative Care Center and water facilities with support from CRSG.
The future is bright for the people of the fastly growing village located along the Waterloo Peninsular highway .