A consultant from United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (UNFAO) has held a consultative meeting with landowning families, section chiefs and the Regent Chief of Nogowa Chiefdom at the multipurpose Court Barry, Hangha Road in Kenema.
Addressing stakeholders, the consultant, Alhaji Sheku Sei, said the purpose of the engagement was to verify the concerns of the landowners in the Nogowa Chiefdom on things that are affecting them in relation to their land.
He said the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization have noticed that there were many challenges the landowners in the provinces faced. He said his office wants to partner with the Ministry of Lands to guarantee the rights of landowners in the provinces.
Alhaji Sheku Sei said the consultancy targeted Bombali, Bo and Kenema districts. He said the essence of the consultation was to make sure that landowning families know their rights as prescribed by law in the Protectorate Land Act under the customary law, adding that the law states clearly that lands, in the provinces, are not meant to be sold but can be leased based on the agreement between the landowners, the government and companies that want to utilize the land.
He pointed out that, failure by the government institution or company to respond to the leased agreement within the stipulated conditions, the landowners have the right by law to repossess their land. They will do so by going to the paramount chief and chiefdom council to reclaim their land.
He cited the cries in the provinces where the people have been deprived from the land illegally by companies and foreigners. According to him, there is no free lease of land and nobody has the right to sell land which is over two or three acres in the provinces.
Mr. Sei encouraged the stakeholders to include women in landownership and to voice out things they think they are not comfortable with in respect of their land uses.
The town chief of Kenema, Chief Kenie Momoh Ngombulango, described the engagement as a grace coming to the landowning families, especially the traditional authorities.
He said during the colonial period, documents gave power to landowners in the provinces, but, since then, government, through the Ministry of Lands and Infrastructure, has defused all those laws.
He alleged that most of the reservation lands have been sold by the ministry officers without any benefit for them. He added that they did so by molesting chiefs and landowning families.