The Chief Security Officer (CSO) to President Kabbah, who was accused of selfishly maligning community people from getting pieces of state land they had applied for, has denied the allegation.
The CSO, Faiah Sellu, told Awoko over the weekend that there was a big fraud with respect to government’s lands going on at State Lodge and that they were thoroughly investigating the matter.
About the allegation he explained: “Sometime last year some officers serving under me at State Lodge were struggling with some civilians at Kamayamar, back of Malama [at Lumbly, west of the capital] for lands.
“The Inspector General of Police called me and asked me to investigate the matter. During my investigations I asked for the list of the names of all those struggling for the lands. The list was brought to me and I discovered that about 70% of the names were not even working at State Lodge, so I decided to only spearhead the fight for a letter of release for lands only for those people who are working at State Lodge.
“I reported back to the ministry of lands’ Permanent Secretary (PS) through the protocol officer and the PS wrote formerly to the Chief of Protocol to supply him with the names of people who wanted lands in our department (State Lodge), so I gave him the list of the seventy names from our department.
“Not long, the PS started to allocate pieces of land, but I discovered that the allocations were not reflecting the list I submitted to him. The PS allocated the first 60 plots but we discovered that 24 of them only went to State House staff and 36 went to civilians not working at State House. So I brought this to the attention of the PS who then advised that I held on to the letter of release of the state lands of those who are not State Lodge staff and release the confirmation letter to those who are certified State Lodge staff. He said he would then redirect the lands allocation from those who are not working at State Lodge to the bonafide State Lodge staff.
“At that point I took a month’s break from the office. When I returned I found out that the man whom I left in charge of the documents had already distributed them to the civilians who are not working at State Lodge, which he was not supposed to do. Because of this grave offence, which surmounted to insubordination, failing to comply with the rules of the force, I took disciplinary action against him. I asked him out of the lodge. I also drove Musa out for indiscipline because he is a constable and, he is not the appropriate authority to receive documents on behalf of State Lodge from any office in this country. He went and took these land documents from lands and refused to listen to my directives, that he should never collect these documents and as a result I sent him out of the institution I am heading”.
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