It appears as if the Minister of Lands and Country Planning Dr. Dennis Sandy is on a move to name and shame people and business enterprises that had not been adhering to land lease agreement.
This was demonstrated at the Bank Complex on Tuesday this week, when he picked on the Sierra Leone Brewery Limited for not paying land rents for several years.
The Lands Minister who was delivering a keynote address at a luncheon organized by the Sierra Leone Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture on the topic: access to land for agricultural and industrial development, said that the Sierra Leone Brewery Limited and other institutions operating in the country owed the Ministry of Lands huge money and very soon he would start to name and shame them for not complying with the rules of the game.
This statement was viewed by those present as another bombshell for the Sierra Leone Brewery Limited and other major private and public enterprises operating on state lands on the basis of a lease agreement but has not been fully cooperating with the Ministry of Lands and Country Planning.
In a brief but very significant chat with the Company Secretary of the Sierra Leone Brewery Limited Albert Collier, stated that his company signed a 99 years lease agreement with the government of Sierra Leone but had only used 46 years on the current land they occupy at Wellington.
But he however promised that he would search for all the documents pertaining to the lease in preparedness to defend the company against such an accusation from the Lands Minister.
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