As rents and demand for housing increase, thousands of residents in Freetown municipality are becoming uneasy with the current trends as some fear eviction sometimes with only a few days’ notice and others living in disaster prone areas worried about the rainy season.
The Mayor of the Freetown City Council (FCC) Yvonne Aki Sawyerr has stated that there was a 36% price inflation from 2003 to 2011. This she said is in contrast with the rental prices, which rose up to an alarming 650%. “We have a housing crisis, and that has led us to having 72 slums in the form of communities in the city,” she said.
Estimates from the Slum Dwellers Association and the Urban Resource Centre range between 35 and 40% of Freetown residents are living in informal communities. “That is a major housing issue,” added Aki-Sawyerr.
According to the 2015 census, there are 1,055,964 residents in Freetown, with a growing rate of 4.2% a year. It is estimated that in the next ten years, 2028, Freetown will house two million people. “We cannot spend the next decade being unplanned,” the Mayor said.
The Mayor highlighted that there is a serious situation at hand, where the central business district (CBD) houses one of the biggest slum areas and has residential properties within it.
“We are seeing dissipation, as businesses are moving out of the central business district into the residential areas. We are losing the ability to have that clustering, as we are not getting the value of having both the businesses and the residences in spaces where great economic productivity will be facilitated or encouraged,” the Mayor said.
Responding to questions on what type of city are we going to be saddled with, whether it is going to be one that is continuous bottleneck with economic growth and development or is it one of the right policies to be taken? Or a road map to an economy that falls in line with the development of other cities in the world?
The Mayor responded that she would be working on four clusters; 1. Resilience (environmental management, urban planning, and revenue mobilisation), 2. Human development (education for growth – adult and skills development, job creation with a tourism sector focus), 3. Healthy city (health, water, sanitation and housing), and 4. Urban mobility (transportation, traffic management and road maintenance).
The Mayor agreed that the transportation link is clearly a big issue for anyone in Freetown and everyone has their own experience of staying in traffic for hours.
The Council’s approach to the city, she said, will be based on work and performance, thereby building the residents confidence which will eventually lead them to be paying their taxes as they will see value for money.
She also commented on productivity of the city, and that as an economic engine of the country there is need to talk about the amount of growth and where it is coming from. As in 1994, data records states that Freetown was contributing 10% GDP from manufacturing and that has considerably dropped to 2%.
“There are structural challenges that we need to address to reach that level again, issues like electricity and skills challenges. Where will the growth in Freetown come from? I think it is from tourism,” she said.
ZJ/20/6/18
By Zainab Iyamide Joaque
Thursday June 21, 2018.
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