Amin Kef Sesay
The current Minister of the Ministry of Lands Housing and Country Planning, Dr. Turad Senesie, has made history on the 9th December 2021, when he rolled out an initiative of conducting the first-ever public raffle draw geared towards allocating 200 plots of State Land to lucky winners among the public.
It must be noted that for quite a considerable period of time, members of the public and the Ministry have been grappling with the serious challenges of corruption, mal-administration and unfair treatment among other negative vices that had marred the general operations of the Ministry, especially in the area of land allocation.
As part of the various reforms and professional standards ushered in by the Dr. Turad Senesie administration in the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Country Planning, Sierra Leoneans for the first time in the nation’s history had the opportunity to be publicly informed about the availability of State Land for lease and the call for the citizens to apply and compete fairly for the meagre State natural resource.
A total of over 7,000 Sierra Leoneans from various walks of life, religious backgrounds, ethnic groups and regions collected the free application forms and submitted same within the two weeks application period.
As a result of the mad rush and demand for land, the Ministry proactively and accordingly increased the advertised plots from 100 (200 Town Lots) to 200 (400 Town Lots) to ensure many more applicants are afforded the opportunity to be allocated the available State land.
It was also unprecedentedly resolved that the plots would be allocated to the citizens through a public raffle draw to ensure transparency and fairness in the process.
Applicants, Anti Corruption Commission, Civil Society, Parliamentary Committee on Lands, the Press and the General Public to witness, observe and participate in the public raffle conducted in the compound of the Youyi Building in Freetown.
Additionally, the program was screened and streamed live on National Television and through the Official Facebook Page of the Ministry.
The over 7,000 application forms were displayed in the full view of the public before folding them up publicly and dumping them into the specially designed raffle drum.
Starting with the symbolic hand-deep and blind selection done by the Hon. Minister, one person at a time, members of the public were invited to blind-deep and select lucky winners from the rolling application forms.
The winners were announced one after the other as their forms were hand-picked out of the drum by members of the public.
A total of 200 Sierra Leoneans from various backgrounds and status had a fair share of Two Town Lots each of State Land.
Vulnerable citizens, including a disabled chairlady that were present when their names were announced, burst out in tears and celebrated uncontrollably with emotional testimonies of their feelings.
Even applicants present who could not make it successfully in the draw publicly testified and endorsed the credibility, transparency and fairness of the process.
The list of winners would be published by the Ministry early this week and the process to formally hand over the land to the wining applicants is already in top gear.
