February 2015

From Awareness Times Newspaper in Freetown

The committee on pre-legislative in Parliament on Monday, 1st January, 2015 had a discussion small arms and light weapons in committee room one.

Presenting the document to members of Parliament, Minister of Internal Affairs, Hon. Joseph B. Dauda in his statement said “the presentation of this Small Arms and Light Weapons Regulation 2014 to MPs is very important and it needs to be explained to members in detail.”

He said the commission will be responsible to issue out the weapons and conduct investigations about the applicants across the country. He informed that “this document will permit people to produce guns for business, help business people to have guns for protections.”

He made it obvious that the commission will not issue out weapons just like that but background checking will be done. Furthermore, “people with mental problems, newly divorced individuals and people having problems in their place of work will not be permitted to have access to these weapons.

He maintained that the commission will be doing this with the supervision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” he said.

He added that the country is experiencing a lot of arm robbery and they want to put stop to it, in the country by preventing people having unlawful arms across the country.

He further noted: “This document will ensure that applicants undergo a proper medical checkup before being granted permission to handle a weapon. We will be marking every gun before issuing them out to the qualifiers by indicating the group he/she belongs to in the country.”

He said weapons like AK47 will not be given out to people, only light weapon will be allowed to use.

The Chief Commissioner for the Small Arms and Light Weapons Commission, (Rt. Brig) Moribo Lemon in his statement said the commission now has the comprehensive update of the small arms and light weapons in the country.

He said “It is the utmost responsibility of the commission to investigate any case of fired arm in the country.

The commission will do individual identification first before giving out the weapons to civilians that will be qualified.”

The minority Leader of the House Hon. Dr. Bernadette Lahai said there is a convention in the ECOWAS Parliament on Small Arms and Light Weapons which some of the MPs do not know about because some of them were not in Parliament by then and now they have an Act on Small Arms and Light Weapons Regulation.

She said a lot of money has been spend on the Ministry of Defense for Sierra Leone to be well secured but some people still have small arms that is disturbing the people of this country.

Hon. Dauda Kallon said people applying for these guns most be identified with individual information and be a very serious minder person before giving out these guns to them. He added that security forces need to be well informed on the issuing out of the arms to civilians.