By Mafugi Ceesay
Ousman Jarju, a resident of Sukuta who claimed his Kabilo- land was taken by government in Sukuta Salagi, denied his clan received compensation from the Lands Ministry.
Ousman Jarju, also called Justice of Peace JP and leader of the Jarju Kunda Clan in Sukuta, said permanent secretary Buba Sanyang has got his facts wrong in his claims that the government has compensated all those affected by the Salagi Estate.
“As far as my people are concerned, we have not received any compensation in Salagi. It is only the other clans that have received their share. I understand other clans like Jamba Kunda, Tamba Kunda and Mambunah Kunda received compensation, but not us,” he said.
He continued: “We have since been following the matter with the Minister of Lands to no avail. It is not correct that all affected clans have been compensated.”
It could be recalled that Buba Sanyang, the PS at Lands on Monday briefed parliamentarians on how his ministry settled some of the land disputes in the West Coast Region including Salagi land dispute.
Mr Sanyang informed the parliamentarians that Salagi is a government layout and the arrangement at the time was to compensate the land owners in the area in kind (giving part of the land to them) within the layout.
He said the last demolition exercise conducted by the ministry was as a result of government’s inaccessibility to the educational facility within the layout for the contractor who has been for one year awarded and given advance payment by the government to start construction works at the primary school therein.
He said that the ministry felt that there was need to provide access for the contractor to facilitate work of building the school, adding that some youths were trying to block the construction process of that land allocation.
He said the youths in turn wanted to reallocate the said land to other people, some of whom also decided to start developing on those lands.
“My ministry embarked on the demolition to enable the contractor to start the construction of the school, as well as to clear some of the public spaces for some people who have been allocated land by the government within the layout,” Sanyang told lawmakers.
