By Mohamed Kamara
Rtd. Major General David Taluva, the Minister of Internal Affairs has revealed that plans are underway to evict squatters from the fuel terminal at Kissy in the Eastern part of the capital city, Freetown. He made the statement during an engagement at his Gloucester Street office on Tuesday 16th January 2024 in the presence of stakeholders such as the Petroleum Regulatory Agency and companies such as Leone Oil, Petroleum Jetty, Conex, and National Petroleum that have storage facilities at the Kissy terminal.
The decision which will be taken to cabinet for further deliberations and approval is geared towards ensuring safety in the storage facilities and its surrounding environment. It is dangerous for people to reside within such facilities because it is commonplace to see people cooking beneath the storage facilities and the conveyor pipes, where a little spillage could create a fire disaster that could engulf the entire Kissy and Wellington communities.
The move is informed by the experience obtained from the fire disaster that engulfed the fuel depot in Guinea, Conakry, and Sierra Leone is taking practical steps to avert the Guinean experience.
After the Guinean disaster, the Guineans are utilizing the fuel depot at Kissy to transport fuel for their domestic consumption thereby increasing the frequency rate and the risk associated with storing large quantities of fuel at the depot.
From the terminal to Bai Bureh road, where fuel tankers crisscross to transport fuel to stations, people could be seen selling cookery, roasting corn and cassava which pose a hazardous risk to the squatters in the event of a little drop of fuel spillage that could lead to a fire disaster.
It is estimated that over 100 makeshift houses excluding those that house displaced people have been constructed around the fuel depot. Even though these illegal squatters will be evicted, the exercise will be given a human face by way of compensating the people that have been residing there for decades.
A security post will be constructed around the area, to prevent the squatters from returning to utilize the surrounding as a residential area. Some people even constructed dwelling houses on top of the conveyor pipes to provide easy access to siphon fuel from the depot. A similar incident of fuel tapping by some thieves led to a fire disaster at the facilities of Conex causing the loss of resources amounting to 1 million dollars in 2018.
It was further resolved at the engagement that a fire vehicle will be stationed at the Kissy terminal that would be dedicated to serving the terminal and could be directly put on use in the event of a fire disaster.
According to the Minister, the government has contracted a British-based company that would be working with the fire force to provide fireballs that could be used to extinguish any form of fire outbreak.
