August 31, 2016 By Mohamed Massaquio
A senior correctional officer from the headquarters of the Sierra Leone Correctional Service has taken over the Moyamba facility as head, a move seen as a strategy to provide effective and efficient leadership to officers and inmates the detention facility, located in southern Sierra Leone.
Mohamed Opito Jimmy says he has organised meetings with the local magistrate, Local Unit Commander and Paramount Chief of Kayamba Chiefdom in Moyamba township so that they can collectively work together in the interest of the district.
The Prison Service was transformed into the Sierra Leone Correctional Services in 2014 by an Act of Parliament, after a centenary of catering and caring for thousands of inmates.
The transformation came into effect after government adopted the policy of correctional service, which is in line with international norms governing correctional services around the world.
Some Sierra Leoneans have condemned the department for not providing appropriate services, but the Director, Sampha Bilo Kamara, while launching the name change, said the new dispensation would see a complete departure from what used to be punitive concept of imprisonment to that of a correctional service.
Only recently, the district came under serious security threat after youths in the Lower Banta Chiefdom marched from Gbangbatoke to Largo and burnt the house of the Paramount Chief, Court ‘Barray’ (house) and other houses in the village.
But Jimmy says peace has finally returned to the district and that he is in regular touch with other members of the security sector in the district, while inmates are being taken to court on time for court proceedings.