Koinadugu Yells for Development
As the quest for national development receives a wider reckoning, the Northern Koinadugu District in the forest region of Sierra Leone shares a spell of backward development as Donstance Koroma reports.
Fadugu and Kamukeh are two amalgamated chiefdoms that both form Constituency 49. This hub of agricultural region is the least developed with poor road networks leading to the main Kabala township.
The roads were not the only problems the northern county faces; the residents therein also face health problems and lack of health centers, schools and education facilities, safe and pure drinking water and recreational centers.
Fadugu is blessed with two Secondary Schools with Kamukeh Chiefdom only boasting of the Kamukeh Secondary School (KSS). The school struggles to have trained and qualified teachers as they only have three volunteer teachers for the whole of the academic school year.
The academic furnace in that part of the country is not in line with the twenty first century. The schools are having poor makeshift structures and the accommodation is less hospitable for pupils in that part of the country.
Child Labour stands visible as teachers of Primary and Secondary Schools use pupils during the evening hours to help them in their farms thereby giving the pupils little or no time to study. It was also observed that many Children are not going to school because of the distance they usually cover by feet.
Youth Chairman in the Thelia Village, Kambalia Section, Kamukeh Chiefdom, Ansu Bangura said the chiefdom is being deprived of development for far too long as they have a serious challenge with their roads network structure. He said roads in that part of the Country are nothing to write good home about citing Gbenda Thelia road which he said still lays moribund despite a glimmer of hope that the Government of Sierra Leone had receive funds from the World Bank for its completion in August 30th of 2010.
The moribund Gbentu Thelia Road
He said most of their Agricultural produces are being traded in neighboring Guinea because the traders risk incurring wraths of the bad road conditions.
Moreover reports say Kamukeh Chiefdom is having a stealthy number of death tolls as a result of long distances covering the 42 villages leading to the Chiefdom’s only Health Center.
Mary Kamara, Head Nurse of the Kamukeh Health Center said the Health Center has recorded only three deaths of pregnant women for this year but however confesses that there are plenty cases wherein patients have lost their lives before accessing the health facilities as a result of the poor road network.
She complains of accommodation, as she is presently living in a community house in Kabala, which lays some 49 miles to the Health Center. She said there are 44 villages to reach out to but the deplorable roads condition makes it almost impossible to reach them.
She said the center normally faces serious communication problems for referral cases to the Kabala Government Hospital as signals from mobile companies in that part of the Country remain inconsistent.
Section Chief and Town Chief of Madina Bonkoboh Mohamed Sillah said his section lacks Health Center facilities adding that his people normally walk 15 miles to access the Fadugu Health Center by feet. Paul Amara Mansaray of Kassasie village said his village can only boast of a health center structure with no medical personnel serving there since the year 2007 to date. He said relatives of those convalesce have to always walk covering a distance of 16 miles to access the Kabala Government Hospital.
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