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7,509 Police Not Enough for Sierra Leone

Concord Times (Freetown)
NEWS
August 12, 2004
Posted to the web August 12, 2004

By Rachel Horner
Freetown
Senior Assistant Commissioner in charge of Personnel, Training and Welfare,
Morie Lengor disclosed Tuesday that the current police strength of 7,509
couldn't adequately police the entire country in the event of the final Unamsil
draw down programme.
He said the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) in order to attain the 9,500 personnel
benchmark slated for them before the final draw down of Unamsil still needed an
addition of 1,991 to beef up their current strength.
Lengor said currently 400 recruits are in training and they expect that the
next batch of trainees will comprise 600 personnel each. He thanked the
government for their support but hastened to say that the budgetary projection
of the SLP to government has been cut by Le 500 million, which in effect will
affect the force greatly. The Senior Assistant Commissioner stated that the
police are understaffed presently and this is due to the inadequate budget
available to them. He said accommodation/training facilities are not
sufficient.
"We are trying to do all this just to meet the Unamsil Adjustment Draw Down
Programme," he said.

   

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