The National Coordinator, Arms for Development Programme, Ibrahim Kamara, has disclosed that Sulima Chiefdom, located in the Pujehun District, Southern Sierra Leone, has been certified an arms-free chiefdom, and that coming Thursday, 26th October, has been slated for the official declaration ceremony.

Ibrahim Kamara said the Arms for Development Programme is an initiative implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in

collaboration with the Sierra Leone Police (SLP), with an objective of collecting fire-arms after the disarmament programme in Sierra Leone.

The Arms for Development Programme, Kamara stated, spans 81 Chiefdoms, but that 26 have so far completed the process, declared arms-free and issued certificates and the sum of Le40m each, in order to undertake development programmes in those communities, and that 10 more are espected to be declared arms-free.

Sulima Chiefdom, Kamara said, will be declared arms-free coming Thursday, 26th October, a ceremony he said was very significant, since Sulima shares boundary with Guinea, and that they are going to invite the Guineans to grace the ceremony, in a bid to ensure that the chiefdom was arms-free for coastal cross-border activities. Kamara furthered that in all chiefdoms inspected so far, a total of 5,218 assorted weapons were collected, noting that the programme was yet to be conducted in 68 chiefdoms, out of a total of 149 chiefdoms in Sierra Leone.

The Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) in charge fire-arms, Andrew Gbanie, told journalists that they were hoping to complete the process early next year, ahead of the 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections. ASP Gbanie, however, highlighted some of the constraints for implementing the programme, citing especially, the area of vehicles to facilitate his team’s movement from one chiefdom to another.