Port Loko District Council has become the latest Local Council to be provided with guidelines for the making of Bye Laws. About 9 Local Councils have now received these guidelines which are presented in two-day training workshops. However the workshop in Port Loko and that in Kambia two weeks earlier lasted for three days each.

This is owing to the fact that the training now has a gender component. The intention is to ensure that the Bye Laws proposed by the council reflect a distinct link between gender and development.

Joseph Bob Amara, Chairman of Port Loko District Council declaring the training workshop open

The Local Government Act provides that Local Councils should make Bye Laws tailored to ensure efficient and successful administration of their various localities.

Councils are empowered to make Bye Laws only on functions conferred on the councils by the Local Government Act, and this includes functions devolved from Ministries Departments and Agencies of the Central Government.

A cross section of participants

Gender Specialist at the Decentralisation Secretariat, Isatu Kajue, cautioned the Councillors to be guided in proposing Bye laws to ensure that the laws help to enhance women’s empowerment. She told them to ensure that the Bye laws are generally gender sensitive and do not reflect discrimination against any particular sex.

“The proposed Bye Laws should not uphold tenets of your culture which will impact negatively on the development of your locality and they should also reflect inclusion of all factions of your community,” she told the Councillors.

The Legal Expert in the Decentralisation Secretariat, Floyd Davies impressed on the minds of councillors that Bye laws should not be inconsistent with the constitution and should not contravene the provisions of all the other laws of the land.

Legal Expert Floyd Davies, explains the importance of the training

Councillors were admonished to conform to, observe and apply the fundamental principles of state policy when making Bye laws.

During group work, participants made several specimen Bye Laws reflecting their desire for improvement in various areas of development. The specimen Bye Laws dealt with areas such as the following:

• The need for practical agriculture to be taught in schools and for students to be encouraged to engage in agriculture on completion of their educational carriers.
• Trees must be planted to replace felled ones as this helps reduce deforestation  
• The collection of various forms of  taxes to be enforced
• Girl children not to be initiated into bondo society during school session.
• More sensitisation needed on HIV/Aids.
• Engaging very young children in petty trading should be stopped
• Early marriage of girls should be discontinued.

It was a consensus that if these and other Bye Laws are made, Port Loko District would have met its various development objectives.

© Copyright 2005, IRCBP.