President Koroma Receives SRSG Said Djinnit By State House Communications Unit President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma on Monday 24th February received in audience, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for West Africa Mr. Said Djinnit at State House. The purpose of the visit was to follow-up on the West Africa Coast Initiative (WACI) in Sierra Leone and the progress being made through support to Sierra Leone’s Transnational Crime Unit (TOCU). Present at the meeting was Mr. Jens Anders Toyberg-Frandzen, the Executive Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Sierra Leone. Welcoming the delegation, President Koroma expressed gratitude for the support Sierra Leone continues to enjoy from the UN, and added that government is also happy that UN is visiting to look at other engagements the country has with other countries within the sub-region in terms of handling crime, especially organized crime and drug trafficking. President Koroma and SRSG Said Djinnit exchanged views on a regional approach to address cross-border and cross-cutting threats to peace and security in the sub-region. President Koroma expressed Sierra Leone’s continued commitment to fight transnational crime in the region, and admitted that although there are challenges, TOCU will continue to ensure that the legislative structures are put in place to combat drug trafficking and crime in the sub-region. He assured the SRSG of government’s support to not only sustain but improve on what TOCU is doing to address the menace of transnational crime in especially the Mano River Union. “We are happy that the UN is providing support to a regional approach in the MRU,” he said. Mr. Said Djinnit briefed the President on cross-border and cross-cutting threats to peace and security in the sub-region. He informed the President that the UN is working with Interpol as well as a back-up plan of action (WACI) by ECOWAS to fight against organized crime in the sub-region. He also noted that the idea is to establish essentially a transnational crime unit drawn from all security agencies in the country with the same authority to act nationally, and highlighted Sierra Leone as the most successful experience in the region. “Actually, we want to take it as an example to emulate it in other parts of the region. We have a similar one in Liberia which is working but not performing as the one in Sierra Leone. We also have one in Guinea Bissau which has declined because of the crisis there, and we are in the process of establishing one in Cote D’voire where there is a strong commitment by the President and the leadership to establish a drug crime unit, and also in Guinea,” Mr. Djinnit emphasized. The SRSG noted that one of the major challenges facing the UN system in the fight against transnational crime is funding as well as the fight to anchor the various TOCU, including the one in Sierra Leone in the legal system of the country for ownership. He said Sierra Leone is the most advanced in the movement of internalizing fully. Mr. Said Djinnit assured the President of the UN’s support to back the effort and confessed; “Sierra Leone has proved very effective when I saw the performance is quite very impressive to be honest and my appeal is to see what important options and possibilities are there for the country to really anchor this unit, and then we commit ourselves to continue backing the effort.”
Posted on: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 14:12:17 +0000
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