ONS on Counter Terrorism

Mr. Kelli said the National Security council has endorsed the implementation plan which is share by President Koroma who has given directive to the Minister of Finance to provide necessary resources, noting the ONS has also established Anti Terrorism Fusion Centre and personnel for the centre will soon embarked on training.    

The Office of National security was established by a legal framework called the National Security and Central Intelligent Act of 2002. It is an agent of government that has the responsibility to coordinate national emergencies.

According to the Director for Monitoring and Oversight, Mr. Kelli the since the ONS established to date, it has been managing disaster management activities like the recent flood disaster that left thousands of people homeless. He said ONS has been able to repatriate some of the people that became homeless as a result of the September sixteen torrential rains to the new home that government has established for them at Six Mile, adding that those that have not got home are currently on rent allowance.

Mr. Kelli also informed the press that since the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) is coming to close down end of December this year, the ONS is coming to take over and coordinate the activities of NERC. This, he said ONS has been on a simulated national exercises on how ONS could able to respond to national emergencies, whether there is an Ebola outbreak or flooding.

He went further to state that national emergencies are not only limited to health issues, adding that there are several components related to national emergencies and as result in taking over these activities after NERC has closed down, the ONS will be co-located with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs and any other MDAs that might have bearing to deal with national emergencies.