Radiation Protection Agency Discusses Review Of Radiation Act 2012

By Abdul Rahman Bah

At a national workshop held on Monday 27 March 2023, at the Atlantic Hotel in Aberdeen, the Radiation Protection Agency engaged stakeholders on the review of their new Act, which now embraces Non-Ionizing Radiation protection.

Speaking at the meeting, Josephus J kongo, Chairman of National Ionizing Radiation (NIR) told the audience that after the promulgation of the Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (Amendment) Act 2012, the agency embarked on the provision of training of its Technical Staff to ensure effective and efficient discharge of their responsibilities, and keeping Sierra Leone in line with International best practices. But there were bottlenecks, hence the need for a review of the Act. He noted that when the bill was presented to Parliament, they were amazed at the contribution of the House, and the issue of Non-ionization came to the fore, with Parliament raising concern over the absence of non-ionize matters in the document. They therefore requested that the document include non-ionize materials, furthering that the Act was only restricted to ionize radiation.  Adding that their partners in Geneva, the IEA offered training to their staff in addressing radiation. He described as one of the challenges faced by the agency as funding, adding that they were self-funded.

Giving a brief background to the establishment of the agency, Abdulai Abass Kargbo told the audience that there was an Act for the protection of radiation, and the body was established in 2006, the Radiation Protection Agency, with a secretariat set up in 2008, but this Act lacked several components and was reviewed and amended with the designation, the National Radiation Protection Act 2012. He recalled that when one looks at the subject matter, focus was made on ionized radiation, but after the review, both types of radiation were incorporated, Ionized and non-ionized radiation, adding that the type of training they had from Ghana was mainly on ionized radiation.

However, with Professor Amoako from Ghana, they are being trained on both types of radiation. He said that they have been monitoring radiation to ensure that institutions are in compliance with the directives of the agency.

Mr John Jabati, Chief Radiation Protection Officer, in his contribution, said that this is a history making event, furthering that when they started the Ionizing Radiation, they were faced with many challenges both from the government (absence of political will) and also that people did not want to be regulated, especially in the health sector, where in X-ray is being used.

Professor Foday Jaward, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, stated that he was the overseers of all Agency in the country on environmental issues, and noted that there were gaps, adding that two years ago, nobody talked about Climate Change and ionizing, so they decided to Repeal the act of the agency and others the like of forestry Act of 1988 and more.