By Mohamed Kallon
The news of government, companies or individuals bringing more transport whether buses, vehicles, ferries, trains or any other means to cushion the effect of transportation in Sierra Leone is always good news for many people including school children who daily struggle to carry out their activities.
But is the availability of transport really the answer to this daily struggle? The absolute answer is NO! It cannot in anyway be a permanent solution to our ailing transportation problem. This is because Sierra Leone is not cultured in maintenance especially when it comes to dealing with government property.
A typical example is the government vehicles including buses. Even though these vehicles are bought expensively with the country’s meager resources, they are often handled with deliberate carelessness for nothing more than greediness.
Who can for Heaven’s sake imagine that a single deflated tyre can cause a whole new bus not only to stop running but turn to scrap altogether?
Visit the Sierra Leone Road Transport Corporation (SLRTC) headquarters at PWD, Ferry Junction in Freetown you will for sure mistake it for a scrap metal yard, because all the buses the previous and the current government had purchased are recklessly parked there for minor faults.
Incredibly, they are going to be there and have their parts removed (stolen) by the very Corporation workers as usual, until they finally become carcasses. This is so with all other government transports not limited to vehicles alone, which is why many believe that it is not the availability of transports that can solve the problem, rather good and proper care of them will be key.