In a well-attended ceremony at Matru Jong in the Bonthe district, the Smallholder Commercialization and Agribusiness Development Project (SCADeP) with the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA) in collaboration with key stakeholders in Bonthe and consulting engineers from the International Consulting Services (ICS) and MARISWE from South Africa have concluded the formal handing over ceremony of the Matru Jong manual ferry crossing point site to the Sino-Hydro Bureau 9 JV Construction company.
This comes after a lot of hard work in previous months to put together technical designs, environmental and impact assessment surveys, social safeguards, compensation mappings and community engagements.
The handing over is also a follow up to the formal signing of contract for the bridge on the 3rd of April by the Minister of Finance, Minister of Works, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, SCADeP project and the Sino-Hydro Bureau 9 JV in Freetown.
Chief Agricultural Officer of the Bonthe district noted that the bridge has been a long-awaited project for the farmers and communities of Matru Jong and peripheral areas whose agricultural produce will be able to move to periodic markets called (Lumas) and even to the district headquarter town of Bo. He appreciated the contractor for being at the site for the handing over. Most times he noted, vehicles would sleep on the other end of the crossing point because they could not risk crossing at night.
In a brief remark, the Matru City Council, Deputy Chief Administrator, Mr. Vandy noted that the technical handing over is a laudable venture and a development the people of Matru have been lunging for over a long period of time.
He recalled the many challenges that have been occurring across the Jong River in which boat accidents take place with people not been able to cross over the river at night. All those challenges he noted, will be a thing of the past when the bridge is constructed.
He said council will always support the government and its partners to foster development. Showering praises on SCADeP, he stated that it is one of the project that is highly respected at the local council level because SCADeP works with transparency and accountability and also respects the local content policy.
The consultant engineer from the International Consulting Services (ICS) Mr. Guiva Lavaly noted that they will deploy personnel that will constantly be monitoring the construction process now that the work will commence in earnest. He noted that they will always be there to listen and communicate with the people on all the issues that may arise from the construction process.
The environmental and social safeguards officer of SCADeP Mrs. Nafisatu Koroma stated that after all the assurances she has been giving to the people of Matru Jong who were no longer sure when things will kick start, she is now happy to introduce the contractor to them amidst loud applause.
Mrs. Koroma appealed to the people to be part of the process and take up their own responsibility. She said that the people will constantly be engaged and involved till the end of the project.
The contractor from the Sino-Hydro Bureau 9 JV in a brief statement told the people of Matru that he fully understands the importance of the bridge, noting that with co-operation from the community, the bridge can be finished on time.
Project Coordinator, Mr. Sulaiman Sesay revealed that it was the government that put the SCADeP project together a couple of years back and charged the Ministry of Agriculture to implement it. He said that as part of what the project does, there is what is called “Linking farmers to the markets a component which is called Market Access Improvement”.
He explained that government realized that when farmers produce their agricultural produce, these produce often perish in the farms because of bad roads that inhibits the goods from reaching markets on time. This is why the government thought it fit to rehabilitate roads and build bridges to make it easy for the people.” It is in that spirit that the government saw it fit that with what is currently been seen at the Jong River several of which are also around the country which have been around since the 1950’s are changed and transformed by putting bridges across these points” he stated.
He revealed that by the counts of the Sierra Leone Roads Authority, there are thirteen of such places, but seven of these were charged to be designed by the SCADeP project which has already been done in which Manowa, Gendema, Tompare and Matru are the first four which government has undertaken to be constructed after the conceptual designs were done. He said that government has decided that the construction of these bridges should start immediately.
SCADeP is a project under the Ministry of Agriculture that seeks: “To promote smallholder commercialization by fostering productive business linkages between smallholder farmers and selected agribusiness firms and other commodity off-takers in Sierra Leone”. The project is implemented nationwide, and covers rice, cocoa, oil palm, poultry, maize, and onion value chains.