Africa 24 news
On May 15 Wednesday, 2024, the Chinese company, CSRG, announced new payments on its toll gates across the country.
It is now tasking ‘pickups’ (or commercial vehicles) to pay each Le 10 for a pass through the gateway facility.
Vehicles like ‘poda-poda’ used to pay Le 4 for each crossing before the announcement.
The issue is something that most Sierra Leoneans are not happy about.
They are grumbling about it owing to the ripple effects the cost on vehicles it is having on passengers whose fares are being doubled up.
One critic, on Wednesday May 15, 2024, name Baidos blamed former president Ernest Bai Koroma to have caused the present discomfort on passengers like him.
“I am now worrying about my son who is learning an apprentice work in Freetown. He is going to be paying over Le 30 a day from Waterloo to Freetown,” he said.
Baidos’ son like many in Waterloo ( an 18 mile drive to the capital) who come to town to either do business, work or learn a trade will now have to devise other means to save cash.
“I think, I will need to advise my son to find a fiend to be sleeping to in Freetown to avoid paying huge money each day,” said Baidous.
Other people have shifted the blame on the rising costs on the three toll gates on the former administration of ex-president Koroma.
“Why would the said agreement between the previous government be tagged on United States Dollar?”
“It supposed to mean that as the dollar currency floats the price on toll gates also needed to be increased at once or even if it takes some delays but it is bound to be increased.”
“Such a contract is not good for a country whose domestic currency is struggling to pick up behind the foreign currency, the dollar, as of always,” a group of citizens spoke to Africa 24 newspaper.
CRSG, China Railway Seventh Group, has earlier insisted that since the costs on expenses have become expensive in the country as a result of the rise in the United States dollar, it deems it fit as per contract to add up on the prices it is charging on private and commercial vehicles.
It is understood that the three toll gates are built by the Chinese company with service costs met and construction materials being provided by the firm alone.
And so the company requires to recoup its money spent on building the Masiaka-Wellington highway and the contract is lasting for twenty-five years.