By Ragan M. Conteh
Citizens of Freetown have called on the World Bank, which funded the procurement of about 50 buses.
They ask for them to intervene in order to ameliorate their suffering.
According to residents of Freetown, World Bank, looks deem it fit to help decongest the capital and to salvage the long-standing transportation problems in the capital.
But interestingly and to the dismay of Freetown’s residents, the purpose for which these buses were procured as further added more problems other than salvaging the situation.
Generally, the world over, government transportation is less expensive than private commercial vehicles.
But in Sierra Leone, government has decided to put additional burden on poor residents of Freetown by increasing the transportation cost on government buses as compared to the lower fares charged by the commercial vehicles.
Besides, it has added more problems and suffering to Freetown residents as government lately increased the transportation cost.
This has also deprived vulnerable commercial vehicle owners who earn a living on road transport.
According to commercial vehicle owners, the coming of the buses have rendered them useless because the routes they used to carry passengers have now been monopolized by the government, citing for reasons best known to them and so commercial vehicles owners now find it very difficult to survive.
Some vehicle owners say, car dealers who usually loan those vehicles have decided to change their loaning scheme for fear of them not being able to pay-back the loans.
Passengers from Calaba Town and the central business district have opined that, the government is treating its citizens “inhumanly” and this has created the kind of financial burden on their existing expenditures.
Some say, they cannot afford to pay ten Leone (Le 10) fare from Calaba Town to the Bus Station ( central Freetown) and from Lumley To Bus Station.
They said the commercial vehicles which used to help carry them from that end have also decided to increase their transportation fares, arguing that government which should have ameliorated the suffering of its citizens has brought more suffering for them.
Freetown residents however, have called on the World Bank which provided the funds to urge government to reduce its transport fares from ten Leones to five Leones.
Some civil society activists accused government of violating the fundamental human rights of its citizens by monopolizing the road for its vehicles.
The activists maintained that, apart from violating citizens’ rights, government has also violated the normal transportation fare they’d imposed on commercial vehicles across the country by increasing government owned-buses transport fares from five Leones to ten Leones.
They urged government to re-think a reduction of the transport fare down to five Leone.