By Ragan M. Conteh

Director General of the Sierra Leone Roads Authority Ing Jalil Momodu has informed Members of Parliament in the Public Account Committee that the road personnel doing maintenance on roads across the country are working in a very perilous situation.

According to him, they are working on new strategy to address the road conditions especially with regular supervision.

The Director General emphasized that the Authority is starved in terms of getting funds from the government for maintenance of roads.

He said there are roads that will not take any maintenance, including Circular Road, AJ Momoh Streets and Model Parliament Road which were constructed 40 years ago and now required permanent solution.

He therefore called on the government to provide the needed funds to fix the terrible condition of roads in the city.

He also spoke of the Taiama road axis which has been constructed 15 years ago still not permanently fixed due to lack of funding availability.

“We have forwarded a proposal for those roads 4 years ago but the government did not provide the fund,” he stated.

The DG was responding to PAC on the Auditor General’s report at the New Administrative Building in Parliament.

He highlighted some of the roads they have already completed, those under construction among other projects, noting that due to the heavy rains, most of the work had to stop.

He informed the PAC that most of the terrible roads in the city were beyond patching and need to be overhauled for construction, but disclosed that they lack the funds to do so at the moment due to a number of internal and external factors.

The PAC Members however marked a number of roads in the capital city that were difficult to drive on at the moment, yet the authorities cannot do anything to address their current poor conditions.