Jestina Lavahun, the Sales Manager of the Sierra Leone Road Transport Corporation (SLRTC) at Bus Station, Wallace Johnson in street Freetown, has said on Wednesday that insufficient buses in the station has caused hold ups for passengers wanting to travel to the provinces.
She told Premier News that, the few buses that are available do not operate all the time, adding that some are in the garages with spare part problems.
Her statement came after passengers accused the corporation of inefficiency.
Aminata Kamara, a passenger, said that she had been trying to travel upcountry from the station for over three days without having access to any bus. “At any time I come to this station they always tell me to come the next day, and when I do, I will realize nothing as expected. We are appealing to the government to release for us the public more buses.”
The Sales Manager said that the number of buses plying the provinces could not adequately accommodate the number of people who come to the station wanting to travel upcountry. She revealed that passengers usually attack them physically for tickets.
She added that the reduction of the number of passengers to certain number has also made access to buses harder, and informed that they have 46-seater and 19-seater buses and they have been asked to reduce the number of passengers.
Lavahun said that the few buses that are available in the station do not operate all the time. “Some buses are not working now as a result of accident and some are having spare parts problems and that in turn add up more to our constraints. We don’t have enough buses here. We are only living here by God’s grace. Sometimes we only have one bus for a certain area and that always affects the passengers,” she emphasized.
“We are managing most of the buses that are operating here, most are not in order anymore. We are having received lots of humiliation from the public, mostly the passengers. They sometimes physically attack us for tickets… and we have been in this situation for over five years now,” she added.
She appealed to the government for more buses in order to ease the transportation constraints in the country.
By Ibrahim S. Bangura
4/11/2020. ISSUE NO: 7943