Momodu Koroma, the Vice President of the Motor Drivers and General Transport Workers Union, has recently said that lack of motor vehicles has caused transportation constraint.
According to Koroma the fall in the number of commercial vehicles has caused over overcrowding in public transports which is threatening the lives of citizens amid COVID-19.
He furthered that both commercial and government vehicles which are on town services are not enough to serve the general public. He said that the lack of vehicles has resulted in the reduction of passengers and much pressure on the drivers from the authorities attached to the routes. He further commented that the drivers now run half-way, and that they had also increased transport fare.
He explained, “Sometimes, the passengers ask the drivers to pay more than the actual price in order to reach their destinations. Drivers cannot move about as freely as they once did as a result of the pressure they are put under by the authorities.”
Koroma revealed that they had had consultative meetings with the SLRTC, asking them to release some buses in order to ease constraints over transportation but till then they had not come to their aid.
He claimed, “The Sierra Leone Road Transport Cooperation (SLRTC) has buses which they have refused to release for public service for the best reasons known to them. I see no reason why the SLRTC has refused to give the service of the buses to the public. If they had come to our help by releasing some of the buses at least the public would not have been suffering to access vehicles.”
He renewed a request for the SLRTC to release more buses for town service, and on behalf of the Union also appealed to the Government to provide the buses it promised to do so.
He appealed to the Police and Traffic Wardens to do their work professionally.
By Ibrahim S. Bangura
21/12/2020. ISSUE NO: 7969