Commuters across the municipality of Freetown are regularly troubled by problems of lack of public transportation everywhere in the city, amid the deadly global coronavirus – COVID19 pandemic.
And then the hue and cries of commuters everywhere you go in the congested cosmopolitan Freetown. “We are suffering for transportation to move from one point to the other,” a civil servant traveling from the east of the city grumbled.
Their cries though all over the place yet are not listen to by Government; not even the line ministry, whose political leadership under the Minister of Transport and Aviation – MTA, Kabineh Kallon who is always seen driving in a fully air conditioned Japanese Toyota Land Cruiser SUV, while commuters from everywhere in Freetown continue to contend with the trouble of lack of public transportation.
“Fighting for transportation is miserable and in the event you lost any valuable or get hurt nobody will compensate you, so one has to be really mindful about safety when looking for means of transportation to travel,” observe James Dumbuya who had just travelled from Lungi waiting for transport to go to town.
A situation that is rendering Government with serious tongue lashings by the public for neglecting tax payers to languish in the hands of wicked commercial drivers for public transportation in Freetown and its surrounding communities, with little or no remedy provided by Government to address the problem.
“We don’t deserve such inhumane treatments from drivers. We pay them but they behave to us so because nobody cares about commuters as far as transportation matters are concerned, said Kalilu Hassan Sannoh at Up Gun Turn Table.
Further gauging views on the situation commuters are contending with, Mabinty Tarawally who sells vegetables at Lumley market west of Freetown, has this to say; “we don’t know why this kind of struggling for transportation when there are so many Government buses parked there at the Sierra Leone Roads Transport Corporation. We deserved access to public transport facilities at every location in the country, not to talk of the city where there is high demand for town services transportation. It is just too sad for us as business people.”
That Sierra Leone public transport system is largely operated by the private sector investors with very minimal inputs from Government, Minister Kallon claims: “there are only twenty-five buses left in working order and are plying within the city.”
Out one hundred bought in recent years by the last administration, commuters continue to encounter massive sufferings for public transportation at the advantages of private operators with, hike fares irrespective of destinations distances.
Private transport owners operate their businesses with self-regulation approaches; fix and control their fares to maximise profits against the normal prices issued by Government through the MTA, no matter its effects on the general welfare of commuters they tend to be serving. And as such, taxi and minivan drivers always maltreat passengers with disrespects and always drop them half way of their destinations even when they over change them for shorter distances in the full view of traffic police and road safety corps.
Similarly at Aberdeen road, Brima Yusif Bangura told this medium that he has been at the transport terminal for long hours waiting for transport but to no avail.
“You know I can’t imagine I have spent over an hour here waiting for transport any one of them I stop and ask they only reply me half way and over charge of fares, “he said, adding that they are bad treated by transport operators as if they are doing them favours.
For them, drivers’ misconducts are not their business, all they need are their normal handshakes and bookings at every batch of road safety corps and police officers they meet along the roads they ply, that is why even when unruly drivers lurk horns with passengers road safety corps and police always pretend having no knowledge about disorderly behaviours of rowdy commercial drivers in and around their immediate deployment postings. It is on record that road safety corps and the police now protect drivers more that how they should be demonstrating concerns for safety of commuters.
The sector is associated with difficulties ranging from urban traffic congestions, inadequacies, none-motorizing transportation, road accidents and safety, which most private transport operators are careless about, except their moneys because there are no town service public transportation provision by the MTA, while buses are parked at the Sierra Leone Road Transport Corporation.
Broken down and in working orders waiting the full reopening of schools is also a mere fulfilment of another campaign promise made by President Julius Maada Bio and his Sierra Leone People’s Party. Town service public transportation were not provided even when passengers were reduced in vehicles of private commercial operators, and that also added to the massive sufferings of commuters as if buses bought by Government were not procured from funds raised from tax payers’ moneys.
At Bottom Mango Wilberforce, heading to central Freetown was the same, as operators hardly take passengers traveling directly to longer destinations, they prefer rather take those who wish to pay twice the fares and travel to shorter distances.
“Am not sure if buses that are supposed to be utilized for public transportation are in proper working order”, a commuter – Judith Showers opined, to which another replied “I think the buses are there parked in the SLRTC compound waiting for the reopening of schools.”
It could be vividly recalled that school buses provision was one of numerous campaign promises made by President Bio during his race for the presidency.
The rationale behind the withholding of busses for use as public transportation is that service providers are of the view that Government will run at loss and are therefore keeping them until schools reopen. Government is not in the provision of public services for profitmaking, so all that need to be done now is to render the services that are expected to be provided by rights agencies in question.
Hence service providers in the public transportation sector should not forget that they owe it to the people, and if they fail in meeting their obligations to the public is a crime on their part for which they can be sued in the court of law, considering the significance of public transportation. So service such as transportation is not about profitmaking but mere service delivery to the public as necessities, charged commuters after at Calaba town, Wellington and Shell Kissy who were patiently waiting for transport.
Therefore as long as people pay their taxes, they in turn expect public service deliveries be made available to them by the required departments and agencies, especially in the area of public transportations; a problem that requires the urgent attention of Government, MTA and the SLRTC for the needful actions to be taken.
Government in recent years procured one hundred buses and recently another fifty buses were as well added for schools across the country, yet there is no public transport service for commuters in Freetown and its surrounding communities. It is unbelievable that all those facilities are not solving the sufferings of commuters in Freetown.
Instead, all the busses at the SLRTC are shuttling between Freetown and the provinces towns, leaving commuters suffering in the city where there is high demand for public transportations, as if Government and the line ministry are not aware of the huge sufferings of the people in every part of Freetown for public transportation.
It is no secret the commercial public transport operators are always working towards maximising profits at the detriments of the masses. The more reasons Government is expected to rise to the existing challenges being posed by the lack of public transportation service to the masses and make shortages of public transportation a thing of the past
