That action told the world over that President Bio and his ‘push-catch’ administration have not been working to the expectations of many, including donor and development partners, especially in infrastructure development.
While he showed decisive leadership in handling the immediate fixing of potholes in his path on Kissy Road, however, he was rather expected to have met promises made during his presidential campaigns three years ago, but sadly for the nation he couldn’t as he’d vowed in 2018 which was why he responded immediately to the problems after he experienced the terrible gallops on the road, on his way to and from Cline Town.
The president’s quick-fix reaction to the Kissy Road potholes brought to the minds of many that as a Chief Executive, the president finally developed a conscious realisation of the levels of massive failure to deliver the much need services during his wasted thirty-six months plus in office.
Concerns were rife about why after the potholes had been left in ruin for over three years without giving them the necessary attention, they were all of a sudden being fixed only after the president’s working visit experience.
The President is reported to have gone to the sub-region’s oldest university for several reasons best known to his administration.
Kissy Road is a main conduit into the capital city of Freetown. As one of the first major entering points into the metropolitan, why was it neglected by the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA) long enough to develop such massive potholes that made it an unworthy road to ply, though lightweight front wheel and so many other vehicles braved it through Fourah Bay Road to connect to other parts of the city?
Government’s swift response to the problem implies that with the full political will and commitment towards national service, any sober leader and government can work hard to deliver good services to its people within the shortest possible time.
President Bio, as if he is not used to drive on pothole-riddled roads anymore, came across as experiencing and feeling the gallops only when his convoy had driven the route to and from Cline Town. After his visit, we saw the road undergoing makeshift repairs, leaving its narrow drainages clogged with plastic wastes. Why? The assumption here is that his embarrassment was as a result of how the potholes might have looked like to the newly christened Americans of Sierra Leonean heritage and ancestry. It should be expected that they would not have been impressed, as their expectation would have been that, out of the political expediency to impress them, they would have either been fixed before their visit, or were rushed to Cline Town using another or more scenic route. But that would have left them with two other options: coming from Ferry Junction side or Fourah Bay Road, both of which would have been grossly undesirable to impress our new citizens of Sierra Leone.
The problem had been there for ages, before the government and president started work in March 2018. However, it was always ignored because it was neither a priority of the road sector administrators at SLRA nor president Bio, despite Kissy Road’s importance to the Freetown municipality.
We now call on the president to now take this action a bit further by ordering the fixing of all roads in similar condition as Kissy Road, thereby killing two birds with one stone; road infrastructure development and youth employment, both issues of continuity in governance.
