Fake registrations and licenses galore: how well is TIWII Memory serving SLRTA?
As you are reading this commentary there is a serious war raging at the offices of the Sierra Leone Road Transport Authority (SLRTA) across the country, especially at its headquarters along Kissy Road in the eastern part of Freetown over the issues of the registeration of vehicles and motor bikes, and the issuance of licenses to bike riders and motor drivers.
The whole imbroglio concerns the work of the service providers, TIWII Memory, the company that has had the contract to register vehicles and motor bikes and issue licenses on behalf of the SLRTA for about eight years now.
The first problem is that some people at the SLRTA are of the view that the TIWII Memory never went through the laid down principles of bidding for such a contract, but through whatever connections, they were offered this contract.
These officials have also explained to us that there are a lot of fake licenses and registrations in the possession of bike riders and motor drivers and it will appear TIWII Memory has no control over this situation.
Invariably this state of affairs continues to bring a lot of losses to the SLRTA to the extent that one is tempted to conclude that both the Management and Board of the Authority seem not to have proper monitoring mechanisms in place to check some of these anomalies and suggest corrective measures that will bring benefit to the country
The questions that this kind of situation begs are, 1) Are the Management and Board being complacent because they are not happy with the manner in which TIWII Memory was given the contract in the first place? Or 2) Are they in any way benefiting from such ineptitude and so would rather prefer the status quo to be maintained?
We are of the opinion that there needs to be a review of this particular contract and suggest that in future it should be advertised for interested companies to bid for.
We are aware of the very frantic lobbying now being made by the owners of the TIWII Memory, the Turay Brothers in Koidu, Kono to have high placed Government officials, particularly at State House, support them to continue to hold this contract.
We are closely following the ugly developments that are now unfolding at the SLRTA on a daily basis as well as the attempts being made by these high Government officials to flex their muscles and retain TIWII Memory there, damn the bidding procedures.
At this stage we will want to advise officials of the Transport and Aviation Ministry to take a closer look at this agreement and open up the field to the competition in a more transparent manner so that this very crucial revenue collection entity will be in a better position to bring in more revenue for this country and not just benefit a few greedy and mean individuals.
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