SLRTA aiding Balogun Koroma to misplace priorities
One wonders what came over the minister of Transport and Aviation being misled by management and staff of the Sierra Leone Road Transport Authority (SLRTA) to deliberately misled the issuing out of a misplaced threat of ordering owners of right-hand vehicles to convert them into left-handed. Sounds a bit more disgraceful for SLRTA management & the ministry to even suggest a conversion of someone’s car from right to left-hand drive. It is strangely painful that our leaders are the same ones forcing poor citizens to incur all the associated costs while those at the helm of affairs basking in luxury for not implementing the law, as it should have been applied. When was the additional 45% import tax slammed on right-hand vehicles? Why did they in the first place allowed the importation of right-hand vehicles well after the so-called Section 73 of the Road Traffic Regulation 2011 which states, “no motor vehicle shall be registered, used or allowed to be used if the steering apparatus is fitted at the right-hand side of the vehicle.” Like I paid Le9, 000,000 customs for my car in March, 2013 and paid extra registration fee in July, 2013 and you telling me my car can’t be registered after September 1st, 2014 until I render it more vulnerable by a crooked conversion? You guys are kidding me. (Photo: Ibrahim Kargbo, author)
Whether you have taken this decision not to register right-hand vehicles after September 1, 2014 or not to Parliament, imagine this embarrassment for a moment; all right-hand vehicle owners in the West of Freetown parking their vehicles along the main Siaka Stevens Street, Pademba Road & Hill Cut Road while those in the East occupy Kissy Road and Fourah Bay Road and we give you a 48 hours ultimatum to rescind this your pathetic attempt to be seen as working? You gonna clamp and toe all of them right? Come off it Balogun, you mean the poor man out there who didn’t make the rules allowing importation of right-hand vehicles, who is not in charge of authorizing their registration must now have to suffer for the apparent ineptness of SLRTA management? Please don’t tell me this is a ploy to deliberately impose more hardship on the already deprived populace of Sierra Leone. Well its not gonna work my dear, we will embarrass you and this decision legally and practically by parking our right-hand vehicles all over the major business streets nationwide. We are now going commencing mobilization of all concerned right-hand vehicle owners countrywide and will feedback our official position in response to yours.
Our advice is you concentrate on other priority areas like ensuring that there is no more importation of new right-hand vehicles while those you have allowed in, already paid their customs continue to ply until they worn out. Other priority areas may cover the said traffic light you bluffing to install, and hey we will be asking you of these by September 1, 2014; if there is no traffic light installed by that period while you will be plotting to extort poor people the more for instance, what how do you expect us to assess your leadership enthusiasm sincere or?
Wow, has the minister actually thought of the appalling state of the Sierra Leone public transport system? Please sir if you haven’t, just wake up one morning and try catching a public transport from Calaba Town or Lumley to the city and in the evening from the city to Calaba Town and Lumley again. Well, I’m here mistaking public transport for commercial “poda podas” on whose mercy we are left, in the absence of government buses, which hardly ply in the city, SLRTC claiming that they run at loses until they ply up country where they can realize more. In the city, there’s like only one or two for the up to two million people living within. Isn’t this a more viable priority to chest-beat anticipated success, Mr. minister than insinuating one that brings more hardship to a depressed and apprehensive public?
We also think you should redirect energy towards getting Traffic Wardens and Traffic Police minimize extortion of poor drivers who in turn pass the extortion cost over to commuters. Organize refresher training on the 2003 Road Transport Act as amended to establish Traffic Wardens which none of them follow in the discharge of their duties. Undertake grassroots advocacy simultaneously educating us on our obligations against the statutory duties of Wardens and Traffic Police.
Wishing you luck in these other priority areas, please be reminded that on the 1st of September, 2014 when we shall go there to register our vehicles and someone prevents us doing so or say we are driving and a police officer or Warden stops us, we will be left with no option but to park them all in the major business streets. No one including us will be able to drive to and from work until your unilateral decision is reversed.
If you are a right-hand vehicle owner reading this piece, please call +232 88 420 810 for closer planning of our official position and response to Balogun and SLRTA.
Ibrahim Kargbo
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