Buy 100 more buses and empty the coffers
I have reliably gathered that each of the new buses was purchased at the unimaginably high cost of 120.000 US Dollars which is equivalent to about 600 million Leones multiplied by 100 is beyond my mathematical ability to calculate. For a country at the nadir of the UN index and having poverty as its surname, it is my view that the new 100 buses are obviously very expensive. Government should have purchased less expensive buses and used the balance money to address other pressing problems.
Nevertheless, it is my opinion that very expensive buses are far better than no buses or old and defective buses. My only fear is that another purchase of i00 buses could bankrupt the state coffers which the Ebola Epidemic has already weakened. Candidly speaking, the exorbitant cost of the 100 buses is not in favor of Sierra Leone’s crippling economy though I agree that the buses are timely and necessary to alleviate the chronic problem of transportation in the country.
But how much sense does it make to expend such a fabulous sum of money to buy 100 new buses for a country most of the roads of which are not tarred, narrow and very deplorable, especially in the provinces. Are the rugged roads going to allow the hyper-expensive buses to live long to continue serving the people? Besides, transportation is not the only pressing problem of this country, there are many other problems plaguing the people ranging from lack of sufficient pipe-born water, irregular payment of school subsidies, food insufficiency to mass illiteracy and mass youth unemployment to name a few. So, why spend such a huge sum of money to solve just one problem among a host of others. But I only hope the buses were not purchased via a big loan which our great grand children will continue to pay.
Those following the history of this country tells us the economic problems of Sierra Leone started after ex-President Siaka Stevens hosted a very expensive Organization of African Unity(OAU) conference against which he was advised by the then Bank Governor, Sam Bangura.
Meanwhile, the importation of 100 new government transport buses will surely have a very negative economic impact on the private sector industry.
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