By Donstance Koroma
As it stands, the need for mass education on the labor law and the Road Traffic Regulation Act cannot be over-emphasised as it goes without saying that many Sierra Leoneans from all walks of life, especially those working with foreign investors in companies, factories, industries and commercial drivers, are completely ignorant about the Labor laws and the road traffic regulation, thereby giving employees and traffic police officers and wardens a field day in blatantly violating the labor law and the Road Traffic Act respectively.
Under President Bio’s New Direction, it is expected of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MLSS), Sierra Leone Labor Congress and the Sierra Leone Drivers Union to ensure that these laws are simplified and popularized for the benefit of all and sundry.
As a result, Labor officers and inspectors attached to companies, factories and industries by the ministry, normally connive with employers to deprive Sierra Leoneans of what is really due them.
Similarly, commercial drivers are at the mercy of traffic police and wardens simply because many of them are not knowledgeable about the Road Traffic Act.
It is but prudent for the country’s Drivers Union to engage the Legal Aid Board of Sierra Leone and other legal service organizations to organize an intensive training workshop on the Road Traffic Act and limitations of traffic police and warden.
Presently, the traffic division has become a very lucrative department in the Sierra Leone Police as both junior and senior police officers are yearning to work in the traffic sector.
Allegations are that traffic police officers and wardens have set up fast track traffic courts in street corners tasking commercial drivers to pay the sum of fifty thousand Leones (Le50,000) for a single traffic offense.
The mere fact that most commercial drivers accept to pay fines to those traffic personnel operating those fast track traffic courts in street corners indicates the need for serious sanitization on the Road Traffic Act and the do’s and don’ts of traffic police officers and wardens to help reduce or eradicate extortion by traffic officers.