By Donstance Koroma
The Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority (SLRSA) and Sierra Leone Motor Drivers and General Workers Union are at each other’s jugular with regards the legal authority to print and distribute manifest to drivers nationwide.
According to the SLRSA Director of Safety and Enforcement, Augustine Kai Tongi, a manifest is the list of passengers and vital information on them that could be used to trace their parents, relatives or next-of-kin in the event of an accident in a vehicle.
He said the issue of manifest came into being after several accidents had taken place in the country where passengers’ parents, relatives or next-of-kins remained untraceable, adding that it was against this backdrop that they came up with manifest to document the names of passengers and relevant information on them.
Mr. Tongi claimed that Regulation 52 of the Road Traffic Regulation of 2011 makes it mandatory for provincial commercial drivers to obtain a manifest from SLRSA before leaving for its destination.
He alleged that according to intelligence, the Sierra Leone Motor Drivers and General Workers Union has been printing and selling manifest to their members at the cost of Le10,000.00 (Ten Thousand Leones) per copy. The Director described the act of the union members as a breach of Road Traffic Regulation.
Mr. Tongi disclosed that the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) recently invited the President of the union, Alpha Amadu Bah and detained him after substantial copies of manifest were discovered in the office of the Union following a conducted search.
Meanwhile, Union sources have intimated to this medium that their main focus is to ensure the release of their President from police custody before they would comment on the issue.