Getting to work is increasingly difficult in Sierra Leones’s sprawling administrative and commercial capital, Freetown, in large part because of the tidal wave of minibuses and motorcycle (Okadas) and motor rickshaw (Kekehs) that have arrive to take the place of faltering or unavailable public bus services. The reasons behind the dysfunctional state of urban transport are not difficult to discern. Weak, fragmented, and underfunded public transport authorities have been unable to maintain existing services or to plan for expansion. Buses broke down after running overloaded for years on rutted roads, replacement are soon idled for lack of parts. Fares are too low, and subsidies too irregular, to permit sustainable operations. Commuters walk or resort to largely unregulated and informal services (poda poda) that are dirty, unsafe, uncomfortable, and unreliable. Everybody loses, including the government.
Good governance or the absence of it has concerned policy makers and other stakeholder in the transport sector in Sierra Leone for decades. Most stakeholders recognize that effective governance is crucial if improvements in transport infrastructure are to endure and contribute to sustainable economic growth. In Sierra Leone, billions of Leones have been spent on improving and rehabilitating transport infrastructure, but it has been long recognized that the poor performance of the transport sector is due to far more than merely inadequate finances or technical capacity constraints.
Poor governance occurs at many levels of policy cycle from the ways in which legislations are drafted, allegations of corruption in the bidding and procurement process of public transport by government and the professionalism of drivers employed to drive public transport to how services are eventually delivered to citizens using the facilities. The transport sector in Sierra Leone remains underdeveloped, with approximately 40% of primary roads paved and the majority of secondary and feeder roads unpaved. The urban area, especially Freetown, experience increasing challenges in congestion and face a huge demand of efficient public transport system.
Rush hour in Freetown means gridlocked streets and a scramble for transport means get to and from work and school going children. 14-seater mini-buses are the most common transport means though they are dangerously slow.
The transport sector has been one of the worst performing sectors in Sierra Leone and its poor governance has hugely contributed to the socioeconomic decline in Sierra Leone since independence as business are not thriving as a result.
The past administration of former President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma procured 100 public transport buses which the now ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) government took the then government to the abattoir for alleged corruption in the bidding and procurement process. The current SLPP government accused the past APC government of procuring old and used buses. The remnants of those 100 buses are packed at the Road Transport Cooperation compound at Black hall road whilst few remain to be the only public transport going beyond Waterloo. The current government of President Maada Bio never directly procured public transport for the benefit of the masses. In his first term in office, President Bio procured 50 schools buses to augment his flagship free education project amidst numerous criticisms. President Bio through the Resilient Urban Mobility Project procured 50 public transport buses dubbed ‘Waka Fast’ with so many controversies surrounding the ownership of same.
Past and present governments have made jaw breaking promises to salvage the transportation crises in Sierra Leone and to improve on the governance of same, but the promises and realities are miles apart. The inadequacies in our transport infrastructure are another factor for our underdevelopment as goods and services are not reaching targeted destinations to time. Urban transportation is not up to the growing population especially in Freetown. The British colonial impact still persists in Sierra Leone and many other Anglophone African Nations and hence there is lack of accessibility of transport to all population and areas. The quality of vehicles is too low and less road safety. Sierra Leone as a developing country needs to address a lot of concerns with respect to urban transportation. Government and policy makers need to introduce new modes of transportation like other nations in the sub region. Government should also try to provide parking lots for transport vehicles plying different routes in Freetown as the using regular street as stations contributed to both vehicular and human traffic in Freetown. One of the main factors affecting transport especially road transport, efficiency and costs is the state of repair and maintenance services. The lack of skill, equipment and organization in the transport sector in Sierra Leone which is still very common in the country seriously hampers and raises the cost of transport operation.
Another challenge that is plaguing transport governance in Sierra Leone is the lack of the culture of maintenance. There are scores of buses abandoned at the Sierra Leone Road Transport Corporation facility at Black hall Road, but the lack of maintenance culture has rendered them useless and some sold as scrap. Maintenance culture is one of the most important factors influencing correct conduct, without which it is difficult to achieve stated goals. Culture is necessary in maintaining infrastructure which is important for development. However, abandonment and deterioration of infrastructure and other government property such as the APC procured buses and other government buildings are common due to a lack of maintenance routine among stakeholder concerned.
Government officials prefer procuring new buses because repairing the old ones will not quench their corruptive thirst and will not bring anything in their pockets. Maintenance culture is something we lack as a nation, and it applies to almost everything owned by the government. Though we are not an industrial nation, but conventional wisdom suggests that poor transportation systems adversely affect industrial competitiveness in a nation. When transport systems are deficient in a country in terms of capacity or reliability, they can have an economic cost which will lead to low quality of life.
The way forward is as clear as the problem itself. Freetown must move quickly to toward the model of the metropolitan transport system used in successful cities around the sub region to coordinate planning, regulation, licensing, inspection, monitoring and enforcement. A way must be found to bring large public buses back as the ownership and management of the “Waka Fast” buses seen foggy to the masses. Before now, government buses charged the cheapest fares, but it the opposite with the “Waka Fast) buses which are the most expensive means of vehicular transport in Freetown. Authorities should know that cities that cannot move people become choked by growth.
Governments must be serious in addressing the transportation crisis in the country as citizens are suffering especially during the wet season. The throng in rush hours has led to people sustaining injuries and lost valuable property in the process.