By Mabinty M Kamara
Drivers of commercial transport vehicles briefly halted their services over the weekend and part of this week following the latest restriction announced by the Government of Sierra Leone as part of measures to prevent a spread of the coronavirus disease in the event it spills over into the country.
The move ordered by the Ministry of Transport and Aviation was meant to enforce adherence to health and safety regulations and calls for social distancing.
Through a press statement, the Ministry prohibited overloading in all public and private vehicles. The statement singled out tricycles (Kekeh) to reduce one passenger from their normal capacity of three, noting that there should be no middle seats and passengers mustn’t be made to stand in long buses.
In Sierra Leone, buses take four passengers per seat with an addition of two seats which are made of plywood crossed between two adjacent seats.
But the move to decongest public transportation means less takings by the commercial transport operators.
The drivers say they can’t realize break-even under this circumstance and many of them therefore opted to park their vehicles.
The consequence was that between Friday last week and Monday this week, many commuters were left stranded, among them students and workers.
While commuters blame the bus owners for ordering their drivers to stay home, the bus owners say it was the drivers who voluntarily opted to stay off the roads in protest.
Idrissa Daniel Kanu, a member of the Poda-poda and Bus Owners Association, owns 14 inter-city buses under Pee Sound Transport Company. He told Politico that the drivers’ decision was affecting his business.
"The drivers were told to reduce two passengers. I called my drivers when they parked my vehicles to talk to them to see reason to get back to work as this is a crisis period,” he said, noting that that he offered to reduce his daily takings to Le300, 000 from Le500, 000 but that the drivers insisted that they couldn’t drive because they could not afford to get Le800, 000 for fuel and then pay their masters.
For Kekeh driver Abu Bakarr Jalloh, even though the owner of his Kekeh reduced his daily takings from Le100, 000 to Le 80, 000, it is still a daunting task to make break-even.
"With the police and traffic wardens in the streets, it is not easy for us. I still need to buy my the usual amount of fuel and the police and wardens who are our greatest challenge in terms of expenditure are still there," he said.
Poda poda driver Mohamed Vandi says they as drivers have been left in confusion with the conflicting statement coming from the government and their Union.
"The Union told us it's four passengers, but traffic Police and Wardens and some passengers wants us to take three passengers, which is not fair on us," he said.
President of the Sierra Leone Motor Drivers and General Transport Workers Union (SLMDGTWU), Alpha Amadu Bah, expressed concern over the current situation, accusing the government of reneging on its part of what they agreed on at a meeting before the announcement. He also lamented that the police were taken advantage of the situation to harass and exploit drivers.
"When they called us to the meeting on the 19th of March, we verbally agreed that Poda- podas should reduce passengers to four from the normal (five passengers), but because the taxis are spacious enough to accommodate three passengers, we agreed that they should take three at the back and one in the front seat. Kekeh is not so spacious, so we decided that they reduce one passenger. For the long buses, we agreed that they should remove the middle seats and no standing allowed," Mr Bah explained.
He added: “Those are the things that we agreed on but the traffic wardens and police took to the streets harassing drivers, forcing them to take two passengers in taxis and three in Poda-podas.”
According to Bah, the Union was trying to avoid a situation where the drivers will start exploiting passengers due to pressure from the police and the traffic wardens who will not stop at given “unnecessary” tickets to drivers.
In the last three days, there have been complaints of drivers running half of the routes for the same price as the entire routes as a result of the changes in rules. For the buses, they have gradually been taking back on the roads, but still with standing passengers.
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