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The Minister of Transport and Aviation, Col. (Rtd.) Ambassador Alhaji Fanday Turay has called on women to apply for the 50 new buses driving services stating that they need more women to operate these buses that were launched on Monday 29th January 2024.
The minister made this call during a telephone interview on Radio Democracy’s ‘Good Morning Salone’ program, on the day the buses were launched, while updating the public about the operations of the buses.
“As a minister of transport, I am calling on women to apply for the driving job as we are looking forward to receiving more women that will operate these buses because as women they can handle the buses with good care”.
In 2019, the Government of Sierra Leone through the Ministry of Transport and Aviation secured a $50 million grant from the World Bank with the Government of Sierra Leone complementing the grant with an additional $2 million in co-financing for a total of (52) Fifty-two million dollar, to enhance access to the public transportation system in Freetown.
According the minister during his statement, he disclosed that the objective of the project is geared towards providing accessible, quality public transport systems, addressing climate resilience, enhancing road safety, and capacity building of key stakeholders. He added that government aims to ensure citizens have access to transportation nationwide.
“Within the next five years, transportation will be provided for people across all levels including remote villages,” he assured. He said the move is in line with the vision of President Julius Maada Bio in making the transport sector very attractive.
He called on other sectors to come on board to make the project achieve its objective, adding that the buses are now in town and that they will be operating on a three days free cost service, which he said is a win-win situation, in as much as it will be free of charge, they want to ensure that they get everything right before the 2nd February when the buses will start operations on commercial bases.
He assured the public that the drivers are well prepared to transport passengers from one point to another and that they are also training the enforcement personnel because they are more critical in the entire operation. He added that the buses will operate from 6 am to 10 pm every day. “I am pleading with the public to be patient with us because this is a novelty and we are aware of the fact that people will be having some challenges with the buses, but we are asking them to be patient as we are going ahead to prefect whatever we are trying to do. I am also pleading with passengers to take good care of the buses; if not, it will affect everyone in the country,” he stated.
He stated that the introduction of the 50 new buses will help transform Freetown from a congested vehicle-oriented city to a resilient mass transit of people within the city, adding that the more they succeed in that first project, they will extend the operations to other cities.
Thanking you for your paintaking to explain to citizens and passengers as how the buses will be operating. But you failed to go further to explain why you chose just centre Freetown and again why other vehicles were stopped from plying certain areas causing unnecessary traffic pressure this morning.
Don’t you think 50 buses is a oversurpus for Freetown whilst other areas are been deprived? Please revisit your decision and expand your routing. Or don’t you think the bus is too big to have limited it operation to just centre? Open all routes closed to allow competitive operation ,the choice will be with passengers depending on your prices. My regards.