By Hajaratu Kalokoh
An investigation done by Politico in the Western Area has revealed that the much trumpeted ‘Operation Push Back’, which was designed to decongest Freetown’s major streets, has virtually collapsed.
The initiative was a collaborative effort headed by the Sierra Leone Roads Safety Authority (SLRSA) with support from the Freetown City Council, the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA), the Sierra Leone Police, the Republci of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF) among other stakeholders. The campaign was launched in June amidst growing congestion on principal streets across the capital city and other major towns in the larger Western Area.
Operation Pushback was specifically aimed at regaining parts of six highways across the city which had been categorized by heavy traffic, partly due to street hawking.
Part of the operation involved compelling pedestrians to use designated footpaths for walking, by knotting ropes to demarcate the foot paths. Traders were also forced to relocate to markets places, instead of selling on the streets.
Few weeks into the operation, there were reports of remarkable improvement in traffic flow in areas previously notorious for gridlock. This was probably because of the presence of military personal, positioned on strategic locations, who force pedestrian to make use of the footpaths.
But in many of these areas, the military personnel have disappeared, as are the ropes. Pedestrians are back on the motor ways and for the
hawkers, it’s again business as usual.
Samson Samura, a petty trader at Lumley, told Politico that the operation has not been consistent for weeks now in that part of the city.
“The operation doesn’t have a timeline as to when they will commence working daily. The officials responsible normally put the rope at their own time. Like today, I have not seen any personnel since this morning,’’ he told Politico on Monday.
Three months since the operation was launched, areas like Lumley, Jui and Goderich Street in the center of the city have all been completely over ran by hawkers and pedestrians, congesting the streets for vehicular traffic once again. These areas were major targets of the operations.
Freetown has a serious traffic problem, most of which has been blamed over the years on poor road infrastructure and congested streets along the municipality. The operation sought to remedy that, but clearly its success has been short-lived.
Koma Hassan Kamara, FCC’s Media Relations Officer, blamed the current situation on the street on the shortage of Metropolitan Police to take over the operations from the military, as had been planned.
“It is an ongoing process and a collaborative effort. If you compare Lumley now and couple of months ago, it is not the same. In the area of ineffectiveness, we all know the mindset of Sierra Leoneans; because we don’t see police, council personnel or army, we do what we want to do,” she said.
Mrs Kamara added: “We do not have enough personnel when it comes to enforcement. We are trying to do so for now, that is why we are in the recruitment process. So, when activities call for, we withdraw them to give support to enforcement because they are the ones that have the rights to enforce byelaws. After that, they return to their areas of deployment.”
Despite the obvious collapse of the operation, an SLRSA spokesman insisted that it’s going on just fine.
“The Operation Push Back is still on. In fact we have just increased the number of personnel (in all locations). We have increased the number of personnel for Lumley as well. The Operations is permanent,” Abdul Karim Dumbuya, Public Relations Officer of the Authority, said on a telephone interview.
He added: “In fact to consolidate it, we are constructing metal rails from Lumley to Up Gun so [that] the pedestrians will be protected from the road.”
The SLRSA has not indicated any timeline on its proposed plan of constructing the metal rails, but Dumbuya said the Road Maintenance Fund Administration (RMFA) had already provided funds for the project.
Whiles the construction of the rails is still in the pipeline, the traffic situation in the city is not getting any better.
© 2019 Politico Online
