By Abdulai Fasineh Dumbuya
The National President of Motor Drivers and General Transport Workers, Alpha Amadu Bah has disclosed that the union with support from Legal Aid Board was able to release 49 drivers from the Pademba Road Correctional Centre, Freetown over various offences this year.
He was speaking about the challenges drivers and transport workers face whilst addressing a Press Conference hosted by the Ministry of Information and Civic Education in Freetown.
“For minor offences, the union has no hand in it. We intervene in an instance of major offences where we talk to the authorities concerned on their behalf in relation to charges levied against them. It is the union that pays the fines,” he stated.
He said monies collected from the drivers are being used to handle their various cases nationwide and pay the salaries of the union leaders as well.
“So if the public is seeing these activities happening, this is how we are using the resources’’, Bah continued.
He said they also work in collaboration with the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Employment, Labour and Social Security to address emerging issues between driver employees and their employers and find workable solutions.
Worried about the cheating of passengers by drivers over fares, he said the union recently deployed marshals in many places to crack down on defaulting drivers. He urged the public to be firm in dealing with crooked drivers and to assert their rights as Sierra Leoneans.
On the worrisome proliferation of the synthetic drug Kush, Bah said they have set out monitoring teams to ensure all people who sell the drug within the precincts of parks across the country are dealt with accordingly.
“We have arrested some of them and are under investigation. I also want to note that not all drivers are bad; we have good ones too. The troubled ones are always disciplined,” he said.
Bah commended the Legal Aid Board for supporting their members and extended gratitude to President Julius Maada Bio for his relentless efforts in providing parking lots at Lumley and Wilberforce and in other areas across the country. He said another role of the union is to work with the government in order to achieve its mandates.
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