By Mabinty M. Kamara
The Sierra Leone Motor Drivers and General Transport Workers Union (SLMDGTWU) and the Sierra Leone Roads Safety Authority (SLRSA) are at loggerheads over the production of passenger manifest.
Last Friday SLRSA in a press statement accused the Drivers Union president, Alpha Amadu Bah, of forging the manifest and making it available to drivers, instead of using the one produced by the Authority.
Both institutions are claiming authority to produce the document which is designed to track details of passengers traveling from Freetown to other parts of the country.
Abdul Karim Dumbuya, Public Relations Officer of SLRSA, told Politico that the document is produced by the SLRSA and issued to the Union through its President for distribution to commercial motor drivers on a cost recovery basis. He said the Road Traffic Regulation of 2011 provided for every public service vehicle that plies between Freetown and the provincial districts to have a passenger manifest, which should be produced upon request by a police officer or a road safety corp.
“It captures information in respect of the passenger’s address; telephone number next of kin, etc.. In case of any crash, the manifest should inform the authority on the contact details of the passenger if there is any fatality. That is why we produce it and we chose the drivers’ union as implementing partners and we started producing it in 2016, even though it came to being in 2011,” Bunduya added.
He stressed that the Drivers Union President is expected to hand over the document to drivers and not to produce it.
The SLRSA spokesman alleged that they later learnt that the document was been reproduced. He said when they did investigation, they found out about the existence of large quantities of the document at various locations. He said those reproduced copies have been handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Sierra Leone Police, pending investigation.
Dumbuya said SLRSA is holding the Union President responsible because he had accepted responsibility.
“We singled him out because he said it was the SLRSA that gave him those fake copies. So it means he has accepted responsibility. But our record shows that the ones we issued him have only one logo,” he said.
The Drivers’ Union president, Alpha Amadu Bah, denied the allegations made by SLRSA against him. He also challenged the SLRSA’s authority to produce the document. He told Politico that the mandate of the Authority was to enforce the use of the manifest and not to issue it out, citing section 52 (1) of the 2011 Road Safety Regulations.
“Section 52 (1) allows the SLRSA to give fine to any driver that is without manifest. Section 52 (4) says it is the driver and those who deal with vehicles that should give manifest, but because we had no money to print out the manifest in 2016, that was why I talked to the then Executive Director, Madam Finda Sarah Bendu to print for us,” he said.
He said when the SLRSA print, they paid for it as a Union.
“So we have been on that in 2017 and 2018, which was the last time I took supplies from them. On August 24, 2018, I had issues with the ACC, for which I had to step aside until I was re-elected. So they have long even stopped enforcing it, so the few manifests they had, they gave it to those that lost the election,” he said.
Bah accused SLRSA of cooking up the allegation against him because he voiced out concerns of his general membership to President Julius Maada Bio.
“We pay for license but you get receipt and when you go to the street they arrest and fine you. Secondly, they clamp vehicles indiscriminately. They pile up tickets up to 80, making it difficult for drivers to pay for all at the time of license,” he said.
On his reported suspension as member of the SLRSA Board, Mr Bah said he had since 2018 ceased to be part of the board and so he was even surprised to see a statement about his suspension.
“It’s a lie that I am on that board. That’s where you should know that the people are economical with the truth,” he said.
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