By Mustapha Sesay
It is evident that the All People’s Congress-led government has spent considerable amount of money on road infrastructure to ease transportation difficulties that has plagued the country for decades. But not much effort has been seen in the area of sea transportation, yet the country is cloaked in a web of rivers and the Atlantic Ocean.
Safety and sea worthiness of motorized boats that ply between and among communities that are surrounded by water has been a key challenge to the sector. Recently, the ferry service that link Freetown and Lungi was grounded for days, following an unprecedented technical situation that occurred at sea last month, which left the MV Freetown stranded for over an hour.
The ferry service connects people, who regularly ply the route to do business from Lungi and its environs, to the capital city. Also Lungi hosts the country’s only international airport which makes the route more viable for travelers. But there have been series of challenges these travelers encounter which sometimes lead to them missing flights schedules.
Those who can’t afford the expensive sea coaches that shuttles between Lungi and Freetown resort to unsafe means of crossing from both ends in wooden boats. They are not only forced to use these boats by the prevailing situation, but also they do so in chaotic circumstances.
During on a spot visit by Politico to the Kissy Ferry Terminal in the east end of Freetown, passengers were seen scrambling to get on the available boat on their way to Lungi. A good number of them do so without any protective gears like life jackets. One of the passengers, an RSLAF Captain, expressed concern over the situation and called the attention of officials in charge. But his concerns were not addressed even before the boat he boarded left the shore. He continued shouting: “Where are the life jackets,” as the boat sailed out of the harbor.
The registration process on the manifests of these boats is found to be flawed as many people boarded the boats without registering with the maritime officers.
Santigie Kanu, Harbor Master at the Kissy Terminal, said they were trying their best to handle the situation and they were dealing with over 500 boat passengers. He pointed out that they were not only running after money but also trying to address the safety of the passengers.
“We are involved to see that the situation works out well. We have the capacity to also rescue in terms of any accident, so you can see that we are not only after money. We are also concerned about the passengers. The Police, Military and students don’t pay any transport fare,” Kanu told Politico.
The Member of Parliament for Constituent 54, which covers Lungi, told journalists at the terminal that he was also concerned about the current status of the ferries and that the government was trying to get new more ferries. Nicolas Kamara pointed out that the people of Lungi had been constantly faced with transportation issues in and out of Lungi. But he called on his people to exercise patient while the authorities tried to address the situation.
“These ferries are very old and will we continue to face this kind of problem until we get new ones? He asked. I am going to use the same boat my people are using to cross over to Lungi so that I can get the first hand experience my people are going through,” the law maker said.
In all of this, officials of MV Freetown, the last ferry that got stranded last month, have refused to take the blame entirely. They say the poor condition of the two terminals should also partly be blamed for the series of breakdown they have encountered.
Sahid Abdulla, Ferry Manager, told Politico that they had been in the country since 2004 and that they had helped alleviate the demanding transport situation between Lungi and Freetown. He noted that like motor vehicles, ferries also wear-out. He said that last month’s incident was caused by low tide, which caused mud to block the engine cooling system and completely shut down the engine.
Abdulla explained that Afrimpex Navigation Co.LTD, the company which operates MV Freetown, was a Libyan company that had provided ferry services to the people of Sierra Leone for over 10 years. He stressed that they had offered their service genuinely. He lamented that the Kissy landing site was filled with mud and other rubbish and that they had called on the authorities on several occasions to dreg the area but that their request had always fell on deaf ears. He insisted that ferries can only operate effectively if the authorities in charge of marine times administration did their own part by dredging the two landing site.
“If they cannot dredge this place, what we are faced with will happen to any other company even if they were to operate new ferry. We are sorry about the situation and we are doing our best, but we also need urgent assistance from the government,” he said.
He then called on passengers to also reason with them when such situations occurred, noting that it’s a technical issue and that it happened across the world.
“These are technical issues. It is not entirely our fault. When it happens, please be patient with us. We can refund your monies. Fighting and abusing us will not solve it. We are all Africans and this is a floating boating. It happens all over the world,” Abdulla appealed.
Abdulla, a Libyan, also called attention to the maintenance facility in the country. He said it is in an appalling state, and called on the authorities to do something about it. He said since 2010 they had not done maintenance on the cradle at Kissy Dockyard. The cradle is what is used to lift ferries out of water for maintenance. He said it was good for ferries to be taken out of waters to undergo thorough maintenance regularly.
While most people tend to blame the Sierra Leone Maritimes Administration (SLMA) for not doing enough about the matter, officials there say ferry services in the country do not actually fall within their core mandate.
Kadiatu Magdalene Kamara, head of communication at the SLMA, told Politico that the administration was more concerned about the safety and operations of motorized boast. She said most of the concerns raised by the MV Freetown management should actually be addressed by the Sierra Port Authority.
The spokeswoman for the SLMA noted that they were also aware that the ferries were old and needed replacement. Because there is no new one for the mean time, the old ones would continue to be in service, she noted.
Currently there are no fixed schedules for the ferry service. This is because the ferry operation relies on the tide of the sea.
“…weather conditions are unpredictable. So there are no fixed times for ferry to leave the terminal because their movements now depend on high tides. When the tide is low the ferry will not move. As long as the tide is high and the passengers are available, they will leave,” she said.
She added that government and World Bank were working on a project to buy two new ferries and that the administration had just trained over 400 operators of motorized boats to ensure safety at sea.
(C) Politico 22/06/16
