By Mabinty M. Kamara
President Julius Maada Bio has appointed the President of the Sierra Leone Drivers and General Transport Workers Union, Alpha Amadu Bah, to the Board of the Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority (SLRSA).
Bah's appointment comes weeks after some row between his office and the Authority over who was the legitimate authority to handle the issuance of passenger manifest. That disagreement led to the SLRSA announcing the suspension of Mr Bah from the board.
According to the SLRSA, Bah was allegedly involved in faking the passenger manifest which was entrusted to him for sale on a cost recovery basis to commercial transport drivers.
The Drivers Union boss denied the allegation. He also said back then that he had ceased being a member of the Board since 2018 when he was subjected to investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), in the face of complaint by a faction within the Union.
The ACC would eventually clear Mr Bah, who would go on to be re-elected as president of the Union.
His reappointment by President Bio, according to a copy of the appointment letter seen by Politico, serves as a presidential endorsement of his position.
Mr Bah himself confirmed the appointment when contacted by Politico. He said he was very much willing and ready to work with SLRSA, noting that the problem they had was because he reported to President Bio about the inconveniences his members were facing as a result of some decisions taken by the SLRSA.
Bah said he was now happy that that issue has been resolved.
"It's not like it’s a fight between us and them. The fact of the matter is that I am going there to exercise my constitutional right. You know that when you stand for the right thing, everybody will look at you as a bad person. My members expected me to fight for their rights, which is what I was doing,” Mr Bah said on a telephone interview on Saturday.
Bah expressed gratitude to President Bio for the trust placed on him by his appointment and he reassured his membership that he would continue to push for their rights, while admonishing them to be law abiding.
According to the Drivers Union, one of the causes of the controversy between its leadership and the SLRSA was the issuance of a temporary drivers license that lasted for six months. Drivers complained that not only was the system unfair to them, but officials at SLRSA used it to exploit drivers seeking renewal of their license.
The SLRSA has in a public notice informed the general public that they are in the process of replacing those temporal licenses that were issued late last year with the permanent ones that last for five years.
The Authority has given up to the end of August for all those in possession of the temporary license to return them and be issued the permanent ones.
Abdul Karim Dumbuya, Public Relations Officer for SLRSA, said the delay in issuance of the permanent license had been caused by the review of security features on the document. He said this has now been completed.
"We were reviewing the security features of the license which was why we were issuing six months license from the late part of last year to the early part of this year. So all those that we had issued the six months license can now come for the five year license effective Monday 10th August, 2020 to the 31st of August, after which we will not accept it," he said.
Dumbuya declined to comment on the appointment of Mr. Bah to the board, noting that they were yet to receive the approval letter from parliament.
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