June 10, 2021
Albert Baron Ansu
The Drivers Union in this country is key to the economy of this country but we are not feeling their worth. They are predatory to the nation and self-destructive.
These are strong words to say about yet the facts to prop up the pejorative assertion glare us in the face. Many Sierra Leoneans are aware about the pathetic state of a union that has highlighted its pathetic nature in the cry for toilets in Kambia. How can you be a union collecting money and cannot create space for toilet? It is appalling to hear that the Kambia Drivers union is looking up to the Council for toilet.
Looking around other regions it is very much likely that the backward state of the drivers’ union is what is obtaining. And beggars belief-where is the money going. The answer is a cartel has been perpetuated to fleece drivers in bogus claim of the leadership that they are protecting drivers; to what extent is not clear. They have made themselves a safe haven and nobody cares to bring them to task in modern trends of external financial and performance audit.
The Ministry of Transport has to find a way of streamlining the operations of the drivers in this country to for instance make the transport fare fair enough. This is one area of state neglect that is very much oppressive to the people of Sierra Leone.
Who determines what we pay for the routes must be influenced by the state rather than the crooked gang up distorting the economy. They are the reason why cost of living is getting hard. They make the marketers increase the prices of goods hauled from one point to another.
We have to have a laser focus on what they doing and how it is not a menace to our national strive to develop. The point I am driving is that there is a grave challenge from successive government to make drivers’ union robust and development oriented. This form has the mindset to change from mafia style to public service orientation.
An interministerial solution involving Ministry of Trade, Roads Authority and Transport ministry must be put together to transform the drivers union for the good of the nation, not the self-aggrandizement of those that perpetuating themselves in the executives. The national excutive of the union must warm up to the clarion call and start engaging to redeem a bad image that everybody even the membership is not proud of.