President Kabbah Commissions New Buses
By Yusuf Alghali

The President, Alhaji Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, has called on Management and Staff at the Sierra Leone Road Transport Corporation (SLRTC) to handle their new fleet of buses with utmost care and to regard the vehicles as their own property.

He was speaking at the Kissy headquarter of the SLRTC Wednesday morning 3rd November, 2003 during the commissioning ceremony of seventeen new Iranian-manufactured Mercedes Benz buses procured by the government of Sierra Leone under an Islamic Development Bank (IDB) loan.

The President observed that the local transport sector had experienced great difficulties in the past stemming from the wrong type of policies. He said Sierra Leone was now at the point of kick-starting its economy. "We need to work hard if we are to get anywhere," Dr Kabbah stressed, underlining the significance of providing affordable and reliable transportation services for the commuting public.

He also disclosed that another fleet of trucks would be delivered in Freetown shortly to address the problem of transporting agricultural implements and produce, thus enhancing the realisation of his national food security agenda.

The President appealed to local SLRTC technicians, who were going to be trained by Iranian experts, to be very attentive so as to imbibe the technical knowledge and skills required to maintain the fleet after the Iranians would have departed. Also in this connection, the President spoke of on-going projects to rehabilitate the country's main roads to ensure the longevity of the new buses.

Minister of Transport and Communications, Dr. Prince Harding, who chaired the event, noted that the procurement of the buses was in fulfilment of government's policy to restore public transportation services, which had decayed and ruined over the years by poor management and the then raging conflict that witnessed the burning down of the corporation's buses and buildings.

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